Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - First units for the BEF: HQ tanks and Anti-tank company for the 1st AD and a few Bren Carriers

I'll present you now the beggining of my 1st British Armoured Division that has been making me busy in the past few weeks.

The BEF for the short campaign in France in 1940 is a place were all WWII wargamers want to go. You can play with the tanks of the 'Tank Scandal', have tanks with multiple turrets and have plenty of markings on them: division markings, bridge weight markings, company markings, individual markings, markings, markings everywhere... for sure its different than Normandy! But for a Rapid firer! the imminent release of the new Blitzkrieg supplement also increases its interest. 

All this talk wouldn't be possible without the favours of PSC, Zvezda, S-Models and even Airfix specially PSC with the realease of its fantastic A9 which opened the possibility for us of finally having British tank regiments for early war.     

Until now I completed  the guns of Anti-Tank company only missing two of the towing vehicles; several HQ companies of both Brigade and Regiment are also made as well as a few Carriers for the loaned infantry of the division.

A A10 of the 9th lancers, based on the A9 of PSC,  drives down the road with the company of the Vickers Mk.VIc of the 2nd Armoured Brigade HQ. This one is Airfix with a PSC figüre.

 

 I scratchbuilt the front part of the A10 on three A9 models. I used two-component paste, the one you buy at super-markets, to make the general shape of the new front part. You can start to use the X-Acto a few minutes later as this material dries very quickly. Then all details were made in Evergreen Plastics. I left the gun mantlet as for the A9 as Chamberlain and Ellis in their book on Allied armour states that there were 13 A10 ( the MkI model) with A9 turrets.

To the right you have the full Regimental HQ of the 10th Hussars with a A9 and a A10. On the road you have  the A9's of the Regimental HQ of both 2nd RTR and 3rd RTR, the last one probably looking for the Calais road.

The 2 pounder A/T are Zvezda with the addition of a third crew member taken from the crew of the 6 pounder by PSC. Be careful about the helmets as the British seemed to have used them mostly without foliage.

The Morris tow was taken from an old and half broken Matchbox model. I just built a new Evergreen structure for the canvas cover which I made of toilet paper hardened wıth wood glue.

The final result for the Morris C8. Also for early brits you need a gas mask bag hanging in the chest easily made of GreenStuff, Milliput or similar.

                                    

The PSC Bren Carriers also had some changes. Two of them had Boys A/T rifles instead of Bren MG's, a new position for the Bren and the figures received new heads from ESCI because of the 'foliage problem' I mentioned before and the gas mask bags.

For the colours of the BEF vehicles, and after many trials, I settled on GW Loren Forest as the lighter green and Art Deco Black Green for the camouflage colour.

The view of the Stuka...

As main references I'm using H/C Tank Zone magazine no 11(the article 'La Charge du Rhinocéros'); Batailles No 72 ( article Abbeville 1940) and a very good help from Simon Ford on the organization of the 1st AD.

Next: plenty of incredible menacing...Vickers Light tanks!