"I Have a Troop of Saladins - Now What?" Topic

In 28mm, remember the old Corgi cock back the gun barrel and fire off a plastic projectile.

Turns out they scale out perfectly for 1/56 and the 28mm ranges. If you can figure out how to take apart and rotate out the trigger assembly, the barrel pulls right out. The great news is that 1/8 inch tubing fits in perfectly. Leave 7/8 of an inch protruding from the mantlet to the tip and you are all ready to paint.

Now the bad news.
How do I paint them?
Generic dark green or dark sand?

Between my Korean ranges and modern ranges, I don't have any figures apart from Vietnam war ranges.

If I start up a sixties through eighties British figures, I wonder where to concentrate.

I always loved the Saladins, just goes to show you, be careful what you ask for.

Any Conquerors in te same scale??!!

Tally Ho!

I wonder how strong the table would have to be to support the weight of a Conqueror?

,,,but, boy it would be fun to play against some T10s,,,

UK Saladins are really more 50s through 60s than 70s and 80s.
Personally I would be tempted to paint them sand and green, then they could do multiple service as British in Cyprus,where they did hang on longer, or Jordanian for middle Arab israeli wars.

Eureka do some very nice figures ostensibly for Aden but which would work very well in a variety of settings with your Saladins.

link

link

If you go green, I find one of the best colours for modern British vehicles is actually Tamiya XF-65 Field Grey but, whatever you do, don't thin it with water as is it alcohol based.

Funny about the Saladin.

Australia used them but scrapped them by the mid sixties only to keep enough turrets to play with on some M113s in time for the end of the Vietnam war.

South Africa bought a bunch. By the seenties they were using them for policing of all things. By the early eighties they were replaced by Elands.

When it comes to armnoured cars, the UK might surprise people.
The Humbers were the first to go in the mid to late fifties.
The Staghounds lasted until the mid to late fifties too.
The Daimlers and even the heavy AECs made it until the mid sixties! So using Saladins throughout the seventies into the early eighties in the UK is not a problem.

There were other users world wide, but pretty specific like the West German Border Police and Guatelmala and such.

AFAIK The only place Britain continued to deploy Saladins into the seventies was in Cyprus, where they were in use till the late seventies. They were not used by BAOR units or in the U.K. after the late 60's to very early seventies, though we did export them to several Middle East and African countries where they continued in service .
The Kuwaitis were still using them in the first gulf war.

Weren't they used by the Nigerians in the Biafran War?

The Dinky Chieftain is also pretty close to 1:56 scale and can be picked up pretty cheaply at collectors fairs depending on condition.

Presumably they might have been dragged out of sheds and given to the Yeomanry in the event of 'cold war gone hot' ?

Maybe facing the 3rd or 4th echelon ie T34s and BA64 scout cars!

Timbo, the scorpion used a newer gun but the same ammunition.

A friend went to Somalia in '92(?) as crew of a Cougar, a Canadian armoured car with a Scorpion turret. They ran across an arms collection point with a T55 in it. They used it for target practice instead of letting it go back into some warlords service.

The before and after pictures of the inside of the turret are stunning. A two foot by four foot slab of armour scaled off and cleaned out the turret and whatever might have been in the way! Those HESH rounds had a pretty strong wallop in them.

The Saladin used the same gun system and ammo. The HESH round doesn't depend on velocity for what it does to armour.
I think that the 76mm has only been superceded by newer and lighter gun models like the 90mm Cockerill.

Commando HQ make some nice 28mm figures for the Malayan Confrontation.

Sri Lankan civil war? Nigeria and Biafran forces used them….Lebanese civil war, Kenyan army…..there's a list of 'in action' conflicts on Wiki……

My wife's uncle joined 4RTR in the 1960's. His first posting was to Aden with Saladins, where they chased insurgents all over the Radfan. I believe his first troop commander was George Forty.
Later the were posted to Malaya, again with Saladins, where they rotated a Squadron through Borneo for the insurgency there. I've seen a photograph what I believe to be his Saladin on a track in Borneo, where an Auster AOP is overflying and dropping a message streamer to them.

I always liked that vehicle. Interestingly enough, I saw one last year when we attended the 2016 Hastings re-enactment.

MH

Strange; my Google-hosted image of the Saladin disappeared. Will post again, and see how long it lasts:

MH

Ideal for Imagi-Nation gaming in Banana Republics