RattlesnakeBob

On Google Earth is a good view.....parked up in a farmyard right on the side of the road ....... .............patiently waiting for me to win the Lottery obviously!

South West/South Wales region I was mate..often to be found in the Hereford area and occasionally ventured further up into the Midlands now and then also Bristol / Stroud sort of area but mainly Gloucestershire and South Wales.....where were you in those days?? .. I guess we probably know shared names and faces ?

The Haflingers are really capable vehicles:-) ..I came across quite a few of them during my days with the All Wheel Drive Club back in the 1980s and early 90s..it may be an idea to seek out a few AWDC fellas and start asking questions?... ..Many vehicles of all descriptions that got 'trialled' back in those days often ended their days parked up derelict in someones farmyard or shed.....you never know??...... ..there could easily be a few still about...... if you ask enough people someone might say something like " Yeah ! Dave from so and so had one of them ! I think he's still got it!" Try going on their website and posting a message on their forums maybe ?????

Bet that caused the front seat passenger to cough ........

cracking

For some reason the phrase 'Heath Robinson' comes to my mind

Just down the road from me , I well recall going in there when I worked on a farm in the 1970s to fetch trailer loads of stone.... ......I dunno what anyone else might think about it but.......if I wanted to look around an old Landrover ,a Stalwart and an ex London Double Decker Bus..there's a lot easier ways to do it than under 30 metres of water. ..........sunken derelict old boats I can understand the interest in looking at but......a bus???:undecided: ..........I'm guessing they may be sunk for 'rescue' training purposes though I suppose

I recall recently reading/hearing that a BEF Tank dug up off a beach near to Calais in the mid 1970s by the fella that owns/owned the Batterie Todt Museum has now been scrapped...Apparently it'd finally completely fell apart over the years awaiting 'rebuilding'... . sad but.... it was in an awful state when first recovered so expectable I guess... ....the little carrier above though???....I've seen a lot worse wrecks on here that have been rebuilt .. ..isn't there a fella on here at the moment putting a carrier together out of 2 absolute piles of knackered shot up scrap he got from a Dutch Range??????? .fair play to dedication I say .....and a very fat wallet

throwing my bit in.....that doesn't look like any 'standard' LR 6 cylinder ??? I don't know though....there's so many different variants and who knows what's been cobbed in them over the years ...:nut: and the front diff looks 'Salisbury' ish to me.....though I admit to not having a clue as what diff/axle a Shorland was usually fitted with in the front?

who's ever it is.........they sure got some work on

Fascinating old film wonder what the production rate was ? and !!!!!!! absolutely amazingly .....they're still going ! check out 'History' on their webpage http://www.morrisfurniture.co.uk/

I caught an episode on TV last night of 'Future Weapons' although it's an old programme from 2007 that investigated a new American sniper rifle called the 'CheyTac Intervention'..... ...A mighty impressive piece of kit.....especially when it hit holes in a piece of half inch steel plate at getting on for 2000 yards range...then the presenter chap also managed to get 3 shots on a target at 2530 yards ......... quote from Wiki: On the Discovery Channel TV show Future Weapons April 9, 2007 episode "Massive Attack" the host Richard Machowicz, a former United States Navy SEAL, made 3 out of 6 shots hit a human sized sheet of metal at a distance of 2,530 yards (2,313 m) at Arco Pass in Idaho. The weapon utilises a hand held computer to calculate wind/range etc which makes it pretty much infallible I'd guess.... .............Has anybody that's been in recent service come across this rifle?.... it sure seems a good bit of kit to me

hey Adrian ........ is this the guy that ended up selling a few Shermans to the MoD in th 80s for range use because they'd ran out of suitable target vehicles??

Full time musician ,singer and songwriter for way too many years to reveal :cool2: ..been backwards and forwards to the US over the years....lived there for a while.....had a few songs published and used by more known artists but never made any real money at it !.. ..so!.... also do carpentry & furniture / antique restoration work and a bit of buying and selling of anything and everything that comes down the pike....and when the price is right

I've read that a full auto SLR is a bit a of a handful to shoot even halfway decently though?.. ....Also.... I always understood the reason the Brits never had 'full auto' versions was because of the persistent old fashioned 'Staff' view that a British soldier couldn't be trusted not to 'waste' ammunition???....... Personally speaking .. ..I always thought it was ridiculous that the British Soldier didn't get a self loading (never mind full auto) weapon as standard issue until 1957.... especially when the US issued the M1 Garand in 1942 ish and the Germans were issuing the Sturmgewehr by 1944 ..??? the writing was surely written large enough on the wall for even the most remote and detached Staff Officer to see wasn't it???? .....I've just read Lofty Larges book 'One mans war in Korea' and he certainly didn't have a very high opinion of being made to carry a bolt action Lee Enfield against the Chinese (who were more or less armed to a man with full auto weapons)............especially not when he found himself on Gloucester Hill........

