"Conversions for a carrier platoon 1/72" Topic

Bonjour,

My latest project is converting some British soldiers because I need them with the RAC helmet. I discovered that many carrier crews wore the RAC helmet instead of the classic "soup bowl" (mostly recce troops and the 1st Canadian Div.):

Royal 22e Regiment carrier troop
link

17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars
link

Saskatoon Light Infantry machine gunners (both types of helmet):
link
link

Here are the results of my attempts:

Caesar British soldiers with Italeri British para. head on the left and Airfix American para. on the right:

The Italeri head is slightly too big but the helmet looks better than the Airfix one (I asked my wife to look them over while I was wearing my own RAC helmet and she prefers the Italeri head). PSC's Universal Carrier crews need the Italeri heads as the Airfix ones would be really too small on them.

Revell (ex-Matchbox) British infantry with Airfix American para. head:

Looks great but they would not match with Caesar's and PSC's bodies with Italeri's helmets (though both Matchbox and Caesar are compatible), so I will go with the Italeri (and Revell) British Airborne heads.

Thank you for looking.

Interesting pics, I didn't know about this use of the RAC helmet until now. Just a guess but I imagine the RAC helmet was seen as less awkward for troops in vehicles and was also more effective as a crash helmet. Thanks for the inspiration.

Interesting, I had never heard of this either. IMO Brit para heads work slightly better than US para heads for RAC helmets…

Bonjour,

It appears from the pictures of the Canadian troops I looked over, only the infantry battalion carrier platoons of the 1st Canadian Div. (and maybe the 5th Div.) had the RAC helmet. I don't remember noticing any carrier crew of 2nd, 3rd and 4th wearing it. I will look more into it.

I am doing the conversions because I am making a recce troop (3 Humber AC Mk IV, 2 Humber LRC Mk III, 7 Carriers and 2 M/C) of the 17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars. I will be using either Troops, Weapons & Tactics or Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies.

Later I intend to do a carrier section of the Royal 22e Régiment for the Italy campaign.

Salutations du Canada,
François

Here's a short write-up on Canadian helmets mentioning use by the support companies in Italy. link