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- Apr 28, 2018
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- Jakko
Though I still have the JPK 120 to finish, I can’t spray it at the moment because of the high winds we’ve been having here of late (I need to open a window for the exhaust of my spray booth, and it faces the prevailing wind direction) so I’ve decided to start on a new kit:
The Takom 1:35 scale Grant CDL. For those who don’t know, during the Second World War, the British saw a need for powerful searchlights to illuminate the battlefield at night, as well as to dazzle enemy troops. These became known under the camouflage designation of Canal Defence Lights (CDL) so as not to give away their real purpose to German intelligence. Basically, it consisted of a purpose-built turret that housed a powerful carbon arc lamp, whose light bounced off some reflectors to exit the turret through a vertical slot in its front face. This had an intensity of about 12.8 million candela, or something like a hundred thousand times the output of a typical household light, into a beam with a 19° horizontal and a 10° vertical angle; this produced an illuminated area 300 metres wide and 30 metres high at 900 metres’ range, with a maximum effective range of some 3.5 km. An armoured shutter could be used to protect the light as well as to give a stroboscopic effect (of about 2 Hz), and a red or blue filter could also be put in the opening. The turret further housed the operator and a Besa machine gun in a ball mount.
Initially, these turrets were fitted to Matilda II tanks and deployed to (but not actually used in) the North African theatre:
However, for the war in Europe, they were fitted to Grant medium tanks instead. This was done because the Grant had a 75 mm gun in the hull, meaning the tank would have the ability to defend itself better than the Matilda CDL could, as that only had the Besa.
As in the photo above, these were sometimes fitted with dummy guns on the turret to not draw attention on the battlefield.
The Americans were also interested and built essentially a copy of the British version, using M3 medium tank hulls (known to the British as the Lee) and changing the turret to carry an M1919 Browning machine gun instead of the Besa:
This was known as the T10 Shop Tractor, another cover name to hide its true function.
In the end, all that secrecy was the vehicle’s weak point: both armies wanted to wait with deploying them until a battle in which they could prove decisive, and as a result, commanders who might have had a use for them, usually didn’t know about their existence in the first place. Even though the Matildas had been built and issued in 1941, CDLs were only used operationally from late 1944 on: first the British tanks were used to illuminate mine-clearing operations in November that year, while the American ones saw their first use to defend the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen after its capture; the British vehicles were then also used in the Rhine crossing at Rees and the American ones in the crossing of the Elbe at the very end of the war. Some were then shipped to India, but never used against the Japanese — though they did see use in putting down riots in 1946. This is why the only surviving Grant CDL is in the Indian Armoured Corps museum in Maharashtra:
(source)
Bovington has a Matilda CDL, but IIRC, this is a Grant CDL turret put onto a Matilda hull later on, to have a representative vehicle.
The Takom 1:35 scale Grant CDL. For those who don’t know, during the Second World War, the British saw a need for powerful searchlights to illuminate the battlefield at night, as well as to dazzle enemy troops. These became known under the camouflage designation of Canal Defence Lights (CDL) so as not to give away their real purpose to German intelligence. Basically, it consisted of a purpose-built turret that housed a powerful carbon arc lamp, whose light bounced off some reflectors to exit the turret through a vertical slot in its front face. This had an intensity of about 12.8 million candela, or something like a hundred thousand times the output of a typical household light, into a beam with a 19° horizontal and a 10° vertical angle; this produced an illuminated area 300 metres wide and 30 metres high at 900 metres’ range, with a maximum effective range of some 3.5 km. An armoured shutter could be used to protect the light as well as to give a stroboscopic effect (of about 2 Hz), and a red or blue filter could also be put in the opening. The turret further housed the operator and a Besa machine gun in a ball mount.
Initially, these turrets were fitted to Matilda II tanks and deployed to (but not actually used in) the North African theatre:
However, for the war in Europe, they were fitted to Grant medium tanks instead. This was done because the Grant had a 75 mm gun in the hull, meaning the tank would have the ability to defend itself better than the Matilda CDL could, as that only had the Besa.
As in the photo above, these were sometimes fitted with dummy guns on the turret to not draw attention on the battlefield.
The Americans were also interested and built essentially a copy of the British version, using M3 medium tank hulls (known to the British as the Lee) and changing the turret to carry an M1919 Browning machine gun instead of the Besa:
This was known as the T10 Shop Tractor, another cover name to hide its true function.
In the end, all that secrecy was the vehicle’s weak point: both armies wanted to wait with deploying them until a battle in which they could prove decisive, and as a result, commanders who might have had a use for them, usually didn’t know about their existence in the first place. Even though the Matildas had been built and issued in 1941, CDLs were only used operationally from late 1944 on: first the British tanks were used to illuminate mine-clearing operations in November that year, while the American ones saw their first use to defend the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen after its capture; the British vehicles were then also used in the Rhine crossing at Rees and the American ones in the crossing of the Elbe at the very end of the war. Some were then shipped to India, but never used against the Japanese — though they did see use in putting down riots in 1946. This is why the only surviving Grant CDL is in the Indian Armoured Corps museum in Maharashtra:
Bovington has a Matilda CDL, but IIRC, this is a Grant CDL turret put onto a Matilda hull later on, to have a representative vehicle.
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The RFM kit is a 76 mm tank, right? That means it has the late interior with wet ammo stowage on the floor.
