challenger

Look forqward to that, although you may be getting people excited.

Certainly.

If you haven't looked here recently it might be worth a try. I will dig through some pictures I have. http://www.ferret-fv701.co.uk/vehicle_register.htm

hello there, I have recently found a VHS that I have for some time. On it is a sales blurb, about 10 minutes long about Fox. It shows it firing, driving around the gun being removed and the engine and transmission being taken out. The vehicles shown are 00SP86, 47MS22, 08FD74 and 09FD90. I am at present wrestling to get it transferred to disk but am having problems with picture quality and sound. But I will persevere. The film was produced by United Motion Pictures and is in colour. Anyone seen this before? PS it also shows quite a bit of the vehicle swimming.

A sorry looking Chieftain out in the desert of Oman.

Just in case you missed my article in Military Machines International here are some more of the Tortoise at Kirkcudbright. I reckon it is probably P6

Scorpion 02 FD 90 at the D & M School Bovington. You can probably see it through the fence at the Tank Museum. Seems in good order and has been there for some time.

Stuff lying around in the desert.

Unusual .22 case! I would say that perhaps it wasn't fully chambered when it was fired thereby blowing the base into that shape. Are the others in a similar condition?

Vickers Mk1 supplied to India and in this case Kuwait. A medium tank with a conventional layout. Armed with an L7 105mm main armament and two .30 Browning MG and one .50 Browning RMG The vehicle was a budget Centurion with many modern components. It had an L60 main engine taken from Chieftain as was the TN12 Gearbox. It also has a three cylinder diesel engine that drove a generating set when the main engine was switched off. Kuwait received 70 as did India however India manufactured around 2000 under licence and called them Vijayanta. At least one of the production vehicles stayed in the UK and all of the pre production/prototypes were kept by Vickers Defence Systems. Where these vehicles went is unknown. Perhaps one or more have survived in the UK. There are still many sat in the desert in Kuwait, doubtless hundreds in India.

Anyone got one of these?

Some more Comet, all at Kirkcudbright.

Saladin, not Oman but British Army in Cyprus in the seventies. 17th/21st Lancers at Pergamos and on exercise. very similar colour scheme but a little more glossy than Oman.

The photo looks like they had a completely English call sign. They seem to be on a miniature range as they have the .22 sub caliber bracket on the gun mounting.

Some more taken at Haltern near Munster. All pictures are fairly old but I'm told most of the wrecks are still there. These ones include Conqueror, Centurion, AMX 13, M47 and Centurion ARV. I was told before I went there that the tank that is upside down was in fact a German WW2 vehicle. I was very excited but alas no.

Some interesting stuff that could be found in Germany until quite recently. Sadly gone now. I believe one of the guns has gone to the Panzer Museum at Munster Oertze, formaly known as Munsterlager

Hello again, I have had an Omani look at your graffiti and this is what he has conluded. The first picture says "Abdullah Saif Nassir" ie a name. The second one says "Oman Abdullah Saif Nassir" So they say pretty much the same. The writing is written very quickly and is not grammatically correct. He assumes that the writer is not educated. The small one or two characters are meaningless and he does not know what they mean. They could be just notes i.e. the first letter of a place or such like. In the scribble there are lots of dots missing that would make sense if present. Again the writer was not that good at correct Arabic. Just Graffiti of a name. My previous post regarding God was a simple mistake he tells me as Abdullah is a derivative of Allah. So there you go. I have asked to try and find out if they ever mixed Arabic and English characters on their call signs so to explain the "P"

Hello agin, not an Arabic reader as such but the second picture right hand word is Allaah (God) So it is probably a reference to the will or greatness of God. Could be wrong but the first word is definately God. I will copy your pics and put a bit of time to it. Although someone with a little more knowledge may beat me to it.

If I get the gist of your question. Numbers in Arabic are written left to right but that is whole numbers. Words are written right to left so 11B is not 11 bravo but 1 then 1 then Bravo, writing from the right. See the previous picture. So whole numbers, say 120 and 130 in a line would be written 130 then 120. Reg numbers are usually a group of single numbers such as the one below. But are read as a whole number. In this case the numbers are 91881 but are read as if it were 91,881. If it were read applying the rules it should be read as 1 - 8 - 8 - 1 - 9 So to keep it simple the reg numbers are read as we do from left to right. The number on this Chieftain is actually a four digit number and not five but you get what I mean. It is 9188

Oman Saladin, most of the vehicles they had were "bought back" by Alvis as part of the deal to equip with Scorpion. I believe there are three remaining in Oman, two at the MBT regiment camp at Shaafa and one in Muscat at the Armed Forces museum. This one is at Shaafa. The call sign plates on those other Saladins do not match the way the Royal Army of Oman use call signs. The "P" is not right, P doesn’t exist in Arabic although this is from the English alphabet on this vehicle. See the other picture of a typical call sign in Oman, in this case 11B writing from right to left. Other than the "P" they do seem to be from Oman.

Old Chieftain. The Tank Museum have acquired what is to be believed to be P6 and reckon it is the oldest in existence. I alerted them to the fact that it had been removed from the gate at Chertsey and was residing at Bordon awaiting disposal. By the time they had moved it had gone for scrap, luckily they negotiated with the dealer and retrieved it. Not sure it is the oldest mind as P5 is on the range at Kirkcudbright along with an old un-armoured one. 00 DA 05 Not sure how old that one is. Below is P5 at Kirkcudbright when placed and now [/font]

One for Rick

Comet number three at Kirkcudbright. Pretty bashed up with no good side.

Some from a firing range in Egypt.

Comet number two. As has been said on here before the tanks on Kirkcudbright have a good side and appalling side. This is not completely beyond hope though, if you are looking for suspension bits and odds and ends from inside. The reg number seems to be ... ... ZR 22 I have a higher definition picture if anyone is interested.