Working on the rear horns of my Emhar Mk IV I noticed that the brackets for towing hooks ( at least, I suppose they are ) are in different positions in different tanks.
The following pics will explain what I mean.
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The pics are of Excellent, Flirt II, Grit, Liberty and Lodestar.
I´d like to build a model as correct as possible, so can anybody explain these differences ( field modifications? different producers? ) ?
i was thinking and looking at the same a few days ago and could not find an answer i think it a manufacturer or a male or female version? (not much help)
Maarten, I considered that it could be a "gender" problem, too. On the other hand, the little I know is that both male and female were built on the same hull.
PDA, I agree with you, sure a right way of modelling is to reproduce THAT specific vehicle. In this case, of course, infos have to be as complete as possible. Thanks for Deborah, I'll try to take a look..
Were the towing hooks used just for wooden sledges, or were they used for other things?
These towing hooks were not used for wooden sledges. I have seen them used for towing in a captured enemy gun, and, I'm guessing, they were used to pull stranded tanks out of trouble (if they were floundering in mud, for example).
The wooden supply sledges were pulled by "top towers" - Mark IVs equipped with an attachment on the roof at the rear. The towing cables were attached there, so they did not foul the tracks as the tank maneuvered.
Lodestar III in Brussels is wrong! This was something that was identified by Dick Harley and I am grateful for him sharing it with me.
Essentially the outboard lugs are intended to be on the final drive pinions' bearing caps, and the inboard lugs are intended to be on the drive sprockets' bearing caps. However, during maintenance fitters sometimes reassembled them incorrectly and so you see some variation between different Mark IVs. Similar errors could also occur at the factory.
Dick provided more information on this but I'll stick at that because he deserves the credit for this discovery, not me.
As ever, when modelling, find one well photographed tank and copy what you see in the photos. Then you won't go wrong and you'll have the evidence to challenge anyone who says you have.
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. Thanks to you, too. I'm going to simply improve the kit parts, without changing the arrangement of the hooks.
