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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:02:58 GMT
For the tankers. Post your faves or not.
Matilda II "The Queen of the Desert"
The most successful British tank of the early war. A thing of beauty. About twenty saw service in France '40 but it largely gained fame in the desert. From their first Matilda encounter at Agordat in Italian East Africa in 1940 the Italians had no gun capable of destroying it at any reasonable range. The same in Cyrenaica/Egypt 1941 where the Italians were routed and forced to retreat in disorder back to Libya. Here's one sporting a captured Italian flag.
When the Afrika Korps arrived to support the Italians they found that had the same problem. They had no gun capable of penetrating the Matilda's armour at any reasonable range. Hence a legend was born, as they adapted their (rather mediocre) 8.8cm Anti Aircraft Gun into its lethal anti-tank role - the 88. The Italians later copied this and supplied their 90mm AA guns with AP shells. As far as I know they didn't produce a separate AT version.
I think the tank in the background in the picture below is the unrelated Matilda I, a cheaply produced ugly brute with similar armour to the II but only armed with machine guns. It just saw service in France '40. AKA the Donald Duck.
As an "Infantry Tank" the Matilda II was slow. It also had limited anti personnel capability and carried no HE shells. By the end of 1941 it's 2 pounder gun was becoming a limitation. And so it was taken out of production and its role taken over by the cheaper, slightly faster but entirely more prosaic Valentine series.
Existing Matildas stayed in service through to the end of the war. It was supplied to other Empire and Commonwealth tank units and it was also employed versus the Japanese. Various engineering versions were produced including the Frog flamethrower variant. I may be wrong but it might well be the tank longest employed on front line duties during WW2.
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:08:47 GMT
Here's the Donald Duck
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:10:03 GMT
Any eras folks. I just bore about the war.
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Post by marwood on Apr 27, 2016 11:10:32 GMT
had the opportunity to buy a tank once - was working with a scrap metal dealer and a farmer offered us one -always regret not buying it and selling it.
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:13:04 GMT
had the opportunity to buy a tank once - was working with a scrap metal dealer and a farmer offered us one -always regret not buying it and selling it. What was it? There used to be a collection of WW2 equipment in a field at the bottom of Keele Bank.
I know a lot of ex soviet bloc stuff came onto the market in the '90s.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 11:22:24 GMT
Damn, wanted to post a pic of my fish tank
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Post by marwood on Apr 27, 2016 11:23:09 GMT
(blasphemy alert) - I dont know - they all look the same to me. WWII or later? In a field up on the moors between Butterton and Hulme End
I think he wanted £1000 - this was 20 years ago - in retrospect I should have snapped his hand off. it seemed pretty rotten but was a great talking point, and worth that to him for 'feature value'
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:41:23 GMT
(blasphemy alert) - I dont know - they all look the same to me. WWII or later? In a field up on the moors between Butterton and Hulme End I think he wanted £1000 - this was 20 years ago - in retrospect I should have snapped his hand off. it seemed pretty rotten but was a great talking point, and worth that to him for 'feature value' Dunner worry, I guarantee knowing a bit about WW2 tanks has never got me laid! I don't know much about the values nowadays. There is a hell of a lot of hard work involved in restoration though and you have to have somewhere sound to keep it. I seem to remember at one time you could pick up a clapped out, but running, Czech T54 for as little as £500. You can buy a drive of a tank nowadays. Probably at Bovington Tank museum as well.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 11:44:33 GMT
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 11:46:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 11:47:39 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 11:52:07 GMT
I think that ones a male ?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 12:06:32 GMT
The Black Prince ...in essence an improved and updated Churchill
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 12:18:35 GMT
Interesting tank the Churchill. Am I right in thinking the design traces back directly to the MkIV? Particularly the drive and track assembly.
Slow bugger. Immense power though. It could tackle some serious inclines. Most useful in Tunisia and Italy.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 12:26:20 GMT
You can see its ancestry to the mark IV clearly , it always looked a little obsolescent compared to certain other WW2 tanks , but it was a decent machine though it could traverse those remarkable inclines easily , its reputation suffered somewhat during the ill fated Dieppe operation where through no fault of the tank it was caught up on those impenetrable shale beaches ....a lack of forward planning that was rectified for the D-Day landings..
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 12:31:19 GMT
Boggles my mind the Dieppe raid and a harsh blooding for the Canadians involved.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 12:37:56 GMT
Definately a harsh blooding for the Canadians .....who ever thought of landing heavy tanks on large loose shale beaches and expecting them to operate efficiently must have been mad .Why land so many tanks when the object was only to capture areas of the port , hold them for a day and then pull out ? Logistical madness .
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 12:43:24 GMT
Was it a sop to Uncle Joe re the promised second front? Or is that a bit cynical.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 13:02:08 GMT
No I think I think that's an accurate assumption , also the Americans if they had had their way would have pushed for an invasion of Europe as early as 1942 . We can only imagine what the outcome of that would have been but I prefer not to...the failure of Dieppe went some way to convincing them that we were not ready to for an operation of such nature ......the Torch landings in Africa did have an effect in mollifying them though as did the later campaigns in Sicily and mainland Italy .
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 14:51:20 GMT
or this complete with a well known song
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 15:58:44 GMT
or this complete with a well known song The Cheiftan .....Best tank of its era .
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 16:03:25 GMT
or this complete with a well known song The Cheiftan .....Best tank of its era . Inking another thread had no problems while parking =)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 19:31:33 GMT
The Centurion just post WW2 truly world class tank precursor to the mighty Cheiftan. Attachment Deleted
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 19:35:39 GMT
Where's the Comet and the Challenger then? :-)
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Post by supersimonstainrod on Apr 27, 2016 19:40:06 GMT
Did the Pershing see much combat or was that a post WWII tank?
Also,any posters on here visited the Tank Museum at Bovington and recommend it?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 19:41:17 GMT
Where's the Comet and the Challenger then? :-) Well the Comet was an improved Cromwell wasn't it ? The Challenger is a modern MBT that owes its ancestry in some way back through the Centurion and Cheiftan.
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 19:44:32 GMT
Where's the Comet and the Challenger then? :-) Well the Comet was an improved Cromwell wasn't it ? The Challenger is a modern MBT that owes its ancestry in some way back through the Centurion and Cheiftan. Yeah I've got the name wrong and I can't think what it is now. The Cromwell with the big square turret and the 17pdr gun. Riv's Nashorn has given me an idea for tomorrow. :-)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 19:46:34 GMT
Did the Pershing see much combat or was that a post WWII tank? Also,any posters on here visited the Tank Museum at Bovington and recommend it? A few Pershings saw service at the end of the war ....The " Super " Pershing had a bigger gun at least one saw service and certainly destroyed several German Panzers including one Tiger at least .
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2016 19:50:10 GMT
Well the Comet was an improved Cromwell wasn't it ? The Challenger is a modern MBT that owes its ancestry in some way back through the Centurion and Cheiftan. Yeah I've got the name wrong and I can't think what it is now. The Cromwell with the big square turret and the 17pdr gun. Riv's Nashorn has given me an idea for tomorrow. :-) Are you thinking of the Centaur ?
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Post by Skankmonkey on Apr 27, 2016 19:50:32 GMT
No, I'm right bisph. A30 Cruiser Tank Mk VIII Challenger. Saw some service at the end of the war but poor mechanically.
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