Tanks for the Memories

[DaveCinzano]

Action Man Tank. Classic.

Fuckit I just spent half an hour cruising through photos of Action Man Scorpions before getting distracted by all the other stuff

Anyway...



More here

 

[Casaubon]

Stop! APC Time!

The Soviets, and successor regimes, lost an incredible number of APCs in Afghanistan.

The carcasses aren’t much use to anyone as they’re too difficult to move or cut up, so they litter the countryside.

They’re handy as building blocks to replace the foundations of blown bridges.

Pics from ’02, shitty quality I’m afraid.

 

[T & P]

Only the other day I discovered a Wiki article about a weird experimental Nazi 'ball' tank. Apparently nobody quite knows how it was meant to work, or the point of it in the first place

Kugelpanzer - Wikipedia

 

[A380]

 

[Casually Red]

Those aren't tanks. They're self propelled artillery . There's a major difference . Which you'd immediately notice if you foolishly attempted to take on another tank with a self propelled artillery piece .

 

[Casually Red]

This Russian T34 has been parked by the side of the Worcester-Hereford road for years.
View attachment 100479

rebels in Ukraine took this one off a commemorative plinth and got it working again after 60 odd years .

 

[Casually Red]

Tank is a heavily armoured beast that will drive over and squish your trench or machine gun if you try and runaway from it.
While a self propelled gun will turn you and your trench into mist from 10km away via high explosive and then drive away before someone fires back at it.

A tank will make short work of a self propelled gun though . It's not designed for fighting . Merely blowing stuff up from a distance away.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

NVA tank rolling through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon:

 

[Casually Red]

I had this one pass me one day in Dublin, and I could distinctly hear the guide say over the PA "don't shout or wave at people who look like they might throw things at us":

Erm..quite interesting you should say that. I had a minor disagreement with those bastards some years back . Wouldn't call it a feud but...I was waiting for the then ms red outside a coffee house off grafton st one sunny afternoon, quietly trying to pick a few winners in the paper while slowly raising my doble espresso to my mouth..and that fucking thing just whizzed past out of nowhere . All the bastards on it were wearing Viking helmets and the tour guide was encouraging them to do Viking roars ...just as it passed me . They were barely 2 foot away and scared the shite out of me . Fuckers in Viking helmets roaring in my face that weren't there a millisecond earlier .

Coffee went everywhere , all over my freshly ironed and creased white shirt, my nice slacks, my Irish times racing pages . Some of the bastards I could clearly see pointing back at me laughing . A few minutes later my lady friend arrived, sparkling and fragrant as usual . And I. Sitting there like a very distressed , fuming tramp . Blinded by love obviously ,she convinced both of us there was no need to trek back to malahide for a change of clothes. Nobody would notice . They all fucking did . People wondered why she was with a ruffian like me at the best of times , and there's me all coffee stains , and people murmuring, and me getting sulkier and grumpier by the moment . Among the Dublin poshos and smartasses . Fuming, cursing them . Utter bastards.
Evening ruined .

A few years later I was among a group of " exuberant " shall we say..chaps who exited the players lounge and headed uptown for somewhere swankier . And lo and behold who came round the corner and did their fucking Viking roar again . Luckily for them we only had plastic pint glasses .

I saw in the paper one day the fucking thing sank in the Liffey . And laughed . Still haven't let it go . Am unlikely to ever, tbf .

 

[Casually Red]

The old centurion, rolling through the bogside in Derry early 70s . Unlikely to encounter anything sturdier than a Hillman imp or a 9 year old on a tomohawk but you can't be too careful I suppose .

 

[existentialist]

I like the modeller who recreated the ‘Pink Tank’ (an old Czechoslovak T34) from 1 Mandela Way in diorama form:

Armorama :: Pink Tank

View attachment 100415

I do hope they warmed that gun barrel up a bit for the woman sitting on it...or have I just outed myself as an unreasonably practical middle aged bloke?

 

[Idris2002]

The Soviets, and successor regimes, lost an incredible number of APCs in Afghanistan.

The carcasses aren’t much use to anyone as they’re too difficult to move or cut up, so they litter the countryside.

