C is for Confirmatory Combat Canon!

This is one of those useful pieces, which consolidate that which we know, but seem unable to prove, and should come as a relief to those of us who have developed a tendency to mutter 'could be one or the other', when dealing with unknown plastics, on the understanding we are referring to Rosedale/Tudor Rose and/or Kleeman/Kleeware.

 

Speaking as someone who was a younger member of the follow-on force in the hobby, but who is now looking at himself as an older (or ageing!) member of the next generation, watching younger people come into the hobby with weird notions on the intrinsic value of Lego or WWF action figures, I don't know why I just 'trust' the older guards insistence in a relationship, beyond, that they said so, and that the one, Rose-, bought the other, Klee-, but finding things like this underline the closeness of the two, as fact! Especially as those insistences were always about mould-tool sharing.

 

We previously saw this M55 post-war US self-propelled gun (SPG), three years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/afv-is-for-absolutely-feckin-vast.html

 

Clearly marked with a full set of Tudor Rose markings, and, in fact, have seen this Kleeware version before, as a show 'shelfie' nine years ago, so I was already pretty confident of the cast-iron connection, but still needed some introductory blurbiage!

 

The central mark above the reinforcing bulkhead is the same on both AFV's, but where the T*R model has two more ID discs either side of it, the Kleeware has a longer, untypical (for either make) mark, parallel to the discs, but below the bulkhead. However, and unlike some of the space crossovers from these two makes, there is no sign of the missing marks as faint, blanked discs, which you often find on the spaceships.

 

It may point to a rule - marked T*R is IS T*R, unmarked; probably Kleeman? It'll be worth a post one day comparing all the marks, as there are other marks, Kleeware having a small disc mark, and Tudor Rose having a longer written mark.

 

Anyway, I now have enough ammunition for both guns, and given that the Rosedale 25lbr came green with silver shells, it's likely some Tudor Rose M55's got them too? That's it, short and sweet, another chapter in a story which still has the odd question mark!