F is for Follow-up - C is for Carrier Convoy!

Well, computer problems seem ongoing; “Unexpected black-screen in the new laptop area”! Hotmail is kicking-off with a data limit they made no previous mention of and which seems connected to my rejecting and uninstalling of 'Teams', '365' and other online/cloud stuff, which will be another battle. A quick notification of a change in the terms and conditions actual or implied with some penalty charges usually results in a change of corporate mind!

But, suffice to say the mojo is well off-track and the Blog is probably the last/least of my worries. However I have cobbled this together, although it's mostly appeared briefly elsewhere in the last month or two - easier to post minimal text stuff on a Faceplant group!

I had the luck to receive 'first dibs' on this from a mate the other week, we have seen the TAT Bren-gun carrier before, but now I have one with box, which is nice! And it's a clean one with the RAF-roundel sticker still in place.

Just a quick reminder of the light-tank version which turned-up under EM branding and which we also looked at last time;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/07/c-is-for-cool-colonial-carriers.html

In the meantime I had grabbed this in passing, larger and the later 'Universal Carrier' mark with full amour-plate down both sides, it is a Marx battery-operated toy with more similarities to the Timpo or Dinky 'boxes', both in size and - with the former - unrealistic wheel arrangement!

 

The Marx Hong Kong mark, I haven't seen the packaging, but presumably it was a late addition to the B/O Patton Tank which ran for years under Marx and other brand-marks, and as various copies.

 

Various views; the battery has actually been disabled and the gear-box removed, allowing full carpet-wheel, hand-action! It doesn't seem to have had a Bren-gun, but I'm pretty sure I have a spare of the Bren which clips to the frame of the old Britains long-wheel-base Land Rover, which will fit nicely on the lip of this carrier's firing -hole?

 

And then, my life was forced to accept an on-going theme situation, when this came in last week, a French composition Renault UE Chenilette carrier, although when I say 'composition' it seems to be a bisque like china/porcelain.

 

Above are before and after cleaning . . .

 

. . . which from the yellowish shade of brown was a few decades of Gitanes or Gauloises!

 

I use clean, cold water and wipes, with a gentle action on something like this, no rubbing or scrubbing. And no, I haven't been buying plastic-shafted Q-tips for several years, but there are a few kicking about and I happened upon some the other day; so thought I'd better get them off to landfill before someone else flushed them illegally - well; you never know!

Maker is unknown, but could be Domage et Cie (who became Aludo (aluminium) or Acedo (plastic)), or SFJB who are known for Bisque items includeing dolls heads? But Elie Tarroux is also known as an issuer of 'general figures and novelties' in composition, from around 1900 to the 1930's (A connection with Starlux is fleshed out in the Thomas/Guillot books); could he/they have survived the war and knocked this out with its Free French flag?

 

Boysie-Boy has no interest in this junk, unlike his late mother, but is looking very pleased with himself for having baggsied my fleece-jacket in the seconds it took to fetch the camera! While I'm very pleased to have picked this up.

 

All three recent additions, off to search for fanatical Hitler-Youth stragglers in the Tory Front Bench! First you demonize them as migrants, when most are subsequently found to be genuine asylum seekers, or refugees, then you call them names (“illegalls”, when they aren't, until they've been found to be, which over 70% aren't), then you switch to calling them “Boats” rather than people, then you deport them (or those who haven't drowned) without judicial process . . . sounds like fascism to me? Go Gary Liniker!

Returning to the TAT's as a final point, I remembered this post, which has a whole TAT gunner who can replace the broken one which I seem to recall one of my (three now I think?) Bren-gun carriers has.

C is for Cool Colonial Carriers!

Those of you who follow the shenanigans of WWII, will be aware as the conflict gathered momentum through the early belligerence's of the 1930's, through the 1940 invasion of France/The Low Countries campaign and into the Japanese attacks of 1941, that many nations around the world were equipped with variants of three staples . . .  

. . . the US 'Christie Suspension' fast 'cruiser' tanks, with designs from America, Russia and the Czechs, secondly, many variations and developments of the old French WWI Renault F17 infantry support tank, and thirdly; so many variations, versions and derivatives; commercial, limited-run and volume production, with one-offs/prototypes and locally produced conversions of the Vickers/Carden-Lloyd Light armoured vehicle range/s, it's impossible to count them all.

And it's two of the latter we're having a quick look at now, we've actually visited the TAT branded early version Bren-Gun carrier before here, more than once, and the TAT tag will provide with additional civilian models, and I think in the transferring of everything over the last year I saw another in the collection, so we may return to these one day, maybe as a posed 'wargame' post in the garden/environment, a carrier 'squad attack' type thing!

The real development, both from the vehicles point of view, and in the researching of old plastic toys, is a turreted version of the TAT carrier, this one branded to EM, previously thought of as another brand, but as evidenced here, it must now be considered to be connected to TAT whether as supplied-to, subsidiary of or phantom-brand from- remains the mystery.

Although looking the same with a turret glued on (firmly, although it may have been meant to rotate?), it is actually a reworking of, or duplicate tool with all new features and a new rear-deck.

Other differences reveal the base-plate has been redesigned to accommodate the new superstructure, the rubber tyres are a new-tread design and the marking is for the same EM (Empire Made?) similar to some of those micro-ship Minic copies (which are marked 'E' only, for Empire Toys (?) and seem to be connected to Lucky) - these carriers being based on the old Britains slush-cast lead one. But the crew-figures, push-and-go kinetic-motor (and housing) and plastic colours tie both models firmly together.

The actual turreted versions of these light-tanks didn't have open compartments at the front and usually had an extra, forth road-wheel, so it retains its fictional toy heritage, and the turret is a common re-reappearing from Hong Kong (in various sizes) on other toys and is taken from the Lone Star AFV series I think?

But if you're garden-gaming the fall of Belgium or the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, finding a couple of these will definitely enhance the defenders forces . . . more quality TAT from Small Scale World!