Warbird Information Exchange

... and now for something completely different.

For all you Armour Enthusiasts, I have just uploaded a few new albums from the Tank Museum at Bovington.







For anyone who's interested, just follow the link below and I hope that you enjoy them.

Tony

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...and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in Space cos there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Ok Tony, I have a question about the M3A1 Stuart on display. I see that the turret basket has been removed and it appears that accomodation for the crew has been made down in the hull.

What has been done to the turrets hydraulics? Has the turret motor been moved down into the hull as well (making for even tighter quarters than already exist) or have they been removed completely leaving the turret to be traversed by hand?

I have a good friend who owns an M3A1. His is from a batch that was Lend-leased to Britain and it is still in it's factory configuration. The only british mods are a steel antenna base welded to the hull for the british radio set and a bracket inside for a Very pistol. He is still researching it's history as there is some bullet scarring on the turret and hull and it is unknown how this particular unit made it's way back to the states. My friend can trace it back through the last three owners, then trail goes cold. Last year he was able to confim it's USA number via the tanks hull number (build ID code) and that it was in fact a Lend-Lease tank. I attach a couple pictures I took of it last August. Though marked as an american tank, it carries a desert rat on the right front fender (wing) and right rear. The owner is the white haired gentleman facing away from the camera in the first picture.

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It's you and me against the world.

We attack at dawn.

Alfred,

Might I suggest you ask here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/G103/

This group has a lot of owners as well as historians on the board.

I can't get in without signing up and it's really not worth it for me to do that. Most of the names are familiar from the g503.com forum and a couple of them I have spoken to in the past.

I was just curious if Tony knew anything about the particular mods I saw in his photos.

Thanks anyway bdk

_________________
It's you and me against the world.

We attack at dawn.

Hi Alfred,
Im afraid that I am unable to offer any help as my technical knowlegde is limited to purely identification of the various vehicles.

Just a thought but maybe the Museum itself (http://www.tankmuseum.org/) could help!

Your pictures are great but one things sure, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to have come face to face with a Tiger (or any of Germanys' other big boys) in a Stuart, or for that matter, most of the Allied AFV's.

This being a predominantly aviation 'site, we often praise (and quite rightly so), the courage of the aircrews that flew into combat but when I think of the tank crews that drove into combat, in mainly inferior equipment (when compared to those from Germany), knowing that a Tiger, Panther or their like, could be just around the next corner, I guess admiration is too small a word.

Tony

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...and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in Space cos there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Thanks for the link Tony. I've saved it and will check it out after work when I have a little more time.

I know what you mean about riding into combat in a stuart (or a Sherman or Grant/Lee for that matter). It's a great thing to play with today but if you consider that the driver has to climb out the front and that the assistant driver has to climb up through the turret to get out, no thanks. My fat little body can't do it . Here's another pic taken last year at my clubs annual rally. This was taken just after the completion of a bit by bit restoration that went on for the last twenty years. It is in factory fresh condition and the only bit's that do not work are the hand grenades in the grenade box. Everything else has been put back into working condition.

_________________
It's you and me against the world.

We attack at dawn.