Wednesday 9 March 2022

1940 BEF Anti-tank Guns

 My 1940-ish Highlanders have received some artillery support!  According to the Too Fat Lardies' 1940 Blitzkrieg book, the BEF didn't have enough of the Ordnance QF 2-pdr Anti-Tank Gun to fully equip their anti-tank regiments in for the Battle of France, so the French provided them with 300 canons de 25 mm semi-automatique modèle 1934.  Rather than choose between the two, I've decided to get both!  These models are made by Crusader Miniatures.  

To be honest, one of the reasons I got both guns was so that I could get extra crewmen.  Chain of Command typically calls for an artillery piece to be crewed by 5 crewmen plus a junior leader.  However, Crusader Miniatures, like many other companies, only provides 3 (or at most 4) crewmen with a gun!  For this reason, I also picked up a 3" mortar set just for the crew, even though I never expect to put the mortar on the table.  I don't expect to use both anti-tank guns in the same game, which is just as well as I've only got enough men to crew one of them!

First up is the 25mm Hotchkiss.  The Lardies claim that the BEF nicknamed it a '1-pdr', so I'll just take their word on that.  Note that for the crew, I haven't marked their bases as I have done for other WWII models.  I just assume that the two chevrons on the bombardier's sleeve are clear enough to identify him as the JL for the gun team.






Here is the 2-pdr.  The gunner for this weapon is actually seated on the gun, so I can leave out the duplicate waving crewman when I field this piece.






And for good measure, here is the 3" mortar.  




And so another CoC force starts to take shape!

2 comments:

  1. Nicely done Will. If your looking for more crewmen for your guns, check out 1st Corps out of the UK...but be forewarned, once you see their BEF stuff, you will likely get more than a crew! https://1stcorps.co.uk/product-category/20th-century/20th-century-world-war-2/20th-century-ww2-ww2-great-britain/

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    1. Thanks, Terry, that 1st Corps stuff is da bomb! I will have to see if I can resist the temptation!

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