Australian Centurions in a Nutshell

…and in Vietnam too!

Background

The release of the AFV Club Royal Australian Armoured Corps Centurion Mk 5/1 (Vietnam Version) has been a wish fulfilled for many modellers, worldwide. We understand that this is the first in a large range of Centurion variants to be released by AFV Club, in both mainstream, full production and limited edition versions.

Therefore it is worthwhile to give an overview of Centurion gun tank variants, then drill down to put the Australian versions in context, and further, to see just what makes an Australian Vietnam variant – with lots of reference images, of course. Continue reading

Lost & Found (in Iraq)

One of our members was recently deployed in Iraq, and discovered a veritable “Aladdin’s Cave” of historic armoured vehicles at the former Iraqi army base at Taji (Camp Cook).

It’s hard to imagine just how some of these vehicles found their way here, but their stories must be amazing! The “collection” ranges from Pre-War British (Mark VIB Light Tank) to modern US and British (M60 and Chieftain), the latter we suspect must have been captured during the Iran-Iraq War of the late seventies / early eighties.

Photographed: Taji, Iraq. Photo Series © the photographer via AMMS and text © Peter Hartup 2006. Continue reading