Comet tank in Irish service.

The Comet in Irish Defence Forces service

The following is simply a summary of the comet section of Karl Martin's excellent book IRISH ARMY VEHICLES Transport and armour since 1922 mixed in with some additional findings of my own.

The Comet was chosen for service in the years 1954/55.  While vehicles like the chaffee and Sherman were considered, it was decided that the Comet was probably better overall. While the American Walker Bulldog would have been a better contender as a medium tank it was out of the price range of the Department of defence. The budget allocation for the financial year 1954/55 was £80,000 for four Comets.

Due to the economic condition of the country the first comets were not purchased until 1958. The price of the first four vehicles had fallen to £22,000; £3,000 was allocated for spares. Delivery took place in 1959.

Another purchase was made in 1959 of an additional four vehicles and parts. This amounted to £22,000 on vehicles and £3,500 on parts.

Due to a fault found in "HE" rounds by the British no such rounds were made available. Armour piercing rounds were available and 500 were purchased.

Britain had removed the Comet from its inventory by 1959. Some officers from the Department Of Defence visited England and inspected the vehicles due for delivery. One vehicle was found to be slightly defective and was replaced and now comes an interesting point.

In the Bronco instructions it states that smoke dischargers were only fitted to vehicles that were garrisoned in Hong Kong, well funny that all the Irish vehicles had smoke dischargers. Maybe they had come from Hong Kong to be de-commissioned and ended up being sold on to the Irish Department of Defence.

All vehicles were in service by the end of 1960 but with the comet out of British service they no longer had a need to carry spares and sold these to commercial dealers. This started a spare parts shortage during its Department Of Defence service.

A vehicle fire in August 1962 put an end to the career of one vehicle. No parts were available to undertake the necessary repairs. This one was used as an experiment to try out a Bofors 90mm recoilless rifle.

The Comet remained in Irish service throughout the sixties.  By 1970 only 55 rounds of "AP" were left and the final shoot took place in 1973.

One vehicle is preserved and apparently two remain as gate guards.

this image shows the state of two of the vehicles in the 1980's

It is one of these that I wish to represent.

I will post WIP next.