Landships II

Helen, Thanks - i'll check it out.

Updated views of the 3D model are attached.  I still need help with the interior - drawings or photos.  I will use photos of the available kits if we find nothing better.

Regards,

Wayne

Updated 3D views and 1/48 drawings as of today. There remains lot to do yet.

Working in this scale means a bit more detail than in 1/72.  I intend to include the plate reinforcing strips as add-on parts.

Charlie,

We have no photos of the interior of the "box" so far, so I don't know what was used in the real things.  It makes sense to me that there would be stiffening of some sort, but what kind?  The interior had to be pretty open, so I am assuming for now that the "box" was primarily stiffened externally by the "T" sections we see on the top. Maybe we can use the ammo storage/fuel tanks/radiators to help some; I was thinking of making these three a single piece on each side.  The rear plate, with the twin doors will also help stiffen the rest of it.  thoughts?  Maybe a couple of transverse ribs under the top?

Wayne

Charlie,

Fletcher states in his article that the GC carried 60 rounds for either gun (6" or 60 pdr) in drums, 5 rounds per drum.

That is 12 drums, and I assume they were arranged 6 on each side.

 

If the rounds had no cushion surrounding them, the drums could be only some 17" or 18" in diameter.  I can fit 6 on each side, snug, but they do fit.

If I put a 1" thick cushion around each round, the minimum drum diameter is 21" and fitting them into the available space becomes a problem.

Besides the ammo, there is a 30-gallon fuel tank (4 cubic feet), radiators and a fan/blower.   If we stuff 6 #21" drums in, there doesn't appear to be space for the fuel, etc.

 Question:  what sort and thickness of cushion would likely be used for these stored rounds?... particularly the thickness?

 Also...

Laying out the interior of the "box" has been an interesting exercise.  I modified the engine shown on the Julio Pillet drawing to match the "standard" engine set shown in the MkIV Osprey book and the Great War Tank users manual.  This included moving the exhaust off the center line, similarly to the MkIV.  The fuel tank is only 4 cu ft, so it would be much smaller than Julio shows it, but the radiator needs to be larger and also needs a blower (fan).  I haven't figured out a good bracing scheme yet; that will probably wait till the beta test builds.

Wayne

I think if Fletcher had meant the ammunition storage containers were not round he would have used a different word from 'drum', which always connotes roundness. If they were square he would have written 'box', I'm sure.

Although this drawing is of an apparent alternative Gun Carrier meant for lighter guns, Fletcher refers to the round objects as 'drums'...

Charlie,

Do we have dimensions and photos of the ammo storage in the 6" howitzer caisson?  That might help determine the space required in the CG drums.

One of the other threads today reminded me that we have a photo of the 60pdr caisson.  I measured the width in the photo, proportioned it for the dimension given in the same handbook, and scaled the compartments to be 6 5/8 inches square.  If we can find a similar photo for the 6", I can get at least a rough idea of the compartment size from it.

Also, the photos in the MkIV handbook don't show how the radiator/blower worked.  The GC had two radiators, one on each side, so I will assume they are both half the size of the one on the MkIV.  The MkIV blower looks like it might be situated on top of the radiator - not sure how well that would have worked.  Also don't see the blower air intake.  I'll keep poring over the pics and see what more I can deduce from them.

Wayne

Charlie,

I down-sized the fuel tank to roughly 2ft x 2ft x 1ft (4 cubic feet =  30 gallons.

I made the radiator and fan on each side look something like the larger central unit on the MkIV.

I used the average drum size, 0.38" at 1/48 = 18.24 inches diameter, and was able to fit them all in OK.

This would be a lot easier if I closed in the box and left a black area in front to represent the opening, but the result would be unsatisfactory.

Wayne

MK1 Nut wrote:

---

I've noticed you haven't put the grills either side of the rear doors on yet, is there a reason for that? I was going to call them 'Vents' for the radiators, but as they have a mesh and the radiators have blowers, I'm thinking they are where the air is sucked in. Only guessing on that though.

