Rubicon Models' Ordnance QF25/QF17-pdr Gun
In my last blog post [here], I discussed the building the Rubicon 6-pdr anti-tank gun; today, let’s look at its stablemate, the 17/25-pdr ‘Pheasant’ anti-tank gun, or - as the kit is marketed by Rubicon - the Ordnance QF25/QF17-pdr Gun, as either can be built.
One of the weapons which started to turn the tide of the war in the desert in 1943, this design saw the new, powerful 17-pdr gun mounted on the iconic carriage of the (much smaller) 25-pdr gun-howitzer, and this is the one I chose to build (partially because I wanted some decent AT heft on the tabletop, but mostly because I already have a desert 25pdr).
In addition to the choice of guns and crew, the kit also includes 25-pdr’s characterful limber. Although this limber was demonstrably waaaaay too small to sensibly store the 17-pdr’s long, 76.2mm APDS ammo, there is a suggestion that it continued in limited use when towing the Pheasant as some crews liked its braking system and appreciated the improved manoeuvrability it offered in turning. Plus, a little extra storage space is always handy, right?
Either way, it’s a cute little limber, so I built it anyway.
The gun itself is not a complex build… which was a relief, because where the straightforward 6-pdr came with a 12-page instruction booklet, this one has just six pages, only two-and-a-half of which are dedicated to building the gun! (In case you’re curious, the limber requires a page and the crew take up a half-page.)
This compression does have some minor drawbacks, which could be frustrating to the inexperienced modeller: (a) the diagrams are pretty tiny, in Rubicon’s general style, and (b) as many of them take the form of exploded line-drawings, it can be tricky to visualise just how the finished article is supposed to look… especially when - for example - two separate components are labelled “Assemble FIRST” in red (not those pictured below). It does make sense, but I’m sure that there are more intuitive, more user-friendly ways of doing this.
Again, Ruby have thoughtfully included plenty of shells and empty cases for both types of gun, as well as the relative positions of the different gunners. In terms of the gunners, the kit includes arm options for both 25- and 17-pdr ammo but - bafflingly - no note about which one modellers should use. Getting this wrong through understandable ignorance could be heartbreakingly easy and heartbreakingly embarrassing for a gamer new to World War 2 (much like glueing a StuG’s gun barrel upside-down), so I would urge Rubicon to please consider in future maybe colour-coding such options: after all, this is something they do SO very well in many of their other kits. Please?
As with the 6-pdr, these figures are not yet glued in place as I need to base and paint them, and yes, even more so than the 6-pdr this Pheasant is perched on a 60mm base, but it’s my obsessive choice for basing uniformity, and I will die on this hill. As it’s a piece for gaming rather than for display, some of the crew will be based separately, but you may notice that the standing loader has been elevated by a millimetre or so to raise him to the level of the basing I’ll put down (he’s actually standing on an unneeded 25-pdr shells, like a weird, short rocket-ski!), and the gunline officer model, whose pose, annoyingly, has a foot raised to rest on the trails, has acquired himself a tactical fuel can - the gunline equivalent of the classic ‘tactical rock’.
This was a really fun build, and for those wondering, both versions of the gun can also be modelled with the circular platform raised, in ‘travel’ mode, which would go marvellously well with the Rubicon Quad FAT tow!
