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buried and abandoned tanks


eddy8men

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As far as university geophys is concerned I doubt anything will happen until a couple of weeks into January now.

exactly.

2 weeks before Xmas is finals, and when the students leave so do all the profs.

 

Digging in the middle of winter can't be too much fun either. 2017 will be the year of the Covenanter :-)

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i don't plan on going back to work until mid jan so will have plenty of time to recover it, (as long as we don't get a hard frost or deep snow). april is the cut off date for the vineyard so if it doesn't happen in the next 4 months it will have to wait another year and that is not what i want to happen, it's fustrating but i just have to wait for the boffins to come along and do their bit

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Hopefully they will look like this. I have finally found my old slides (dated March 1981), converted them to JPEGs, reduced the size and here they are. One interesting point is the symbol on the front stowage bin (last pic) - it appears to be 79th AD which blows all my theories regarding 9th AD out of the window.

 

Possibly Bovington will have a record of what it was like before they restored it. The fifth pic is looking downwards through the turret opening.

 

Just reading David Fletcher's Crusader and Covenanter Cruiser Tanks 1939-45 (Osprey Press), a Christmas present.

 

Apparently the 13/18th Hussars recieved Covenanters in August 1941. This regiment transferred from the 9th to the 79th with Covenanters and Crusaders before converting into a DD regiment. That's probably where this one comes in :)

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Just reading David Fletcher's Crusader and Covenanter Cruiser Tanks 1939-45 (Osprey Press), a Christmas present.

 

Apparently the 13/18th Hussars recieved Covenanters in August 1941. This regiment transferred from the 9th to the 79th with Covenanters and Crusaders before converting into a DD regiment. That's probably where this one comes in :)

 

Can always hope some indication of unit may still be on the tank or records to show where they came from

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just read/skimmed thru an interesting white paper on what is officially now called Defence Training Estate SalisburyPlain DTESP, and was formerly the Salisbury PlainTraining Area, SPTA). (you guys sure love your acronyms). The paper talks about the construction of a tank-road in 1999 who's purpose was to mitigate the effect/damage of miltary vehicles tearing up the country-side.

The purpose of the road was to channel non-tactical military traffic onto a purpose-built concrete track and so reduce the impact on the surrounding terrain.
Just to build the tank-road they had to excavate a ditch 3 feet wide across the entire length and make sure no important iron-age sites were damaged. They eventually identified 30 sites and these had to be fully investigated before the road could be put in. Reminds me of something fro ma Monty Python movie.

 

It looks like the military is still using it but the boffins (learned a new word from Rick) :-D definitely have a heavy hand in It. lists this organization as being the entity in charge of the land at this time.

https://www.gov.uk/topic/defence-armed-forces/ministry-of-defence-estate

 

The pamphlet lists public access to the site thru right-of-ways and there's a number you can call to check for " firing times" LOL.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/public-access-to-military-areas

Health and Safety reminder for all military training areas and ranges

 

 

  • do not touch any military items
  • wash your hands before you eat
  • clean your shoes and boots before you enter your car or home

 

 

really sounds like between the army and the archeologists the chances of getting in there and doing any digging are less than zero

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adrian this is the message the guy sent me, does it ring any bells with you

Do you remember I think it was called Lavington anti tank (memory on names a bit out these days) it was off from Netheravon. It was where the School of Infantry used to fire their weapons. (That is where I found a live 50 cal ranging round) you would come up onto the range and the butts (if you could call them butts) were on the left a bit further on on the right was a huge crator, when I say hueg I mean huge, in it was this Cromwell, remember it well because it was upside down. At that time there were many Sherman tanks on the range but very few Churchills cannot remember what else was in the pit but there must have been Shermans. Cannot remember at that ime whether there were any comets on that side of the range. If you remember Sling cottages just as you come into Bulford from Tidworth and take the road down past them towards Bulford village just as you reach the bottom where the road turns left ( there is a bridge), going straight on you head up onto the range on the chalk road. Just at the start on the right there is an overgrown track which takes you behind the rifle ranges. About half a mile up there, there was a Comet hidden in the brush in great condition(I had the muzzle brake of off it). This is going back a lot of years now, often wonder if it is still there.

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I have some photos of a Churchill and I think a comet stacked up on top of each other holding up a target plate .... they were about 65% buried , had not been shot at for years and were off the beaten track . Taken about 1998 while on exercise on a recovery job .

Edited by shaun
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i've looked on google earth but although i spent 3 years in bulford i can't make head nor tail of it. the lat and long don't tie in with what i would call a huge pit ?

 

 

 

51 14' 46.17N 1 49'40.47W This is the closest I can get, you must remember it has been many years since I was up there. It was in that area that I have marked

 

15822479_10154871006723103_562927184_n.jpg

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There was a big clear up on Salisbury Plain about 20 years ago, removing most if not all WW2 armour that had been used as hard targets. I saw heaps of shot up vehicles in Shanleys scrap yard in Trowbridge including the remains of WW2 German half tracks, I was told that the 'good stuff' was in their other yard at Warminster but I never got round to checking it out, remember this was over 20 years ago and their is nothing of interest left in either of their yards.

 

An elderly chap that lives at the end of our road was chatting to me a couple of years ago and mentioned that when he was stationed at Warminster in the 1950s he was detailed to go to the railhead ( just behind where I work now) and help in offloading a full train load of Comet tanks, these were unused, they were refuelled then driven on to the Plain as hard targets!!!

 

I have been told by current and ex employees of where I work that there are still buried tanks on the Plain, including the Sherman DD that I mentioned on this post a few years ago, it was discovered when a new trench system was been dug, then reburied. Apparently there is one of the Tortoise tanks buried in preserved condition behind Imber Clump, and a load of WW2 scrap under the hard standings at work.

 

As all these are on active MoD property there is absolutely no chance of getting permission to dig up any of these.

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In tis day and age you never know, especially as they may want publicity such as those with Time Team and Annika Rice

 

There have been a few archeological digs on the Plain usually run by a military charity with injured troops, parts of a crashed Spitfire have been recovered and also a WW1 training trench system has recently been uncovered, the big problem on the Plain is the possibility of unexploded shells and bombs in the ground, but you never know stranger things have happened.

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It is surprising what good publicity and the right people asking for permission can achieve. The Military has all the resources (EOD techs , heavy recovery gear and trained operators) , Wounded/disabled Veterans are the perfect group to ask permission and participate in the dig , for starters the Military owe them big , the publicity is all positive , a small part of the training area gets cleared of dangerous material and some history gets retrieved. Ex Service men will no doubt be more interested in digging up tanks than bits of Roman pottery. everybody wins !

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