I have a question regarding Mark IV Female tank (early version). I was wondering if someone could help me. I'm currently bulling the Flirt II tank, here's an image of it (Takom kit):
As you can see it's almost ready. The only part that is missing is the unditching beam. I'm not quite sure how these were fixed to the hull when not used. The best image I have can be seen bellow:
It looks like there is a handle on the left and on the right there is an angle iron. But I think that's not enough to keep that beam in one position.I'm just looking for some references.
Regards
-- Edited by RobertP on Monday 12th of December 2016 11:35:06 AM
-- Edited by RobertP on Monday 12th of December 2016 11:39:29 AM
I have seen different types of attaching the beam to the Mark IV. I can give two examples.
First what I call the lower stowage. It lays on two extra pieces of iron attached to the rails. Those beams were also attached by a chain that was wrapped around the beam and secured by a cable that was coming from inside the mark IV.
The other way is what I call the high stowage. That is what you see in your picture.
Sometimes it looks like the beam is secured to the rails only by the chains that are attached to the beam. But somewhere in a book I am sure that I have a picture of those two extra 'brackets" that were folded around the beam when in place but I can not find it ..... So I know what you are looking for .......
I will keep looking and come back here when I found it. To be continued,
It's starting to make sense when I look at this photo.
But now there is another thing... How these two brackets were secured to the rails? I've seen a photo where some holes on the rail could be seen (from the top).
in the rails for the unditching beams there were several holes drilled. For some holes the purpose is known, for others not As far as i know. As you can see on this photo there are holes just above the iron brackets that keep the beam from slidings down. There are also holes above the spud box. So i think that if this iron you refer to was a makeshift iron to attach the beam, an extra hole could be drilled or one of the holes above the spud box was used ..... ?
