Bren Carrier Whifs?

[PR19_Kit]

Agricultural Brens anyone ?

I thought "Brilliant idea" but then I realised that you meant the vehicle and not the gun itself.
In my head the idea was, say a helicopter, fitted with Bren guns that have been modified to take clips not of bullets but SEEDS.
Imagine flying along a field firing in rows of seeds, fantastic. The process of seeding would be done so much faster than the conventional method.

Far be it for me to mention a small technical point but seeds are a lot smaller than 0.303 rounds and even en masse aren't exactly dense. In which case they won't seal the barrel all that well, if they seal it at all, and there won't be enough gas pressure left behind the 'round' to return the piston group, so the gun will only fire one round and then stop.

Could take a while to seed a field like that................

[DarrenP2]

During the war there were a couple of farmers both in UK & France arrested by military police operating Bren Carriers in an Agricultural role ie as tractors. they had been sold them by squaddies who had nicked them.
But yes an Agricultural or forestry vehicle would be interesting. How about an off road fire pump vehicle/bowser towing vehicle and firefighter transport vehicle for forest or heathland fires?
Could you lower the ground pressure say with wider wheels and tracks and produce a vehicle that could operate on mud? or a tractor for towing supplies in Arctic/Antarctic
the Rhodesian airforce operated one as an airfield defence vehicle.

[Mossie]

Agricultural Brens anyone ?

Something like this?  Much more modern, based on a M113 chassis but same basic idea:


The Bren Carrier is mid engine so there'd be a different cab arrangement, maybe similar to this T-16 conversion:


While looking, I found there were some civvy tractor conversions done, by Strickland in Aus and it looks like the changed the control to the rear:

[NARSES2]

Agricultural Brens anyone ?

I thought "Brilliant idea" but then I realised that you meant the vehicle and not the gun itself.
In my head the idea was, say a helicopter, fitted with Bren guns that have been modified to take clips not of bullets but SEEDS.
Imagine flying along a field firing in rows of seeds, fantastic. The process of seeding would be done so much faster than the conventional method.

Far be it for me to mention a small technical point but seeds are a lot smaller than 0.303 rounds and even en masse aren't exactly dense. In which case they won't seal the barrel all that well, if they seal it at all, and there won't be enough gas pressure left behind the 'round' to return the piston group, so the gun will only fire one round and then stop.

Could take a while to seed a field like that................

So use canister. Use a canister round of 0.303" calibre, fire it, canister opens upon leaving barrel and disperses seeds. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy as they say 

[Mossie]

In the name of taking Jim's idea far too seriously - they already do.  Seeds are often pelleted so that they're a consistent diameter for seeders, for similar reasons Kit's mentioned.

So Jim, fire away!!!!

[Gondor]

Trackrover?

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Trackrover?

Gondor

Ah, my all time fave Whiff.   

[Gondor]

Trackrover?

Gondor

Ah, my all time fave Whiff.   

Mine too

Gondor

[Rheged]

Trackrover?

Gondor

Ah, my all time fave Whiff.   

Mine too

Gondor

....and mine!  It was through finding the Trackrover that  I discovered Whiffworld, and thus all of you uniquely talented, totally iconoclastic, non-standard thinkers.

[zenrat]

The Trackrover is very cool but it's the backstory which makes it.  It's a triumph.
My Lolly Tank uses Tamiya 'carrier track gear scaleorama'd to 1/25.

[PR19_Kit]

The Trackrover is very cool but it's the backstory which makes it.  It's a triumph.

As should every backstory really.

I find fitting the model into its historical context, albeit a hypothetical one, just as enjoyable as doing the build. And if you get it right it REALLY tee's off the JMNs! 

[KiwiZac]

I'm impressed enough by the German efforts to turn self-propelled anti-tank guns out of practically every indigenous and captured vehicle chassis...... wondering if the Bren Gun Carrier could have been armed with something more powerful than Pak 36 or the Australian 2-pounder (at least Pak 38 or 6-pounder, but Pak 40 or Allied 3-inch varieties would have been even better).

The computer game World Of Tanks, which I've recently started playing, has a 2pdr-equipped Carrier as an early-tier Tank Destroyer. Through playing games and winning matches you can upgrade various modules - suspension/tracks, radios, engine etc - and the ultimate weapon upgrade for it is a 6-pounder. I love playing with it, so I have an Airfix 1/76 Carrier kit coming.....

[NARSES2]

When the Airfix Bren kit first came out the then Airfix magazine ran a whole series of conversions for it that lasted almost a year. (Was it Chris Ellis the armour builder in the mag ?) I built a few of them including the Wasp and "deep" wading version.

As an aside another of Mr Ellis's conversions I tackled was taking the Stug III adding a Panther turret and making a Pz III. I was always proud of that conversion which involved serious surgery on the Panther turret

[KiwiZac]

It sounds as though the old mag was quite the source of conversion info - I have a copy of an article on how to accuratise the Centurion kit which will come in handy if I ever actually find one. A full back catalogue on the bookshelf would come in very handy!

The kit arrived yesterday, so here's a teaser for what my build will look like:

[NARSES2]

It sounds as though the old mag was quite the source of conversion info - I have a copy of an article on how to accuratise the Centurion kit which will come in handy if I ever actually find one. A full back catalogue on the bookshelf would come in very handy!

Interesting 

The old Airfix mag was certainly a fund of ideas but back then we didn't have a large choice of kits so a lot more people did quite drastic conversions. My first aircraft conversion was a P-40 to a P-36. As soon as Airfix released a kit the mag would have an article on what else you could use it as a base kit for.  The old mag also had railway and Scalextric articles on a regular basis as well. Still got a lot of mine, but then I'm a hoarder.