Helen x

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Not quite, according to David Fletcher in his W&T article:

I have to say, CharlieC, that the more I ponder it, especially in light of your comments, the more sceptical I become that drums of ammo were stowed inside at all. You've got the engine and transmission taking up the entire central portion of the machine inside the rear housing. That housing is only open at the front in the middle portion, a sort of 'arched' opening, which means somehow lifting those heavy (nigh on quarter-ton) ammo drums over the engine and then sideways onto the 'shelf' formed over the tracks. And the drums can't have gone all the way to the rear of the housing because the radiators were positioned over the tracks there, so there isn't even that much room for them anyway. Having said that, I do agree with Wayne above that along with the fuel tanks and radiators, the ammo drums were likely to be arranged as he depicts them in his excellent drawings - it certainly makes sense. My problem is not so much with how they would have fitted but how they could have been practically manhandled into position.

I notice that in his W&T article, David Fletcher states that the ammo drums were '...intended [emphasis added] to be stowed within the rear part of the vehicle, above the tracks on either side.' Perhaps I'm reading too much into what may only be a stylistic quirk when Fletcher writes 'intended', but I do wonder whether, in practise, this method of stowage was found to be impractical for the reasons CharlieC outlines, and that this explains why Gun Carriers are pictured festooned with ammunition stacked up in the gap between the drivers' cabs and the rear compartment housing? In that case, it isn't extra ammunition, as has always been supposed, but rather it's the whole complement of ammunition being carried.

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Saturday 31st of May 2014 04:07:10 PM

Helen,

I haven't gotten to the rear face of the vehicle, except to size and locate the oval doors.  The isometrics show a fan and box radiator on each side.  The flat surface of the fan aligns with the vent in the rear face.   I assumed the air was drawn in from the inside of the box.  The arrangement of the piping between the engine and the radiators is pure supposition, guided by the way it was done in the MkIV.

This continues to be an interesting exercise.

Wayne

Possible but why use the space inefficient drums to store the ammo? It would be easier and more efficient to have a couple of racks like the tanks had for the 6 Pounder projectiles.

I think the point of storing the projectiles in drums was to limit the amount of degradation of the explosive filling - WW1 explosives were nowhere near as stable

as modern explosives -  in a container which could be rolled close to the gun before opening. See the comment I made on the 60 Pounder image a few days ago.

Even lifting and moving 45kg projectiles inside the GC superstructure would be a difficult exercise.

Regards,

Charlie

I believe these were bagged ammunition.  For the 60 pdr, the projectile weighed 60 pounds, and the propellant was 9 lb 7 oz of cordite per the Handbook of Artillery, page 195.  Page 198 describes how two complete rounds are carried on the limber.  Pages 199 and 200 describe the caisson and storage for 24 more complete rounds.

Charlie,

Another thought on handling the drums.  They would fit through the rear doors, the ones David Fletcher wondered what purpose they served.  Without inside photos or drawings, we don't know if perhaps there was a set of trolleys directly beneath the roof for moving the drums.

I am attaching updates to the iso views.  I changed the drum arrangement again, this time placing them in a single, horizontal row and moving the fuel tank overhead.  I added track plates, figuring I would try individual plates, sort of the way Shawn Dymond did in his builds posted on Papermodelers.com.

Wayne

Charlie,

The model is coming along, albeit a tad slowly.  The photos show the first build in progress.  The pieces on the cutting board are for the rear superstructure.  I have two transverse formers at roughly the third points, but nothing longitudinal yet.  I hope to finish the superstructure shell tomorrow.  So far all seems to be going pretty well.  I have applied the hatches to the left cab, but not on the right one, and none of the other details.

Wayne

Charlie

Another update.  I am into parts fit-up testing on the engine set and the gun-handling system.  Photos attached.  I have started putting rivets and bolts on the parts.  This is the first vehicle I've done that had a lot of parts on the inside.

Wayne

It's looking good, Wayne, the detail on the front tray really helps - as do the individual track plates.

Charlie,

More update pix.  This is the left track frame.  I won't put all the track plates on a beta build, but I did add some more details to the inside face after I finished this portion of the build.

Wayne

That's looking really great, Wayne. Maybe some people would appreciate simpler tracks, but I think the individual ones very good; at least with a static model one can omit a sizeable portion of each track where it passes through the rear compartment and under the cabs.

The gun slide is done and most of the superstructure is now finished.  I still need to add the rear mud/rock deflectors, a bunch of grab bars, the side boards and the hatches for all the openings.  I opened up one of the rear doors after I had built most of the superstructure - messy - I recommend doing this before folding and glueing the sides.  For the purists, yes I know I omitted the RAC flashes on the front horns; I have corrected this, among a number of other tweaks. BTW, the gun slide works, though the fit is a bit tight.

Wayne