"Burma Retreat - query re. Bredas, sun hats and M3s" Topic

Hi folks

I'm planning a small COC force for the retreat from Burma to represent the 1 Glosters and the random kit that they acquired.

I know they acquired a handful of "Breda field guns" from the stores in Rangoon and I have these still images:

Which model is this and does anyone do them in 28mm that would fit with the Perry plastics? (The tyres are added jeep tyres) I'm not an expert and the closest I could find is the 47mm Elefantino but I'm not sure it's right.

Also, anyone have any ideas as to where to source the sun hats in those images from? My current plan is to have a go at modifying some Perry DAK sun hats but was wondering if anyone was aware of 'ready made' ones anywhere?

Finally, for the M3 White Scout Car, are there any 28mm sources other than JTFM or Black Tree Designs? Any thoughts on which matches best with Perry figures?

Thanks in advance.

It's an Italian 65mm Infantry gun, presumably captured in Abyssinia or the Western Desert:

link

I can't help you with 28mm , 6mm is my scale.
Cheers,
Bertie

I don't know, the Battle Honors Italian field gun (in 25mm)… I never could identify that gun exactly. Kind of looks like that, though, with different tires.

Take a look at the first photo, upper corner…

link

Chalfant

Looks very similar to Colonial era mountain guns-possibly easier to source a 2.95" and attach some jeep wheels…….?
Also check Colonial ranges for topees/sunhats etc.

Great, thanks all. The Battle Honours model looks worth investigating.

(The book I have on the Glosters' retreat doesn't give any background as to how they wound up in the stores at Rangoon, but they swapped the wheels for jeep tyres to use them with their carriers. The stills are from some nice film footage of them larking about with it in Rangoon: youtube.com/watch?v=iJSYvx79krQ)

Gaz – I'm having trouble finding a solar topee that's quite as flat as these ones seem to be, but the search goes on…

The Battlehonors gun is correct, but it has spoked wheels; you may need to get some metal wheels from another kit -- just like the real guns. Thanks for sharing those nice shots of the sights, which are lacking on the BH gun. (This is, apparently, entirely correct if you plan to use them as booty guns on Crete in 1941.)

A lot of the stuff they nicked from Rangoon was destined for the Chinese, though as has been said, these were undoubtedly captured from the Italians and sent over to beef up the defence of Burma. There were also some 47mm guns and I seem to remember mention of some heavier guns going to Burdiv.

It is the 65mm. The British replaced the spoked wheels with pneumatic tires on many of the captured guns