They’re handy as building blocks to replace the foundations of blown bridges.

Pics from ’02, shitty quality I’m afraid.


View attachment 100544


View attachment 100543

A fascinating bit of the story I hadn't heard before - thanks for that.

 

[Idris2002]

 

[Idris2002]

The old centurion, rolling through the bogside in Derry early 70s . Unlikely to encounter anything sturdier than a Hillman imp or a 9 year old on a tomohawk but you can't be too careful I suppose .

 

[Casaubon]

A fascinating bit of the story I hadn't heard before - thanks for that.

I also saw lots of tank tracks laid across roads in towns and villages on main routes, to act as speedbumps.

 

[StoneRoad]

And to think a lot of these ^^^^ had "Little Willie" as an ancestor ...


btm - little willie par StoneRoad2013, on Ipernity

Although I don't think I took an image, Bovington have a replica of the timber precursor tucked away in the museum.

 

[bimble]

The DM has a story in it today about 'Britains Forgotten Revolution" of 1919.
Lots of interesting pictures including

 

[Idris2002]

DM equals Daily Mail I take it, bimble? Seems a bit of an odd editorial choice for that paper, though I suppose it's rich in lefty-baiting.

 

[bimble]

DM equals Daily Mail I take it, bimble? Seems a bit of an odd editorial choice for that paper, though I suppose it's rich in lefty-baiting.

yep that's the one.
it's a sort of plug for this book

 

[Idris2002]

WWI tanks were categorised according to whether they had machine guns (female) or had cannon (male).

 

[Idris2002]

"A British Army Mark V tank rams a sealed premises on Capel Street, Dublin,"

Whereabouts in Dublin is Capel street again?

 

[Idris2002]

Fuckit I just spent half an hour cruising through photos of Action Man Scorpions before getting distracted by all the other stuff

Anyway...

View attachment 100537

More here

I see they had a Hipster Action Man, who would use his gripping hands to serve you his special artisanal coffee:

 

[A380]

yep that's the one.
it's a sort of plug for this book

I'm going to buy a book plugged in the Mail. What have I become??

 

[Idris2002]

I'm going to buy a book plugged in the Mail. What have I become??

Interesting that the blurb doesn't include Ireland in this year of British revolution.

 

[A380]

Interesting that the blurb doesn't include Ireland in this year of British revolution.

Yes, but then lots about Ireland and very few about the 'peace riots'.There's a good one about the riots in Luton where the town hall was burned down but not much else I've come across (recommendations please). It's almost as if we were trying to airbrush that bit of English ( and Scottish ) history out. Millions of working class and hundreds of thousands of middle class blokes really pissed off with the ruling class and in possession of guns and experience of using them... closer then to revolution than in the general strike perhaps?

 

[Lancman]

I saw a number of tanks that were destroyed in the fighting in Beirut in the early '80s. I don't know whose army/militia they belonged to but they were about Sherman size. They all showed identical damage. A neat round hole of about 3 inches diameter in the side of each hull but the explosion inside must have been enormous. The turrets sat intact on the ground the right way up but the hulls lay alongside them upside-down with a huge hole blown in what used to be their undersides.

 

[spitfire]

had a bit of a google and found this:

Palestinian Armor

 

[dylanredefined]

I see they had a Hipster Action Man, who would use his gripping hands to serve you his special artisanal coffee:

The action man for Mums who didn't want their kids playing with war toys.
Had the scorpion tank
And the machine gun. Ended up working with both should have ponied up for the helicopter might have made it as a pilot

 

[nogojones]

Yes, but then lots about Ireland and very few about the 'peace riots'.There's a good one about the riots in Luton where the town hall was burned down but not much else I've come across (recommendations please). It's almost as if we were trying to airbrush that bit of English ( and Scottish ) history out. Millions of working class and hundreds of thousands of middle class blokes really pissed off with the ruling class and in possession of guns and experience of using them... closer then to revolution than in the general strike perhaps?

It's been a while since I read it, but I recall this being pretty good on mutinies in the army after WW1 and their links with red Clydside etc... The Soldiers' Strikes of 1919

 

[Idris2002]

Not sure what's going on here, to be honest: