Centurion photos

[Dan Martel]

Mike,

Further to the adding of an armour plate to the glacis of the Centurion, I have a few questions. I'm guessing that whatever was already welded to the glacis of a Mk 3 needed to be removed prior to the addition of a new plate. (I'm assuming that it was a single plate of steel, for strength integrity purposes.) When the various furniture that was required on the front of the vehicle was added again, was there a new arrangement that made it visibly different from earlier? Was a plate also added to the bottom of the front of the tank? The part of the bottom that comes up to meet the glacis? Is there a way to immediately tell if the vehicle one is looking at is a Mk 5/1 (uparmoured) or not, especially from a distance or from a side view?

Finally, was uparmouring a process that could be accomplished at a Base Workshop or did each vehicle have to go for a full factory refurbishment?

Cheers,
Dan.