Staghound Mk.I - Brigade Piron (1st Belgian Brigade)

Hello everyone,

This is the last project I just finished: a Staghound Mk. I from the 1st Belgian Brigade (Brigade Piron). This is the Italeri kit with resin stowage and smoke dischargers from Resicast. The figures are from Alpine and the street accessories from Miniart excepted the street lamp which comes from a really old Tamiya set. The pavement and the paved road are scratchbuilt following the technique described in Art of Modelling n°19.

This particular Staghound (F215464) was the only Staghound that the Brigade possessed when they landed in Normandy on the 8th of August 1944 (along with 2 Staghound AA) and was used as a communication vehicule, this resulting in a factice gun in order to have more space in the turret to fit the radios. Most of the other armoured cars were Daimlers and Scout Cars. 

The scene depicted here was inspired by a picture that was taken on the 4th of September 1944 during the liberation of Brussels and that I saw on the official website of the Brigade Piron (http://www.brigade-piron.be). This website is really worth a visit and you can find a lot of information (and pictures) about the history, the organisation, the campaigns, the men and equipment of the 1st Belgian Brigade. The webmaster of this site, Jean-Louis Marichal, is the grandson of a veteran of the Brigade and made this site to pay a tribute to these men. 

Before going on to the pictures, I wish to thank M. Jean-Louis Marichal and the volunteer workers from the "Musée Royal de l'Armée" in Brussels who provided me pictures and precious informations that helped me in the realisation of this project. As you can realise, it is harder to find information about the armoured vehicules of the 1st Belgian Brigade than about Shermans or Panzers in Normandy... I wonder why  ; )

I hope you'll enjoy these pics!

Happy modelling!