“which show that Centurions were effective in jungle operations.”
The operations described were not unlike those carried out in Burma in WWII
A few things about that painting struck me as unlikely, so I looked it up to see what it was supposed to illustrate.
[i]"Diggers in Nam, Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, 5th - 7th June 1971 by David Pentland.
Centurion Mk 5/1 of C squadron 1st Armoured Regiment, Royal Australian Armoured Corps, scrub bashing during Operation Overlord. This proved to be one of the most successful of tank/ infantry co-operations when the tanks of C Squadron gave decisive fire support to infantry of 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment and APCs of 3rd Cavalry Regiment against a strongly entrenched NVA battalion north of the province."[/i] Vietnam War Prints
The thing that struck me immediately was the turret machine gunner wearing the RAAC black beret and chrome badge. In the jungle; on operations; against the enemy? I wore that beret and badge in that era, although as cavalry rather than tanks, and wearing it in those circumstances went against every piece of training we got. As, possibly, does the cap worn by the bloke to his left (right of picture) which appears to have some sort of bright badge in the middle. Bags me being either of the other two blokes on the turret, who are much less likely to be the first target for a sniper.
The lack of headgear on those actually involved in the operation in the following three photos is much more consistent with training and practice than the painting.
Centurion in another operation in jungle in Vietnam. Bags me not being one of the blokes in front of the tank if it fires its main weapon.
How would I know?
They never let cavalry (i.e. mechanised infantry grunts) like me get anywhere near a tank, in case we infected or otherwise sullied it or its majestic crew with our inferior presence. See photo above with Gen Westmoreland for majestic tank crew and then imagine what we were like a long way down the scale of military magnificence. 
I did see a tank once during my brief service. It was in the Armoured Corps tank museum. I wasn’t allowed to get close to that one, either.
Just occurred to me that there are problems with that photo.
Australian War Memorial caption says “A sharp eye is needed when moving through jungle such as this in South Vietnam. Sitting astride an Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV), his M60 machine gun close by, is Private (Pte) Frank Jelen of Fairfield, NSW, a member of the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR). The ARV is followed by a Centurion tank. Australian soldiers of 3RAR and 4RAR combined with C Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment, in Operation Overlord on the border of Phuoc Tuy and Long Khanh Provinces, to the north of the 1st Australian Task Force Base (1ATF) at Nui Dat.”
Why would a recovery vehicle be the lead vehicle in any offensive operation?
Why would the M60 machine gunner on the recovery vehicle be facing the “following” Centurion? Surely he would be facing forward in the opposite direction if the recovery vehicle was in the lead.
I reckon it’s more likely that the Centurion is the lead vehicle with turret reversed in heavy country, and the recovery vehicle is following.
Edit: The faint tracks don’t decide it either way, as they’re consistent with either vehicle being the lead vehicle.
Tanks were not so majestic if you were in one, while not having to walk everywhere was a nice bonus, they were smelly, cramped,noisy, not at all comfortable, and could be very difficult for crew to escape from should the need arise. Not to mention that they were RPG(and pretty much anything else) magnets . And to add insult, the U.S. Tanks had no boiler to make coffee tea, or soup. The Heater exhaust pipe was good for heating, but we were never allowed to run them as that consumed too much diesel.
We always enjoyed having the dirty grunts, er, I mean Hallowed Infantry nearby, good fellows to have at hand, we’d keep each other safe from the Communist Hoards. (or would have had it ever come to that. ) 
A bonus?
That was the whole bloody reason I joined the Armoured Corps, having been promised by the recruiter a life of endless military magnificence and luxury as I propelled my Ferret Scout Car around the planet in almost no time after completing basic training.
Yeah, right!
Not the mighty Ferret.
Thoughtfully provided with escape hatches on both sides of the hull.
Admittedly, you wouldn’t need the escape hatches if the mighty Ferret got hit by an RPG, but otherwise they could be quite handy, such as with a sudden case of explosive diarrohea threatening localised chemical or bacteriological warfare inside the vehicle.
Nah, in your era you and the infantry and everyone else would have demonstrated how much toast could be made in Europe courtesy of Soviet toaster missiles, and vice versa for the Soviets.
Thank Christ we all avoided that.
You’re sounding like just about every former, sniper-eyed serviceman I know, who cannot help pointing out mistakes in production. It’s the critical eye which comes from years of training and experience.
I would guess that it is, in part, a little artistic license. To catch the spirit of the operation and the hour. The beret being identifiable is probably included for that reason - a little piece of history to be hung in the Officers Mess. It is not untypical of other portrayals of operations in other armies.
Border Regiment arriving at Oosterbeek, Operation Market Garden. Two of the figures are wearing berets, they would have all been wearing helmets.
(My Bold and Italics). That’s a negative there: We’re clearly seeing the spare wheel set mounted on the distinctive sloped glacis plate of the following Cent. (Unless the whole column is reversing through the J.) :shock:
Cheers,
Cliff
You are perfectly correct.
I am embarrassed. :oops:
So much for my acute powers of observation. I saw what you saw, but it didn’t register.
Wastemorland probably spent more time obsessing over his uniform than he did strategy…
The FV4202 was a test bed vehicle designed to test out concepts for the Chieftain and was never envisaged as anything else.
An essential bit of kit gracing the G1098 stores of all units with armoured vehicles since the 1950’s - second item on your CES after the vehicle
When the last Cents retired from the Sappers it was the end of a love hate relationship - with many sad to see the old girls go (Cent Mk 5 165 AVRE and Cent Mk 12 105 AVRE) - especially as they got Chieftain AVRE’s to replace them, although they were not the ‘build as cheap as you can from spares you can find Willich ChAVRE’ but the ‘Vickers build a very expensive version using all the ideas and design information done by 23 Base Wksp and charge a premium for it’