Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rob]

Here's the rest of my photos, covering the WW2 vehicles and slightly post-war ones.



Outside the entrance is this very rare Churchill Mk I tank, as used at Dieppe. As well as the 2 pounder gun in the turret, it also has the 3 inch gun in the hull.



One of the first vehicles you see in the WW2 hall is the Matilda I tank, armed with only a Vickers machine gun, and looks very frail. There's also the hull and turret of another Matilda I in the huge store yard outside the Tank Museum, that looks like it had been used as a range target.



Another very rare exhibit is this A9 cruiser tank, fitted with two auxiliary Vickers machine gun turrets. Used by the BEF in France 1940, and also in the desert



One of two Daimler Dingo scout cars



Thornycroft Bison armoured lorry - designed in 1940 when fear of German invasion was high, it's fitted with a concrete pillbox in the rear and a concrete cab. Not exactly designed for high speeds, it was to be used as a mobile pillbox



L3/33 Italian light tank, fitted with a flame thrower



Crusader III tank, which had a problem with the tracks coming off at high speed!



Churchill III tank, the turret from the Mk III onwards was a complete re-design from that of the 2 pounder turret in the Mk I. This one is an AVRE variant with the spigot mortar in place of the main gun



Tetrarch light tank, which is where the Daimler armoured car Mk I got the turret design from. Flown into battle in the Normandy and Rhine landings by the huge Hamilcar glider, this example is in a surviving section of Hamilcar



A13 Cruiser tank, another BEF tank, fitted with a 2 pounder gun



Vickers Mk VI light tank, only armed with two Vickers mg's



Panther tank



Couldn't get a decent photo of the Cromwell, but here's the BESA machine gun in the hull



Matilda II - completely different from the Matilda I, it was slow (as it was designed as an infantry tank, to stay with the infantry), but was heavily armoured and could take a lot of punishment



AEC armoured car, fitted with a 75mm gun in the turret



Staghound armoured car with a 37mm gun in the turret - the Mk III Staghounds had the turret off a Crusader III fitted



Japanese Ha-Go light tank



Soviet KV-1 heavy tank



Enormous Jagdtiger, fitted with a 120mm gun. They also had a Tiger, Jagdpanther, and two King Tiger's (one with a Henschel turret, one with a Porsche turret), but I didn't have enough memory left on my camera to take photos of them unfortunately



A row of 'Funnies' - Cromwell dozer, Sherman 'crab' flail tank used for clearing paths through minefields, and a DUKW



Stuart M3A3 light tank



M10 Achilles - this is the British version fitted with a 17 pounder anti tank gun



Humber scout car



Buffalo LVT4 amphibian, used for carrying vehicles such as a Universal Carrier, M29 Weasel (which is in the back of this one) or a Jeep, they were also used to carry British infantry across the Rhine



Canadian Ram tank, built on the M4 Sherman chassis. Only a few were used by the Canadians in NW Europe



Another troop carrier is this Ram Kangaroo - the Ram tanks that were available after being replaced by Shermans were converted into troop carriers by removing the turret and ammo lockers etc



The Morris light reconnaissance car Mk I - used by the RAF regiment as well as the army, with a Bren gun in the turret and a Boyes anti tank rifle for the hatch next to the turret for the commander to use



8x8 Boarhound armoured car, designed by the US and ordered by the UK, but only 30 were built out of 2500 ordered by the UK as they had poor cross country performance. In the Leicestershire Regiment there's a photo of one driving through Leicester



A43 Black Prince, an experimental development of the Churchill tank with a 17 pounder gun, which was later developed into the Centurion



And to finish off, the A39 Tortoise heavy assault tank, developed for clearing heavily fortified areas. It weighted 78 tons and was armed with a 32 pounder gun, with three BESA mg's

[Job-Rated]

Tanks for the pics....
_________________
Don't run your fingers over my truck & I won't run my truck over your fingers!


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[Penman]

Hi
Here are a couple of photos from Bovington taken over 30 yrs ago (the boy in the pics is now 45)

[peter scott]

We had a few days in Prague last year and visited the millitary museum there. I was hoping to see the Mercedes that Heydrich was traveling in when he was assassinated but unbelieveably they had only weeks before given it to Bratislava. I can understand that with the splitting of the country that they should split their museum exhibits but given that the site of the assassination was in Prague this one seems a strange choice. That said it's still an interesting museum. They do still have Gabcik's battlescarred pullover.

No prizes for guessing the tank that stands outside the museum.

Peter



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