steveo578

Young men in the forces do as they are told, it doesn't matter whether they are indotrinated by Communism or Western Liberal dogma- it is always thus. The belief, which has been mentioned on this thread that satalite Warsaw pact states particularly Poland and Czechosvakia would not fight along side the Soviets is IMO a reiteration of deluded retoric by senior western staff college officers who had a similar mindset as their fore-fathers had at Pashendale- "one more big push and it will be over by Xmas". In 1968 Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Warsaw Pact and although Prague and many of the main Cities (and Eastern Solvak provinces) were seized by Soviet troops much of the grunt work was done by DNVA and Polish troops -the Poles in particular supplying alot of technical, communication and inteligence support. Shades of 1938 and the seizure of Cieszyn perhaps. The British reaction -a series of recruitment posters claiming "it could never happen here". Steve

Alaska and Guam despite having 9 x 12inch guns were heavy cruisers, the standard US battleship armament was the 16inch gun and had been since 1921. If CB1 & 2 been armed with 6 x 16guns in 3 barbettes then they could be classed as battlecruisers, although I most conceed that as a cruiser hunter, in concept they could be regarded as doing the same duties as that carried out by British battlecruisers at the Falklands in 1914. By defination (by Adrimal Fisher concept) a battle cruiser was an intermediate between heavy cruiser and battleship. The first battle cruisers the Invincibles 1906-08 were a modern (1906) equivelent of the traditional heavy or armoured cruiser with a main armament equivelent in calibre to contemporary capital ship, in the Invicibles case the Dreadnought, Bellerophon and St Vincent battleships. brief details 8 x 12inch, 41000Hp, 6inch belt armour as opposed 10 x 12inch, 23000hp 10inch belt average for the Battleships. Again the Spelidid Cats were equivelent to the Orion and KG V and Iron Duke class battleship in the same way as previous described. The final class of (Fisher style) battleruiser was Renown and Respulse which again were equivelent to the 15inch gun battleships of the Revenge class. The final comisioned battlecruiser HMS Hood was a hybrid. With Mad Jack out of favour Hood was a fast version of the Queen Elizabeth Class (which in its own right was designed as a fast equivelent of the Revenge Class) with obviously comprimised armour ie neither one thing or the other, as to some extent was HMS Vanguard which had more akin to Hood rather than a proper capital ship. The only other battlecruisers commisioned were the 3 "light" battle cruisers of the Courageous class and they are really well outside the classic Battlecruiser cocept and were without purpose until converted to aircraft carriers- a fate which nearly befell the U.S. territories class cruisers CB1-6 in 1942 and would probably be a better bang for the buck than the 2 (Alaska and Guam) which were completed. The German Battlecruiser were slightly at variance with British policy in that gun calibres failed to keep up with improvements in capital ship gun calibre and this was apparent policy again in WW2 with 11inch battlecruiser and pocket battleships which are more in keeping with the Alaskas but none of these vessels could carry out the primary requirement of a battlecruiser- matching an contemporary battleship in fire power long enough to take evasive action, which was apparent in the last big gun action at North Cape where Scharnhorst was completely overwhelmed by British capital ships. Finally the only other nation that had battlecruisers was Japan the Kongo class being a stable mate with the Fuso-Hyuga class (14inch guns) although the Kongos with benefit of British know how were completed first. Russia failed to complete its ambitious programme which included a class of battlecruisers. Steve

I'll have to pass on whether the Churchill Dynometer is still in the Bovington collection, John will surely know if it is still there.

Missouri is a Battleship not a Battlecruiser the U.S. Navy never had any Battlecruisers, one battlecruiser class the Lexiington class was laid down in WW1 but only two were completed and they were aircraft carriers Lexington CV1 and Saratoga CV2. Also the U.S. still have the WW1 battleship USS Texas. While it is true the British have a lamentable record in save historic vessels from WW1 or 2, there is still Warrior which is an Ironclad Battleship and one British built Battleship of great importance still exists in IJN Mikasa which is a memorial to Admiral Togo, Mikasa was built at Barrow in Furness in 1900-02 and is very similar to the British Formidable and Canopus Classes.

Well that explains what happened to Fireflies - Mk1C and Mk1 hybrids being broken up.

