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#11
09-11-2018, 10:19 PM
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The history of the origins of the Saint-Chamond is also interesting.The "official" and only French tank was supposed to be the Schneider CA1 but the head of the French Army transport services and the Ministry of Munitions felt they had been ignored in the approval process to get the Schneider project started. Estienne, who started the Schneider CA1 project by talking to Brillie, Schneider's chief designer, was probably right to try to keep other sticky fingers out of the project. Even then it took Estienne making representations to Joffre, the commander in chief, to get the Schneider project approved and funded by the Minister of War. Not to be outdone, Gen. Mourret, the transport head, got a couple of his smarter people to work on a tank design which was then taken to Emile Rimailho, technical director of Saint-Chamond with the Ministry of Munitions blessing and the rest is history.
It seems to me the French general staff could have won WW1 by themselves if they had got the Germans to fight a duel with egos at 20 paces - the French generals would have won easily. Regards, Charlie 
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#13
09-12-2018, 03:07 PM
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Quote:
Regards, Charlie
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#14
09-13-2018, 11:17 PM
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The skin on the base of the model and the channel sections is about finished. And, of course there are inaccuracies, it isn't Halinski. Firstly the profile at the front is wrong and there should be two slots to fit the front rollers into - not sure how I'm going to fix that. The rear roller in the model has flat plates supporting the roller - in the real tank this is a substantial channel section. I made up a couple of small pieces of channel to emulate this.
Regards, Charlie
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#15
09-13-2018, 11:31 PM
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And now for something completely different...
While I was taking the images of the St-Chamond model the local family of Kookaburras were making a huge amount of noise in the Jacaranda on my nature strip. Kookaburras have very loud cackling sessions as a way of asserting territory, etc - it's a sound which is unique to Australia. It was a couple of Kookaburra chicks and one of the parents. Regards, Charlie
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#16
09-14-2018, 03:24 PM
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Good Day, Charlie -
As always, this is a superb build report that I am following closely (my attempts at the 1/50 Mk. VIII and FT not yet having been very successful). Good images of the kookaburra family. Was the adult a low larrikin, and did it call out, "'Who are you starin' at, Poodle's Whiskers?" Cheers! Don
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#17
09-14-2018, 03:47 PM
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The adult was the uppermost harassed looking bird in the image with two of them. The chicks haven't been out of the nest long and still have a scruffy look as their down grows out.
Regards, Charlie
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#18
09-26-2018, 11:37 PM
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Finally finished the fixed part of the suspension and the drive sprockets. The drive sprockets were inaccurate in that they didn't have the brake drums on the inside modelled so I scratch built these. The real tank had a couple of curved housings underneath the hull - I don't know whether these are the drive motor housings (Saint-Chamond tanks were petrol-electric) or a final reduction gearing - but they are just not present in the model. The upper part of the suspension is quite accurate but a total pain to put together - there are about 70 parts on each side and the whole thing has to be made very accurately otherwise it won't attach inside the I-beam of the lower chassis. There are also a total of 12 springs which slot into the bottom of the upper suspension - should be fun...
Regards, Charlie
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