Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: Wellington on October 28, 2020, 10:33:47 AM
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Hi!
Were Tanks within a Tank Squadron number or marked in a special way?
Cheers
Wellington
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The Desert War isn't really my 'thing', but the official method of marking was to paint the Troop number within the squadron sign. So for regiments with four troops per squadron it would look like this:
HQ Squadron - Diamond - no numbers
A Squadron - Triangle - HQ, 1, 2, 3, 4
B Squadron - Square - HQ, 5, 6 ,7, 8
C Squadron - Circle - HQ, 9, 10, 11, 12
For regiments with five troops per squadron, it would look like this:
HQ Squadron - Diamond - no numbers
A Squadron - Triangle - HQ, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
B Squadron - Square - HQ, 6 ,7, 8, 9, 10
C Squadron - Circle - HQ, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
There was no official way of numbering tanks within a troop, so all three tanks in a troop would carry the same troop number. However, as time went by, various unofficial regimental variations appeared, such as numbering all troops 1, 2, 3, 4, regardless of squadron (so instead of '12 Troop of 'C' Squadron', they would be marked as '4th Troop of 'C' Squadron'). Some regiments also adopted methods of numbering each tank individually; usually by painting a number inside the squadron sign instead of the troop number or by painting the number on the rear of the turret or hull. Some brigades preparing for the Normandy landings painted LARGE turret numbers. Some regiments counted all tanks in the regiment, starting with the CO's tank as '1' and working all the way through to 50-odd. Some regiments included all the RHQ scout cars, etc, in this system. Some regiments just numbered the tanks within each squadron, with the squadron leader's tank as 1 and so on... However, I've no evidence that any of these tank-numbering systems were used in North Africa - these examples are all taken from Italy, Normandy and Burma.
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Hopefully this will help?
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Thanks! That helped!
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Im currently up to my eyes in UPS failures, breakers tripping and telephony systems going rogue, part from that if I get a few minutes spare I'll dig up some more info if I can, for you.