Smithy

A few more including a lovely Lloyd Carrier. Some of the tracked armour.

Some more included some which might not have been seen before on the show scene. This TAC-T below is the only one left of 15 which were built to help provide fire cover to the Harrier's. Now for some of the desert raiders!

As usual had two days at the show, thus meaning I managed to cover pretty much everything around the show site. The show itself does seem to get bigger and bigger each year with the Medway Overflow field (situated off Big Monkton's) starting to get a good number of vehicles in also. Although as someone pointed out on the Live thread, there did seem a number of pitches just taken up by tents etc in the other fields. It must be a little annoying, I should imagine, if you are situated in the overflow field and you have a display (as some of the people did) because there didn't seem to be too many members of the public walking around this area. People will say get there earlier and get a space but I should imagine some people just can't! Anyway enough of that. Great to meet up with friends both old and new. Hopefully you won't have any more trouble with any crafty crappers called Rufus, Andy (Loggydriver) haha Below are a few pictures from my two days at the show. The piece of plant equipment below actually ended up on it's side on Thursday after tipping over in the arena. Thankfully though everything seemed ok once the other Caterpillar pulled it back over!

Got back home about an hour ago after a horror four and a half hour journey home following a great couple of days at the show. Good to meet up with some of the vast HMVF community both old and new faces. Will post up a full report and pictures either later on or more likely in the morning as got to sort through the 400 or so pics first!

Yep I've got the DVD'S aswell and can only agree with the above!

Spent a couple of hours at the above mentioned show today as I had never been to it before. Luckily I managed to fit my visit in-between the showers that we have had all day and I was quite pleased with what was on offer. There were 12 military vehicles in their section and one ex-military vehicle in the commercial section. Anyway below are my pictures from the day.

Just wondering if you have had many vehicles book into the event? or how many you think will be on display. Scott

In Stafford ay, thats only ten miles from me but it would mean I would have to venture over to the dark side of Cannock Chase . You say there are Martian's as well, sounds an interesting place but I haven't seen them around.

Ok Mark will do, cheers!

Going to book my tickets this evening for next Wednesday and Thursday as I hadn't known if I would be able to come down this year until recently. Looking forward to it now!

Nice pics everyone thanks for sharing them!

Here you go Matt, along with a few more of my shots. I was going to say hello but everytime I came past you were talking to someone so thought it might be rude to interrupt you. Then the rain came so I decided it was time to go home. Scott

Nice pics Mark and thanks for sharing, and you are right that Airbus 380 just looks huge!

Ok maybe just a few more :cool2:

Last few pictures from me for today. Will have a sort through the rest tomorrow.

Here are a few more, will post up some more later on as it's dinner time now As you can see there were some very nice vehicles in attendance.

Spent the majority of today at Ponderosa but left a little before the end as the weather had turned bad for a short while and I had seen everything that I had wanted to. This was a new event for me and it was good to see a number of different vehicles while I must say well done to all those that helped build the site up ready for the event, the wartime village looked great! It's also interesting to see how different shows do different things with the top part of the arena being closed up while the vehicles were trundling around the arena but then it being opened again to let you take a closer look at things. Also liked that there always seemed to be something on in the arena with the different re-enactors all taking turns to attack each other. Below are a few pictures today starting with the smaller/medium vehicles.

Did you see FV432 in one corner of the yard? H E Services is the company involved I think.

The one on a plinth in Hermanville actually has a plack by it which actually reads something along the lines of, "Sherman DD tanks such as this one came ashore here...." And yes you are correct in saying that the other one is situated at Pegasus Bridge.

They gave us an audio device at Azeville and you were allowed to wonder around on your own on the numbered path, so that saved that problem . It really was an excellent place and like I say I would recommend it to anyone.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Hi Bob. Yes the first Sherman is at Utah it sits almost in the car park of the museum that is now situated pretty much on the beach front. The other battery you are thinking of is Crisbecq. During the tour of Azeville we were told that the commander in-charge of the Crisbecq battery was much more fanatical than the one at Azeville, so much so out of a garrison of 400 only around 100 came out alive at Crisbecq compared to a much higher percentage at Azeville once it was seen that the battle was over. Ah yes the battleship shell, there was a picture showing where it came to rest and it is amazing to see how it had gone in the front of the battery and come out of the back without exploding!

Best of the rest This one below was for sale Azeville Battery Anyone know what these are off?

Armour galore!

Museum pieces

I spent the first four days of this week in Normandy, revisiting some of the places we went to in 2009 and also taking in places which we couldn't get to at the time. It's certainly different to see the area at this time of the year and not a month earlier, but really I can't wait to return once again! We were pretty lucky with the weather with only our time at Pointe du Hoc being cut short due to rain. We managed to visit everywhere we had intended to though and also fitted in a couple of extra places. In fact one of these I would recommend to everyone, this being the Azeville Battery which is just to the north of St Mere Eglise. I found the place really interesting with 300m of underground tunnels still open for the public to take guided tours around. As people who know who have made the trip there are quite a few vehicles outside on the roadsides but I also saw some machines which I hadn't seen before while I also spotted a Ferret and a 1942 Bedford MW which had been on a tour of the area. Anyway now for the pictures starting with the above mentioned vehicles. The machines that take to the sea (or not anymore!)