M24 Chaffee

The Tank Museum is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. I visited the Tank Museum before in 1984, 1997, and 2016, but recently made a return visit.

This M24 Chaffee was on display in the car park.

It has French markings.

The M24 Chaffee  was an American light tank used during the later part of World War II; it was also used in post–World War II conflicts including the Korean War, and by the French in the War in Algeria and the First Indochina War. In British service it was given the service name Chaffee after the United States Army General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., who helped develop the use of tanks in the United States armed forces. Although the M41 Walker Bulldog was developed as a replacement, M24s were not mostly removed from U.S. and NATO armies until the 1960s

Flames of War M24 Chaffee in full view

Sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees and sometimes you need to have something smacked in front of you to see it.

In my previous post on the new Battle of the Bulge release for Flames of War I made the comment.

Will we see allied forces? Don’t know, but I would like to see a Comet and the M24 Chaffee.

Well, Simon, right as usual, pointed to me to this page on the Flames of War website and right at the bottom is a photograph of ten M24 Chaffee tanks.

M24 Chaffee Tanks
Yay!

Flames of War – Battle of the Bulge, coming soon…

Back in February 2011 in a blog post I discussed what we might see if Battlefront released a Battle of the Bulge supplement for Flames of War.
In the July issue of Wargames Illustrated we shall see news of “Devil’s Charge” the Flames of War supplement covering the Battle of the Bulge. No news yet on possible model releases but just from the cover I suspect we might see a Schwimmwagen and a King Tiger.

Will we see allied forces? Don’t know, but I would like to see a Comet and the M24 Chaffee.

Flames of War – Battle of the Bulge




One other line in the news from Flames of War caught my eye and that was a reference to the Battle for the Bulge.

Following on from Italy we will be heading into the Bulge at the end of the year as well as creating another set of compilations for the Christmas season as we did last year with D-Day.

It would appear that as they did with the D-Day compilations, late in 2011 we will see a similar compilation for the late war. I don’t know what new releases we will see, but we did get a few new releases for D-Day so we may see some new ones for the late war.

I would like to see two tanks in particular, the M24 Chaffee and the British Comet. These tanks are currently not in the FoW range.

M24 Chaffee

The Light Tank M24 was an American light tank used during World War II and in postwar conflicts including the Korean War and with the French in the First Indochina War and war in Algeria. In British service it was given the service name Chaffee, after the United States Army General Adna R. Chaffee, Jr., who helped develop the use of tanks in the United States armed forces.

Tank, Cruiser, Comet I (A34)

The Tank, Cruiser, Comet I (A34) was a British cruiser tank that first saw use near the end of World War II. It was designed to provide greater anti-tank capability to Cromwell tank squadrons.

Tank, Cruiser, Comet I (A34)

It was armed with a 77mm HV, a derivative of the 17 pounder, with the result it was one of the few British tanks with the firepower to challenge late war German designs.

I would also like to see some Late War Monsters in a similar vein to the Mid War Monsters that we have seen before. As well as the German Maus, King Tiger II and E series, we could on the allied side see the Centurion and M26 Pershing. There are also the T29 and T30 US Heavy Tanks that could also be fielded.

T29 Heavy Tank

Talking of Monsters, some Early War Monsters wouldn’t go amiss either, the French Char 2C would be one example.

So a fair bit to look forward to for Flames of War in 2011.