This set is meant
for British Armour in Western Europe. (The name of the set only mentions
that it is from 1944 onwards, but according to my references the units
represented on the sheet all fought exclusively in that particular
theatre.)
The decals are in perfect register,
but some smearing is present on my sheet and I have my doubts about
some (most) of the shades and colors being used and about the historical
accuracy of the decals.
So what do you get and whence my misgivings
?
1. Units
(Preliminary note: I have the feeling the sheet is based on the
info in [1], and have drawn some conclusions accordingly.)
The following units are represented
(see picture above):
1: Guards Armoured Division.
2: 11th Armoured Division. These look
particularly large to me, and the second one from the top is missing
part of its black outline.
3: 7th Armoured Division. This division
is the most problematic for this sheet. First of all, the Jerboa should
be red, not orange. While this type of insignia was used (in red)
in the North African campaign, by the time the division reached NWE
its insignia had changed to a red Jerboa on a white square. Nevertheless
the 22nd Armoured Brigade and the 3rd Royal Horse Artillery in the
division continued to use the "desert-style Jerboa", while
the other constituent units used the new style. Forgetting the issue
with the color for a while, you might think that you could use this
insignia for the 22nd AB, but this AB combined their AoS squares (see
2. Subunits) with the Stag's Head of the AB. As the latter is not
provided on the sheet, you cannot use the Jerboa decal without getting
this decal elsewhere. The 3rd RHA then... It had the "desert
Jerboa" with a thin white outline, so it is not correct for that
either. Then again, this discussion is mostly pointless as no-one
used an orange Jerboa anyway. For that reason, I will not mention
the 7th AD in the remainder of the review, as it cannot be represented
from this sheet alone.
4: 79th Armoured Division.
5: 4th Armoured Brigade.
6: 6th Guards Tank Brigade.
7: 8th Armoured Brigade. A square version
was used in NWE; this round version was used in Africa. 8th Armoured
Brigade also combined their Brigade and AoS signs. Alternatively, this insignia can be used for 10th Armoured Division, although this division did not fight in NWE and was dsibanded in 1944.
8: 27th Armoured Brigade.
9: 31st Army Tank Brigade. It's a bluish
shade on the decal, which might better be green. (24 ATB used a blue
version of this insignia, but that unit did not fight in NWE)
10: 33rd Armoured Brigade.
11: 2nd Army insignia (if we forget about the missing sword on the cross), but probably
meant for 34th Army Tank Brigade. ([2] shows both insignias for this
ATB, without further clarification.) The Brigade mostly used a red shield
with a yellow diagonal (top left to bottom right) and a knight's armored
gauntlet holding a "mace" in white with the "mace"
to the left of the badge.
2. Subunits
Apart from the Division and Brigade
insignia, you get the following "numbered squares" (AoS
squares) for the subunits:
A: Armoured Brigade. For most ADs,
so in this case for Guards, 11th AD, and partially for 79th AD (also
see J & Q). It would have done for 7th AD, but we already discussed
why that won't work.
B (Top 4): Infantry Brigade. For Guards and 11th AD.
B: Bottom: Forward Delivery Squadron. For Guards and 11th AD. The
numberless square, I guess, is meant as a spare, but I don't know
where you are supposed to get the number to put onto it.
C: Royal Artillery (HQ, Field Arty,
Field Arty, Anti-tank Regiments & Mortar Battery). For Guards,
and 11th AD (as for any other AD for that matter).
D: Royal Engineers (HQ, Field Park,
Field, Field & Bridging troop). For Guards and 11th AD (as for
any other AD for that matter).
E (Top 4): RASC (HQ, Armoured, Infantry,
Divisional). For Guards and 11th AD. A pity "84" is missing.
E (Bottom): Arm. Div. Signals. For Guards and 11th AD, as for any
other AD for that matter, if only it had had a red number on it.
F (Top 4): Armd Div RAOC units. For Guards and 11th AD. The numberless
squares, I guess, is meant as a spare, but I don't know where you
are supposed to get the number to put onto them.
F (Bottom): Armoured Car Regt. For Guards and 11th AD. The armoured
car regiments appeared on the establishment (TOE in US-speak) of Corps,
not of Divisions (who had an armoured recce regiment, usually tracked).
