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02 November 2019

1940 BEF - 25mm Hotchkiss anti-Tank gun

To counter the threat posed by German Panzers I wanted another anti-tank gun to support my BEF. As I already have a QF 2-pounder anti-tank gun my attention turned to another piece fielded by the British at the beginning of World War II: The French made 25mm Hotchkiss anti-tank gun.



The Hotchkiss anti-tank gun, generally known as the canon de 25, was the main anti-tank gun in service with the French army in 1940. About 300 were given to the BEF as they had insufficient numbers of their superb QF 2-pounder gun. According to Wikipedia (I know ^^) the version the British received was the horse drawn version. This presented the BEF with some problems as they were the only fully mechanised army at the start of the war. As a solution the gun was mounted on the flat bed of trucks, a practice widely adopted later on by almost all belligerents as a means of providing anti-tank guns with greater mobility.


With no model of the British version commercially available I had to use the French version provided by Warlord Games with some British crew. I couldn't be arsed to paint up a truck to go with the gun though, so it has probably been dismounted for better concealment in an ambush on some unsuspecting German column.

18 comments:

  1. Excellent looking piece Nick!! I hope it's an example of only looking threatening but completely ineffective!;-)

    Christopher

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  2. Excellent work on these again, Nick!

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  3. very nice work Nick, did you consider leaving the French camo on the gun ?
    cheers John

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  4. Great looking gun and crew, wonderful job!

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  5. Lovely looking little anti tank gun!
    Best Iain

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  6. Very nice indeed! Superb work again Nick, glorious attention to detail.

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  7. Lovely work as always!

    You're on safe ground with the tyres btw;

    https://twitter.com/rgpoulussen/status/1084714808438603776

    Carrying guns 'portee' had been a thing in the French Army long before 1940, it had also been common in the SCW.

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  8. Stunning work, I painted one of these in French service just last month using the Crusader Miniatures model.

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  9. Very nice, I have the French version with my lot.. but yours looks much nicer. I think I need to consider upping the contrast on my paint jobs as subtle variation seem to disappear on the tabletop:

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7t_UdLVOxL8/XGQeLi2ZXgI/AAAAAAAAD64/rd5ZYQgSE-oc3HW_9wUpgyu949EZHolWQCLcBGAs/s1600/20190213_112808.jpg

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  10. It's great that you actually made the uniform stand out among the green grass. Looks fantastic the lot.

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