editor486650 Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 (edited) Hi! I am finally joining after a few years peering in from the outside. I now live in Stanford in the Vale and have gone way from doing up Comet tanks to concentrate on Canadian RAMs. My first Comet restoration was 21ZR21 which ended up at Beverley, where I re-engined it with a Meteor 4. I then put the Crusader1 and Charioteer into Beverley and prepared the Churchill 2 as a playground tank pretending to be a Mark 1. The 3 inch hull gun in the Churchill (now at Bovington) enabled school kids to swing up onto the tank safely, part of a giant climbing frame. The hull gun barrel actually came off a Comet on Larkhill ranges, but at least is the correct calibre. I then took Friends of the Tank Museum to Parola in Finland to repair a Comet and a Charioteer, followed by a bigger trip to Munsterlager to get a Comet running for the Panzermuseum and another as a static display at Dresden. More recently I recovered the Grant from Pirbright and helped Carl Brown to get it running. During that Pirbright range work I realised that there were no running RAM tanks anywhere, so have ended up with the remains of 4, the first of which is now nearing the end of its restoration by Carl. I hope to get a second running as a Kangaroo before the Dutch anniversary season in autumn next year, with the first probably as 49RTR and the second later mark vehicle as 1CACR. Mention is occasionally made of buried tanks, perhaps on Salisbury Plain. When I was very young my father was the Master of the Salisbury Plain Hunt and we ran a fox to ground in an OP. Bdr Lloyd dug after it and found it had gone into an old tank. Being small I was pushed inside and found it was a WW1 type tank which was being used as an OP with the fox underneath. It was perfectly preserved in chalk and deep buried from shellfire, so was well preserved. I mentioned it at Bovington a few years back but the Director just said he could swap it for something important. Seeing the fate of the rusting A24 Cavalier at Bovington I thought the WW1 tank was safer off staying buried, away from acid rain and foreign museums. If the Tank Museum changes its attitude then I might look again for it, as would like to get back inside it if only to relive the smell of it's rancid castor oil.... Meanwhile I am deliighted to see the Sherman M4A2 I recovered from Shrivenham is still running at Bovington along with Comet 17ZR35 which I spent a year working on when at ATDU. John Edited February 23, 2013 by editor486650 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Grundy Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 Good afternoon Mr G, very interesting regarding the Great War tank......times move on and attitudes change, is it now time for this hulk to surface ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wally dugan Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 welcome john its been along time since we last met nice to see you regards wally Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
private mw Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 hi john a warm welcome to the forum , :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 Hello John, good to see you here, looking forward to the next challenge......! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor486650 Posted February 23, 2013 Author Share Posted February 23, 2013 Good afternoon Mr G, very interesting regarding the Great War tank......times move on and attitudes change, is it now time for this hulk to surface ? Bob, I am afraid that attitudes do not change. The Cavalier for example remains unrestored and would have been better off being buried in chalk. It is in the mainstream of British tank development, part of the Covenanter/Crusader/Cavalier/Centaur/Cromwell/Comet cruiser tank series. And they did see combat as OP tanks, as I often see the distinctive louvred back end of a Cavalier advancing into the Bocage battles. But they are not crowd pullers like the German tanks, so at Bovington you see a collection of all the German tanks but not the A24 Cavalier or A30 Challenger. So I still say a WW1 tank buried in chalk is safer left where it is. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor486650 Posted February 23, 2013 Author Share Posted February 23, 2013 Hello John, good to see you here, looking forward to the next challenge......! I am sure it will involve rivetting and bending rusty metal as usual. Incidentally is there any news on any progress on the Covenanter recovered from Imber about 20 years ago, along with an extra half hull and some turrets? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shane.c Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 Welcome to HMVF, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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