15mm BAOR Battlegroup 1984

[Jemima Fawr]

I've been sticking my 1980s British Army on the blog:

http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2020/05/18/active-edge-building-a-cold-war-baor-battlegroup/

[Shahbahraz]

Love it. I want one (BAOR Battlegroup) now. The Chieftain is such an iconic piece of kit if you were around in the UK in the 60s-80s.

[Jemima Fawr]

Love it. I want one (BAOR Battlegroup) now. The Chieftain is such an iconic piece of kit if you were around in the UK in the 60s-80s.

Cheers!  I think it was the Cent AVRE and Ferrets that made me want it... 

[Jemima Fawr]

Love it. I want one (BAOR Battlegroup) now. The Chieftain is such an iconic piece of kit if you were around in the UK in the 60s-80s.

And I've no idea what I'm going to do with the Chieftain AVLB.  It spans about five times more width than my widest model river and in groundscale terms, the bridge is about 600m long! 

[SABOT]

Terrific work to warm me old Tankie heart! 😬👍👍👍

[Jemima Fawr]

Terrific work to warm me old Tankie heart! 😬👍👍👍

Bugger, I was hoping you'd point out the mistakes and I could take notes... 

[SABOT]

Not much wrong with those mate .....  the inside of the Commanders Hatch was green not white .... apart from that they look spot on to me. ( no Commanders MG nor spotlight fitted either) .

[DCRBrown]

M,

Not sure how common this was but our LI sections had two GPMGs, around this time.

DB

[SJWi]

Very nice. I am currently building a 15mm BAOR army but as well as classic camo decided to have a go at hand-painting the “Berlin Brigade” urban scheme. I’m now just waiting to get my hands on my copy of PSC’s new “Battlegroup NORTHAG” rules before buying more hardware.

[Jemima Fawr]

Cheers chaps!

Sabot, I think the 'white hatch-interior' must be a (silver) spotlight seen from a funny angle, as mine don't have any open hatches (they're cast with closed hatches).

Re the spotlight and commander's MG; that's interesting, because there are lots of photos with both!    I guess the spotlight went out as TOGS came in?  In any case, I've hedged my bets because my other squadron (not photographed) doesn't have MGs fitted.

Cheers Dave; Is that while still using SLRs?  I suppose a lot of GPMGs got freed up when the regulars got L86 LSWs.  Perhaps a bit like WW2 Italy, when the 78th Div allocated an extra Bren per section when one of its brigades was disbanded?  On a similar vein, a good mate of mine (ex-41 RM Cdo) told me that when they embarked for the Falklands, the armouries were opened up and they took everything they could - so much for TO&Es!  Sections ended up with two GPMGs AND LMG!  They also binned CG 84 at San Carlos and instead carried more MILAN firing-posts and ammo.

SJWi, ooo, good luck... I've always loved the idea of doing a Berlin force (mainly due to the chance to field FV432/30) and having that lovely camouflage, but like WW2 Caunter camo, it looks like it'd be too much like hard work.

[SABOT]

Roger that .... I thought you hadn’t got the spotlight fitted .... mistook for hatch - got it. In which case we always had the IR filter fitted to the spotlight so needs to be dark red/black. 👍

[Jemima Fawr]

Roger that .... I thought you hadn’t got the spotlight fitted .... mistook for hatch - got it. In which case we always had the IR filter fitted to the spotlight so needs to be dark red/black. 👍

Sod a dog... Someone else told me that they were natural light and the big bugger in the box on the side was the IR one. 

[SABOT]

Nah .... both have an IR filter.

The main searchlight opens up with the IR filter automatically covering the White Light lens ( obvious tactical consideration) . Selecting white light moves the IR filter mechanically to reveal the white light which produces one million candlepower on normal power and on boost (max ten seconds only) increases to million and a half.

The Commanders spotlight is more basic. The IR filter fits over the top of the white light lens and has to be uncoupled by hand to reveal white light. Nowhere near as impressive and we very rarely used them. Linked to follow the same elevation as the Commanders gpmg.

[Jemima Fawr]

Excellent stuff!  Ta! 

[FifteensAway]

Can you tell us how you do your photography, please? 

Your work and the photos of it make a mockery of those who say magazines need to feature 28 mm and larger because the 'smaller' scales just don't photograph well.  15 mm baby!