Nice job Adrian, apart from the tracks it's hard to see a Cent is under the boiler plate.

The turreted Mk4 could well be the upturned re-enforced hull tank shown in Eddy8mans post #3. Excellent photos obviously a lot of the Churchills were removed even in 5 years or so between 1987 and 1992, your photos show two lines. Steve

Probably, but as the British Control Area covered many experimental and manufacturing facilities in Germany in 1945 it could be a unmounted barrel -could have even come from Kiel as the 38cm RW was originally an anti-submarine weapon. The chances are it was at one time in the Shrivenham armament display along with the Soviet 76mm gun which was taken from the T34/76 exchange vehicle. One notable exhibit at Shrivenham was a complete Kugelblitz turret - now returned to Koblenz.

There was the remains of a Mk4 Indian Pattern Carrier in the large scrapyard in Kabul Afghanistan many years ago, it had probably been the exhibit in the Afghan Army Museum where one was displayed for many years. The Indian Army Museum at Ahmednagar may have an Indian pattern Carrier and I think there may be a Mk4 in the large park in Calcutta were many Army exhibits were displayed in the mid 1970s.

Ashley The large German tank in Kubinka is a Maus (porsche designed super tank) they also have a Karl Mortar. The E100 was captured at the Henschel testing facility at Hustenbeck by the U.S. Army in the closing days of WW2. As it was in the British Control Area the U.S. decamped and the British moved in, played snorkel the Tiger in a large water test tank and brought home four large vehicles these were a Porsche turreted Tiger 2 and a JagdTiger prototype with porsche suspension both are probably those now at Bovington. The other 2 were the E100 which was like an oversize tiger 2 and the 17cm Grille which was a like an oversize hummel on tiger 2 components, both came back to England and were scrapped. Also brought home and lost were a Sturm Tiger and Berge Panther- the winch may still survive as it was unshipped and used for many years as a fixed unit at Chertsey and could still be there.

Hi Hanno What concerns me is not those that are waiting their turn for restoration - but it's the ones that vanish without trace -for example the Alvis Straussler A/C that was recovered from Portugal over 20 years ago and seems to have evaporated. It will be nice if the GPO re-appears, possibly it may already have re-appeared as an armed vehicle. The Pakistanis don't seem to have used Sextons, they used M7s but those captured would be relatively easy to use as Pakistan had towed 25pdrs. A GPO vehicle could be pressed into service without any difficulty -just another Sherman derivative. There is alot of confusion in both India and Pakistan as to which vehicles were captured by who. The Indians have several "captured M4A4s" which are more likely to be Indian Special purpose vehicles, one mounts a 76mm gun from a PT76 -which is a vehicle India used in quantity in the 1971 war in East Pakistan, but Pakistan never used PT76. As is the "captured" Sherman V with 75mm CN 50 gun which again is a weapon (AMX 13) that India used but Pakistan never had. It is feasable that the T16 could have been used by both India and Paksitan, India certainly listed "Bren Carriers" in the late 1970s and there are numbers of Mk2 Universals still in India. It is most likely that some T16 were supplied to the Army of India and HM forces in India prior to Partition to replace standard Universals that were time expired, certainly a number went to SEAC in the months before the end of WW2 and are still found in Australia. Apart from Australia, Britain, Argentina and of course the Netherlands, Britain had to dispose of slightly more than 13500 many could have been scrapped and a small number remained in US. Somewhere I have seen a photo of a T16 in Indian markings. Grey drab colour with an Indian Army number and Ordnance mark, but as yet I haven't been able to find it. Regards Steve

It's a miracle it didn't end up on a range, I suppose the biggest scrapyard loss in recent times was the turretless Grizzlies in the scrapyard in Lisbon Portugal about 1995.

Have you been in touch with the guy who owns the one at the pub in t34/85 post#9?.

It may upset the German fans there is a good chance that the E100 or the 17cm Grille -or at least some large German vehicle had it last resting place in Pounds yard before being reduced in the mid/late 1950s. So probably a lot more than is known was cut up, the reason we don't know what was there is that there were few if any photos prior to the early 1980s. Wards of Shefield continued to break up tanks until fairly recently, breaking up Chieftains in the 1990s, There was a scrap yard in Surrey that managed to hide a complete Panther (a British one) until its re discovery in 1977. Many ROF were involved in breaking up suplus tanks and other vehicles after WW2 particularly AFVs of riveted construction that did not require huge quantities of gas.

