From the Vault: Differences in counting tank losses

July 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Today we present a short article by William Platz from the May 1973 issue of AFV-G2 magazine on the differences in how tank losses were recorded by the WWII German Army compared to how they were recorded by the British Army.  We often find that people in some of the online forums love to quote loss figures for different WWII actions, often taking at face value the figures reported in after action reports.  This article does a nice job in showing how different counting methods could often lead to reported numbers differing significantly from reality.

german loss counting methods

We realize this article is from a copyrighted source, albeit a 40 year old one.  If anyone associated with Baron Publishing still exists and wants us to remove this, we will be happy to do so.  We present it strictly for educational purposes, we run no ads on this site and make no profit from it, other than the personal satisfaction of spreading around information we find interesting.

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Tank Chats #7 British Mark II with David Fletcher

July 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment

The Tank Museum has posted another installment in their Tank Chats series featuring David Fletcher.

The seventh in a series of short films about some of the vehicles in our collection presented by The Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher MBE.

Only fifty tanks each of Marks II and III were produced. They were unarmoured, in the sense that the steel from which they were built was not heat treated to make it bullet proof. The reason being that these tanks were only intended for use as training machines.

The chief external differences from Mark I lay in the tail wheels, which were not used on Marks II and III and later heavy tanks, the narrower driver’s cab and the ‘trapezoid’ hatch cover on the roof.

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Panther tank found in German Basement

July 2, 2015 by 4 Comments

panzer468_v-vierspaltigA couple German language articles have appeared in the press the last couple days reporting on a WW2 era Panther tank having been found in a basement of an elderly German collector in Heikendorf.  Apparently, a Bundeswehr unit equipped with two armored recovery vehicles were sent to the residence to recover the vehicle (or vehicles, some reports say two tanks were found.)  It is being reported that a seven meter long torpedo was also removed from the premises.  The articles state that the items were removed as they were in violation of the War Weapons Control Act, a claim the lawyer for the item owner says does not apply since the tank is not operational.  An article from NDR.de has some pictures of the tank being removed from the premises.  The articles does not state the name of the 78 year old collector who owns these items.

Original articles (in German)  

Der Spiegel Online

Kieler Nachrichten

NDR.de (This article has pictures.)

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Israel to upgrade Argentinian TAM tanks

July 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment

tam-tankJane’s is reporting that Israel has won a contract with Argentina to upgrade 74 of their TAM tanks.  The contract is stated to be worth $111 million.  According to Jane’s:

The deal was signed by Argentine minister of defense Agustin Rossi and Mishel Ben-Baruch, director of the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s International Defense Cooperation Division (SIBAT), on 26 June.

Rossi announced that the contract includes an offset agreement clause that will establish joint ventures to oversee technology transfers to Argentina. The work is to be performed at the 601 Arsenal Battalion in Boulogne Sur Mer in Buenos Aires province.

The article stub from Jane’s does not include details about what the upgrade will entail.  According to the wiki page for the TAM:

In 2010, a modernization program was announced. Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems was chosen to provide 3-axis gyro-stabilization, and most probably the L7A2 105 mm cannon will be replaced with a more powerful 120 mm cannon, like the L44 120 mm Cannon.

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Video: History of US Tanks

July 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment

This Vietnam war era government documentary showed up on youtube today.  Not sure if this video has appeared online before, but it’s the first time we recall seeing it.

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