15mm QRF Stuarts

 Along with the Crusaders, I wanted some Stuarts for my British. They saw action as an integrated unit (4th Armoured Brigade) during Operation Crusader, and then hung around in diminishing numbers in the various mixed Regimental organisations right beyond Alamein.

Reliable, fast and with a 37mm gun which could actually penetrate the hull front of a Pz IIIh (unlike the 2pdr), it was a 'Honey'. Its only real drawback was its short operational range. 

I got four Stuarts, three of them as part of the 'phase one' purchases and then another one as part of a follow up. I dimly recalled I needed four Stuarts for some of the scenarios I had in stock.

I already have some ancient (20 year old) QRF M3 Stuarts, and these models  have certainly been re-designed since then. My old ones are quite crude, whereas these have separate tracks/suspension assemblies, separate turret hatches (hooray!), separate storage boxes for the rear fenders and even optional fuel tanks. Unfortunately they come with .50 cal AAMGs rather than the .30 cals which were more common, but hey ho.

These are much better models than my old M3s, with lots of nice raised detail. The track units are quite thin and a couple of them had snapped while being shipped, but not irretrievably so. I added a PSC tank commander to this one.

Nice sharp lines which pick up a drybrush well. There are some tools moulded on the engine deck rear too.

It 'sits' very well too, and looks like a sleek, fast tank.

Observant readers will have noticed I have done them all in variations of Caunter. I spent quite a while researching Stuart colour schemes, and while my 6mm ones are plain sand, it seems that many of the earlier shipped ones were camouflaged in various varieties. Frank Chadwick lists some of the specific colour combinations used by particular regiments, and I did this two in sand/smoke grey/dark green, which also seems to be a popular choice with 1/35th scale modellers. As it is quite a striking scheme, I went very light on the Crusader Stripes, just some on the hull front of one of the tanks.

One of this pair also has a pair of the jettiosonable fuel tanks mounted. It took ages to find a photo of these in situ, so they obviously weren't that common, but hilariously I actually found one in the the 'Airfix Guide to US Tanks'.

Caunter was being increasingly simplified or not used by mid/late 41 and many Stuarts were done in just a simple two colour scheme, in this case sand/smoke grey/sand. I gave these two prominent Crusader Stripes on the turret as they look rather smart.

In all cases the supplied AAMGs had stupidly long mounting poles, so I chopped them right back so they sit on the rear of the commanders cupola. I should probably have cut the barrels back too so they look more like .30 cals, but didn't bother.

Overall the paint scheme was light stone over a grey undercoat, and inkwash, a heavy drybrush of light stone again and then very careful application of the camo. It is very hard painting straight lines. I went light to dark, so on the three colour tanks I did the smoke grey first, then finished off with the dark green. The whole thing got a light drybrush of pale sand which picked up the highlights and toned down the camo a bit, as the real paint tended to fade and  get abraded by sand anyway.