With the recent report that one of the ex Normandy DD tanks is up for sale if it starts to get really silly perhaps some-one might regard these as possiblities, The Covenanter is one of 2 in North Nolfolk (second one just visible in background) and if they are still there there are two more near the Detention centre in Lincolnshire (across the wash) and a turretless comet too. The Universal is on an island in Eastern Canada and is probably well rotted.

The following are dis-similar Reduction gear,fan drive, coolant pump, carburetor, wheel case, fuel pump, relief valve, oil pump, sump pan. Supercharger. Starter system. engine mount and probably fuel injection and spark. It may be possible to use a main block, crankshaft, cylinders pistons and cylinder heads, for a ground up rebuild but i'm not qualified to say whether it would pass a CAA inspectrion. Steve

Niels Thanks for that, I noticed that one of the Shermans on the web site you previously mentioned is CDP equiped, No doubt fitted for lack of T48 or T51 track on restoration. Steve

Hope this helps track drawing 1 shows the Spud. Drawing 2 shows the correct spud trialing action as described by Adrian.quoted here. The road wheel imparting a turning motion to the track link causing the "spud" to touch down squarely (flat) to the road surface. If reversed a sharp edge would contact first. As an addition Churchill Track (all four types) are as a general rule fitted with Spud Leading, however as the track passes over the first two road wheels in desending steepness of angle before contacting the ground under the third road wheel set, at which point the the spud is almost horizontal.

Tanks aren't like cars but there is a limit to how much restoration can be done, for example in the late 1980s a Vickers medium Mk2 was pulled out of Ashdown forest where it emplaced as a strongpoint, of course it was intended to be "fully restored" but after a few years sitting around Bovington's yard it was reduced to a pile of rust. There was a fairly recent discovery of a pre-war (1920s) Bugatti was found in the North East, but it was in the garage of an excentric retired doctor -went for a tidy sum.

Tech manual photo for M4A2 -M10 controls, Note 2 clutch lock outs and 2 hand throttles m4a2 controls.jpg

Try the already existing threads T34/85 which mentions a T34/85 at post #9 and Amazing Polish Prices post #23 several T34/85 are available on the PA KO site

Hi Bob As I don't have a range map I'm just using "the churchill ridge" as a short hand to orientate what we are talking about, certainly wouldn't want to call it after that annoying insurance dog!:cheesy: I know the main tank range was N November ridge, because it had a big wooden N at one end, the only others I know are X -to the south of N Ridge and Y? to the north of N ridge (near the wood to the east of right of way from Moor house) at least I think it was Y it had been knocked about by a shell or three. The Churchill 4 seems to have a 17* in blue on the back it probably isn't a brigade number as it's on the wrong side. Your photos show that almost all of these Churchills were gun tanks as opposed to the Bridglayers mentioned earlier in the thread that probably went straight onto the main tank ridges. steve

Hi Hanno You may be correct, perhaps it was re-configured as a armed Sexton or possilby as a donor for tank parts, I have never had an indication that a GPO is in existance (apart from the Pakistani one). Steve

T351699 T351400-T352199 are the the original registrations for Centurions with T351400 to T351699 alocated (according to paper records) to Centurion II or III, T351700 to T351799 alocated to Centurion I and T351800 to T352199 to I, II, and III (as there are 100 numbers already alocated to Cent I, this later batch can only include Mark Is if the previous was incomplete. Note the T numbers for the prototypes are T352412-17 so it is impossible to age a tank easily by number but I am sure there should be a Registration card for T351699 at Bovington. Production batch numbers were alocated prior to a final decision on production, as normal logic would place Mark II production after Mark I production, although production hold ups, bottle necks and changes could result in the confussed numbering system. Most likely the T351400- alocation was delayed allowing the improved Mark II turret to be produced. Tank numbers can be a nightmare:undecided: Steve

The Sexton under discussion is from Portugal by SECO of Augusta Georgia USA and was brought in with a couple of M4HST and another Sexton. If by Churchill ARV you mean the Mk2 than yes, the Mk1 was scrapped. Steve