Therefore, in theory the Armoured Car Regiments should have worn the
sign of their parent Corps with 44 on a green over blue square. However,
in practise, several of the Armoured Car Regiments worked so consistently
with a particular Armoured Division that they took (technically irregularly)
to wearing the Divisional sign instead. It should have a white band
on top, though.
G (Top 4): REME, Workshops, Aid Det.
For Guards and 11th AD. Unfortunately, the width of the stripes should
be equal (with the numbers overlapping).
G (Bottom): Armoured Recce Regt. For Guards and 11th AD.
H & I (top 4): Ambulance Units
and other support units (see reference [1] for details). For Guards
and 11th AD.
I (Bottom): REME. The use of "HQ" instead of numbers is
doubtful.
J: (Also See A). Given the position
on the sheet, I would have guessed that they were meant for the 30th
AB in 79th AD, but then I am not sure if the "54" would
have been used. Of course you could use them for other ADs.
K (Top 5): 1st Army Tank Brigade of
79th AD.
L and bottom of K: 1st Assault Brigade
Royal Engineers in 79th AD.
M: Royal Armoured Corps in 79th AD.
N: For 4th AB.
O: I would have expected the squares
to be for 6th Guards TB, but these are not the ones. I don't know
what they are actually. The colors are OK for 6th Guards, but not
the numbers, so I guess it's a copy-paste error with column "N".
I am not sure if I can distinguish the necessary white bar underneath
either.
P: For 8th AB. I am not sure if I can
distinguish the white bar underneath. Also, 8th Armoured Brigade combined
their Brigade and AoS signs. The white line was sometimes seen inside
the AoS square. Furthermore, the divisional sign is not correct for
NWE.
Q: For 27th AB (Also see A).
R: For 31st Army TB, but my sources
tell me the slanted line should go in the opposite direction and should
probably have an opening where the number is. (Also, see remark about
the divisional insignia.)
S & T: For 33rd AB. I am not sure
if I can distinguish the white bar underneath. These numbers are OK
for August 1944 to the war's end. (From June to August they were in
the 17x range).
U: For 34th Army Armoured Brigade,
assuming you have a decal for the divisional insignia (see above).
Unfortunately, you only get one AoS square each (except for the red
ones), while most (all ?) vehicles carried two, which enormously limits
the use of this sheet.
There are some blank AoS squares on
the sheet, but I don't think they were ever used as such, so off you
go in search for suitable numbers.
3. Bridge classification numbers
14: M3A1 Stuart, AEC Armoured car and
M1 wrecker
29: Possibly Cromwell and Sherman
30: Sherman
26: Possibly Sexton
40: Churchill
46: Challenger
4. Other decals
You get a number of immatriculations
for tanks as well, and some names, which I guess are pretty randomly
chosen.
Assuming they are not based on actual photographs then there is a
typo in the name "Agressor" (the white decal that is almost
indiscernible on the scan). I always thought English spelling required
2 "g"s in that word. Also "Satans charriot", might
better be "Satan's chariot" if it is to be grammatically
correct and represent a known Cromwell.
While the black lettering is better visible on this sheet than the
white, the opposite would be true when these are actually used on
an OD or SCC15 tank, where they would be almost invisible.
Quite a number of vehicles wearing the names on the sheet have been
identified, and they are all white. Furthermore there is some doubt
about the font being used for them.
5. Conclusions
As we have seen, the sheet is riddled
with errors or just gives too few decals to be of use. So, while the
decals are thin and are easy to use, I am hard-pressed to find praise
for this sheet, unless you really need some particular parts of this
sheet.
References:
[1] Le Tommy de la Libération, Tome 2. J. Bouchery. Histoire
& Collections.
[2] http://www.armouredacorn.com/Reference/BAM/7th%20Armd%20Div%20-%20complete.pdf
Thanks to Ian Hanratty, Elliott Winthrop,
Ilian Filipov, Alan McCoubry, Doug Chaltry, Peter Brown, Chris Grove
and Aris Kosionidis for helping me with this preview.
PS: if anyone has a clue for the inscription
"out of the blue" on the bottom of the sheet, let me know
! |