Thursday 23 May 2019

Reinforcements for the Armee du Levant

Reinforcements for the Armee du Levant

A few extra French bits for my Vichy Forces in Syria/Lebanon

Ft17 75 BS
An SPG with the 75-mm short-barrel S-type Blockhaus Schneider howitzer installed in the armored cabin. It was larger than previous guns, which increased the vehicle mass to 7.3 tons and cut its ammunition to 30 shells. High command saw value in the project and placed an order for 970 vehicles. By the end of World War I, a total of 39 vehicles were manufactured; after that, production was discontinued. At least one was captured in Syria/Lebanon


My rather crude model based on the Hat Ft17


Gen. Weygand reorganised the French colonial forces after the armistice in 1940, among his suggestions was mechanisation and the organising of mixed motorised columns. 
I saw this image and based my model on it:

The truck is by Shell hole Scenics (1.5ton Chevy), the gun is Hat, the crew are Elheim`s brand spanking new French tropical guys, I built the racks and added the stowage





Same gun with more of Elheim`s wonderful figures (he does two packs, I mixed them)





4 comments:

  1. Great work here. Again. If you want the rubber wheels for the 75mm use the ones from the Hat ww2 polish artillery. There are 4 in each box and I will use them for the FFL in bir hakeim.

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    1. JP the wheels in HäT's WW2 French artillery crew set might be a better option, it is my understanding the Polish used some rather particular wheels.

      Btw love your blog but cannot comment over there, kudos to Richard for tolerating “anonymous“ comments here, and of course for the great postings about “obscure“ stuff. Regards, Pat

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    2. No worries, people don`t seem to comment here anymore, not sure whats changed?

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  2. No need in this case and anyway the French in 1940, the Vichy forces and the French fighting for the Allies in Tunisia still had many mle1897s with spoke wheels both horse and vehicle drawn. As this particular set-up is not based on a "real" montee I see no issue with using what I had to hand :)

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