Adrian Barrell

There is a product called micromesh sold for cleaning scratches from aircraft canopies. It uses progressively finer meshes to polish out marks. We use Mr Sheen to clean the flies off and it also polishes out minor blemishes but is too gentle to remove scratches.

Mine has those skids...... Congrats on the baby, your life has changed forever! For the better though....:yay:

Stefano, you obviously like a challenge! If it were easy, everybody would do it....:-D

It's part of a film! http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=31371 I won't be doing that with mine!

It's a French truck so if not in France, probably Algeria.

Prior to the 1994 Normandy Tour, I was asked by Neville Anderson at the Tank Museum if I would consider restoring my Sherman as a DD to enable an amphibious landing at Arromanche...... At that time there still was, I think, the remains of a DD at Battlesbury Bowl with the prop bevel boxes still fitted. However, the scale of the problem and the time involved made it a non starter for me. Anything is possible but....

You can buy the harder to find small sizes from aviation outlets as no. 6 to 12 are still standard. They are expensive though! Another option is the hardware section of Amazon USA. Not all sellers will dispatch to the UK but you can find most things there for US sizes. BSF is getting harder now but there is still a lot about if you look hard enough. I pride myself on almost never needing to dismantle with the gas. It is unusual for me to not be able to at least save the bolt.

Can't believe nobody has suggested the Dakota! In service from 1930s till now!

American fasteners were generally cadmium plated, an excellent anti-corrosion treatment. Harder to get done today as it is a very toxic metal. It is a little duller and whiter than bright zinc though the latter does oxidise slightly over time. Dull nickel looks similar but is less hard wearing.

Maus and E100 were two different beasts. Maus was 180 tons and one does survive at Kubinka. E100 never went into production but some prototype hulls were captured.

I don't think so, Pz IV was used by Syria but as far as I know Panther was not used other than by France.

The French Army used a lot of Panthers post war for the simple reason that the countryside was littered with them! I suspect they did not do many track miles due to the problems outlined by Maurice but as a long range (compared to Sherman 75mm) hole puncher, they would have excelled.

Hi Bob, good to see you on here. Any plans to do a feature on the A7V project? It looked good in tracklink.

Yeah, great.....thanks Jack! That Churchill would be a big task, I'll leave it for another if that's allright.:-D

Welcome Gary, hope you like this place, it can be a madhouse at times but all in good fun! Regarding registration, it's fairly simple in theory. The DVLA will require a dating letter from an approved club, the main one being the MVT. You do not have to be a member though it is better to be so for this service and well worth joining anyway. You contact the club verification officer, he arranges a visit to inspect the vehicle and a letter is drafted for the DVLA. The inspector will need to see a chassis number and ideally an engine number. On a Willys, there should be a small chassis plate on the inside of the left hand chassis rail just behind the bumper. The number should be something like MB 123456. A Ford GPW has the number stamped into the chassis itself. You fill in a form V55/5 I think and take it with the appropriate fee etc to the local VRO and they should issue you with a tax disc which is of course free for a historic vehicle. The Jeep requires an MOT so you would have to get that done first and arrange insurance cover before you visit the VRO. The inspection can be done at any point before all of this and indeed it is best to atrrange it sooner rather than later as being provided as a voluntary service, it can take a little time to happen! The only thing to think about there is that the inspector needs to see it as a substantially complete vehicle not just a pile of bits on the floor..... It does not need to be restored though! Regarding wartime or other military use, careful sanding of paint may reveal some numbers, the lower edges of the bonnet being a good place to look but tracing an individual jeeps service history is next to impossible. You will find amongst these pages not a few tales of woe regarding registering vehicles but the jeep is about the easiest to do so should present no problems. Hope this helps. Adrian

True..... Mind you, I live on top of a hill, well what passes for a hill in Suffolk so at least when that happens I can have one last run to the bottom. Weeeee! :yay:

This is a question that had me thinking hard a few years ago. My Sherman is pretty rare as Shermans go being one of only a handfull of M4A4s in running condition with the correct engine and one of only three 'standard' 75mm gun tanks of the type. My Cromwell is even rarer, a genuine 1RTR Normandy veteran, though still to be restored. When I aquired them, prices were nowhere near what they are now and I seriously considered leaving them in my will to an organisation rather then them being sold off to the highest bidder and disappearing abroard. Bovington do not have a standard Sherman 75mm gun tank as used in large numbers by the British Army neither do they have an exhibit with a British NW Europe combat history. The thing is, now that The Tank Museum have to cater to the masses for their survival, I'm sure the sherman in particular would be used for the mobility displays until it broke and would then be shoved in the back of the reserve collection building. This is in no way a critisism of The Tank Museum, just an observation. However, now I have a daughter and with WW2 tanks making good(!) money, they would have to be sold and if that is a result of my demise, I can't be worrying about where they go or what happens to them! In the meantime, I have no intention of selling them and continue to enjoy them to the full.

Aircraft often landed at airfields other than their own for a number of reasons. The wheel covers suggest this was home base but the fact the photo was found near Boston means nothing. I would suggest taking up Steves offer, there are a lot of knowledgable people on the FlyPast Forum.

Sorry Joris, I was being pedantic! It should of course, be A Bridge Too Far. A Bridge To Far means a bridge to a place called Far. :-D

Where is this place Far where the bridge goes to?

It was Charlie Mann from Lamanva who provided many of the vehicles and all of the real Shermans were from European military sources. Several glassfibre mock ups were built on Land Rover chassis. At least a couple of these came back to the UK and could be seen at Lamanva. Not sure what happened to them.

All the tabloids are interested in is selling newspapers. They will print whatever they feel will accomplish this aim. I don't buy a paper at all.

The puppies reference is an aviation joke.... Everytime an incident occurs that could have been an accident, it's said some puppies died. :cry: Not sure what wit came up with that though I suspect he was only half right....

Some DC3s had Wright R1820 but most used Pratt and Whitney R1830 Twin Wasps. The Sherman radial is a Continental R975 though that is a Wright design. The numbers indicate the capacity in cubic inches.