Spirit of Habbaniya GB

[tigercat]

RAF Habbaniya was a RAF training base besieged by Iraqi forces in WW2 which fought off the iraquis with a mixture of obsolete transports and trainers.

The idea would be to take an aircraft or vehicle preferably but not necessarily in a support role  and adapt it for a combat role it was not intended for

For example Cannon armed Tiger Moths  or Kubelwagens with a 20mm turret.

[ysi_maniac]

This is a very interesting idea, IMO.

[dy031101]

That'd include improvised armoured vehicles I assume?

My maddest imaginations include putting a M8 HMC turret on top of a RV...... 

[Weaver]

Lots of potential there: the RAF crash/refuelling/recovery sets have a range of soft-skin vehicles that could be adapted by cunning fitters. Plane-wise, there are kits of Magisters, Masters, Oxfords, Ansons etc, all of which could be armed to varying degrees.

Weapon-wise, well an RAF base should have .303 Brownings and Vickers K guns aplenty lying around. Later in the war there might be 20mm Hispanos, but they were in short supply for a lot of the time. How about an improvised anti-tank gun made from a Vickers 40mm pod taken from a scrapped Hurricane and mounted on an improvised carriage?

[dy031101]

Po-2 earned quite a name as a night intruder.

There ought to be other aircraft like it that could be used in a similar fashion?

[PR19_Kit]

My Dad was there at the time! 

He told horrendous tales about building a Vickers Vernon transport from spare parts (!) and grafting bomb racks onto it from the huge number of Audax trainers they had at the base. Then they'd fly the bombed-up Vernon off in the small hours and land on the desert behind the enemy lines. As the sun came up they'd take-off, fly at ULTRA-low level over the Iraqi gun positions, lob out all the bombs and plunk down on the playing fields they used for runways! The normal runways were under the guns on the escarpment so they used the playing field on the other side of the hangars.

[Weaver]

Taking inspiration from the Yugoslav wars, how about improvised launch rails for 3" RPs on the back of a truck? it would be a sort of Heath Robinson Katyushka.....

[Doc Yo]

 Would a Wellesley NF. Mk 1 fit in there
somewhere?

[kitbasher]

Would a Weelesley NF. Mk 1 fit in there
somewhere?

Ay Caramba!
Mid-upper turret, looks like a podded radar and what's in the other pod?  A Molins gun gets my vote!!!

[tigercat]

Nice Wellsley

lots of scope for improvised AFV

[Doc Yo]

 Fixed the spelling   Anyway-the idea was an improvised NF to contend with Italian night raids
pre-Afrika Korp. The turret is one of the Nacelle caps from a Polar Lights Enterprise with some notches
cut for what looks a little like a 20mm Oerlikon ( if you squint. at a distance ). Radar would have been thin on
the ground so it carries a searchlight under the starboard wing, and a pack of 4 .303 MGs under the port
wing, likely nicked from a Blenhem NF Mk I.  I like the Wellesley, as I have a long fascination with long-winged
birds, and could see a little more conventional approach with a couple of gun packs installed in place of the
odd bomb carriers of the original...or cannons tucked into the same...