Great photos!.. I think the Ferretts look great with no wings.sort of..stripped down and more 'off road' looking !:-) It's fascinating how a couple of slight alterations can radically alter your perspective of the vehicle too.....in one of the threads on here about a Centurion Tank being rebuilt there's a load of pictures of one without the turret bins or the track side plates in place...it really changed the whole look of the tank and (to me anyways) made the tank look way more purposeful and aggressive.....it also struck me how very similar to a M47/M48 tank the Centurion looked too (or..so as not to upset anyone..perhaps I should rather say ...how similar the M47/M48 looked to the Centurion! haha ! )

Having now read through the thread it seems the place has long been cleared out but....it still makes me wonder... if as recent as 2010 all those (admittedly ) partly assembled rifles were left lying about in an abandoned factory.....and not out in the middle of somewhere remote either, in the middle of a major city like Birmingham... ..... now...to be fair ....you'd need to be a handy machinist / engineer to put one together out of all that was lying about there but?...it could have been done?..... ..and that doesn't sort of 'sit' too well with our Firearms Laws does it?.. ..wander in ...mooch about ..collect a few choice bits and pieces .. .. then spend a day or so in your workshop...and???...mmmmhhh... makes you think doesn't it?.... Fascinating old place either way you look at it

On one of my forays across the web I stumbled upon this...it was originally posted in 2010 so what if anything is left now is anyone guess..but..It was the Parker Rifles Company in Birmingham and they obviously built or at least assembled Lee Enfield Rifles..... long abandoned but .... whenever it was that this fella explored the old place there was an incredible amount of kit left.. .stacks and I do mean stacks of discarded Lee Enfield Rifles all in bits and pieces scattered all over the old buildings , barrels, butts, mechanisms , shell cases......enough to build literally hundreds of rifles.... http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php/59275-Parker-Rifles-The-Gun-Factory-Birmingham-2010?highlight=lee+enfield+factory

Totally agree with you mate........In my time I've loaded Gawd knows how many tracked earth movers of all description and it isn't something that is easy to get spot on every time..... but it is right proper easy to get horrendously wrong... ......modern smaller excavators with rubber tracks are always a bit easier, and Dozers with grouser tracks when the ramps have a timber surface.....but ...never something to ever get complacent over.... PS: Mind you.... The second video???......the chap wants a proper slap for trying to go up onto a trailer as fast as that anyways.....

I'll certainly be coming.....Last years show was fantastic and the 'old camp' is an absolutely unique setting really , really good ! ......and only just up the road from me too !:laugh:

personally I'm gonna keep on MOT-ing my old Landrovers.... .makes it way easier to sell them even you do use the fact that they don't need one as a selling aid

Really grand old photo's NigeP..:-D I don't know how you find it but a good while back I posted similar pictures of my ol' Dads time in Korea and Malaya with a a load of similar vehicles....you might be interested in them if you can dig them out of the archives on here :-) ahah! easy really ..use the search bar :red: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?25854-My-Dads-Korea-and-Malaya-Photos-Mid-1950s-PART-2&highlight=korea+malaya that's Part 2 of the threads there's Part 1 right by it somewhere

.... out of general interest along with this thread:-D and...I'm sure I've said this before on a HMVF thread somewhere but anyways.:-) ....for many years when I was very young there was a turret off a Lancaster or Halifax on the roof of a petrol station just outside of Gloucester on the RHS of the road as you went towards Stroud .... I couldn't say whether the guns sticking out of it were real or not but I recall it being there up til I was 15 or so...but...by the time I'd passed my test and was driving myself around in 1977 it'd gone ........

crikey Adrian..remind me not to ever enter a 'Vehicle Recognition Competition' against you ! I knew sort of roughly what they were .....but you're on the ball you is mate !

As I recall??? ....as originally designed the Lancaster had a underbelly 'ventral' gun position but not as such a ball turret?. ..I think it was some arrangement where guns were aimed by a periscope set up but it was found to be more or less un-usable so the idea was quickly dropped ??? think that's right anyways... Various re-arming ideas were tried over the years including at one time twin .50 cals in the rear turret instead of quad .30s ..also a number of different turrets were tried over the various Mks ....in fact at one point of the war a serious idea was put forward to completely dis arm the Lancaster as the weight saving and thus higher speed /ceiling was appreciable and worth considering .. ..also ... ......on a more macabre note some suggested that with at least 2 less crew (only the rear and mid upper crew members were 'permanent' gunners as usually the Bomb Aimer took on the job of front turret gunner...??) we wouldn't loose 7 men with every one that went down.....I think the idea was dropped as it was rightly guessed the crews would take a dim view of flying into enemy territory completely defenceless..... PS: As I also seem to recall only 617 Squadron flew with a permanent front turret gunner??..I guess their 'surplus' mid upper gunner took on this role??.but I don't know if this was then a permanent arrangement for the rest of the war or just for the Dams Raid????