News for all things related to Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles
It’s time we caught up on the Matilda Diaries series from the Tank Museum at Bovington. This video series examines the Museums efforts to restore their Matilda II infantry tank. These episodes look at restoration of the turret, the gun and the gearbox.
Here is a short video of World of Tanks researcher Nick Moran interviewing Stefan Karlsson on the topic of Swedish tank history.
Here is part 1 & 2 of the “Inside the Hatch” video looking at the Stridsvagn 74 featuring Nicholas Moran of World of Tanks.
The thirty second in a series of short films about some of the vehicles at the Tank Museum featuring historian David Fletcher MBE. The Second World War, British, Cromwell tank was one of the fastest tanks of the war.
Here is a collection of some recent tank videos that have appeared on youtube. While none of these deserved a post of their own, we thought they were entertaining enough to warrant being posted collectively.
We start with a few videos from the youtube page of Russian tank researcher Yuri Pasholok.
Here is a video of a T-34 driver showing off.
Here are some clips of US forces in Eastern Europe courtesy of Military Videos channel.
We finish with this clip of what looks like a T-62 being struck by an ATGM in Syria.
Somehow we missed this when it was released at the end of last month. Anyhow, here is another installment of Tank Talk with Len Dyer of the National Armor and Cavalry Restoration Center.
The facebook page for the National Armor and Cavalry Museum is reporting that the turret to what looks like a M1917 tank has been found in the woods at Fort Benning. We have re-posted the content of the post below.
While the NACM’s armor collection is focused mainly around vehicles, they are but artifacts with which we are able to honor the legacy of the Americans that crewed them. After this past week, we are fortunate enough to be able to connect more to the Tank Corps of World War I.
A team preparing a section of woods to be cleared here at Fort Benning happened upon a tank turret. As per regulation, post agencies were informed of a potential artifact, and in turn the musuem was notified. Photos identified the turret belonging to a French-built Renault FT light tank. At the end of World War I, the Tank Corps brought back approximately 200 of its FTs to use along with the American-built M1917. Many ended up at Fort Benning, which became home to the Tank School starting in 1920. As the FTs were phased out, many were de-militarized by simply removing the turrets and selling for use in agriculture or industry. While the NACM collection currently has two Renault FTs, neither of these served with the American light tank battalions during the war. Though not complete and no other remains of tanks have been found at the location, the historical significance of the turret was obvious.
Today, a team consisting of NACM personnel, Marines assigned to the Marine Corps Detachment Fort Benning, and veteran volunteers move quickly to secure the turret. Despite the thick woods, uneven terrain, and rain the turret is now at the restoration shop. It is already being cleaned to prevent further deterioration. It will be preserved in tribute of the early American tankers.
(Photos by NACM Volunteers Mr. David Hobbs and Mr. Jon Potts)
Over at The FirearmBlog (TFB), contributor Nathaniel F has written a post examining the peculiar myth of P-47 fighter bombers “bouncing” .50 cal bullets into the bottom hulls of Tiger tanks during the fighting in the ETO in 1944-45. The piece is in response to this clip from a TV show documentary.
As a researcher and history enthusiast, one of the issues I often have to wrestle with is that of eyewitness accounts, specifically when to trust them and when not to. That subject itself is one for another time, but today I want to look at a specific example of an eyewitness account as an illustration of how they can be misleading to someone trying to reconstruct historical events.
The account in question is this one, apparently from an unknown television documentary, in which a former P47 pilot describes attacking German tanks by bouncing bullets off the ground and into the underside of the tank’s hull.
The latest version of the USA Historical AFV Register is now available for download. For those not familiar with this document, it is a list of every tank and AFV on public display in the US organized by state. This latest version is authored by Neil Baumgardner and Michel van Loon. It can be downloaded in PDF format either here or here. This document is a must have for when you plan your next vacation!
Lincolnshire Live has posted an article about the early British tanks used at the 1917 battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres). These early British tanks were built by William Foster and CO Ltd which was located in Lincoln, a fact that explains why Lincolnshire Live has posted a number of article related to WWI tanks over the past year. Click on the headline below to read the full article.
This summer sees the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, in northern Belgium, where a total of 590,000 troops died in the space of three months.
The bloody conflict raged from July 31, 1917 to November 6, 1917 and resulted in the deaths of 325,000 Allies and 265,000 Germans.
Passchendaele, known as the Third Battle of Ypres, was one fight in an horrific series of battles during the First World War.
The fighting took place in West Flanders for control of strategic ridges to the south and east of the city of Ypres.
Alongside gas, shells, machine gun fire or improvised clubs made from spade handles wrapped in barbed wire, soldiers also had to contend with mud, mud and more mud.
Unlike the chalky terrain of the Somme, Passchendaele became infamous for its boggy conditions and waterlogged trenches thanks to constant rain turning the battlefield into a quagmire.
And it all proved too much for the tanks, a new invention by William Foster & Co of Lincoln that had first entered battle with a stutter rather than a splash at Flers-Courcelette on September 15, 1916.
The seeds of using tanks to support advancing infantry had been sown, but this tactic proved such a disaster at Passchendaele that the British almost abandoned tank warfare altogether.
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