Author: Melcher Stikkelorum
Everything Wrong With… The Tiger Collection
The Tiger Collection at The Tank museum in Bovington, opened April 2017, is the place to visit for all armour enthusiasts. It is a unique display of (almost) all variants in which the Tiger was produced. Not only the museum’s Tiger I is featured, but also two Tiger II tanks, as well as the Jagdtiger…
The last of its kind: Breda Panther
In the heart of the city of Breda, the Netherlands you will find the Wilhelminapark: a quiet and calm place. You can come to peace on one of the benches around the pond, or you can, of course, walk up to the massive tank located at the corner where the roads Wilhelminapark and Paul Windhausenweg…
Battle of Kursk – Meng Panther D review
Earlier this year Meng released their Panther Ausf. D kit to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. The battle of Kursk was the last large German offensive on the eastern front. Battle background After a catastrophic move eastwards toward the Caucasus and the following surrender of Paulus’ 6th Army at Stalingrad in…
Leopard 2 prototypes on tape
In this interesting video from the German Bundeswehr Classix series, the “new” Leopard 2 Kampfpanzer is introduced. The video begins by showcasing the Leopard 2 Austere Version (AV) and in particular the combination PT 20 / T 21. It is very likely that this video was created when Leopard 2 series production had just commenced as only…
Tiger II – part 1
Musee de Blindes houses the only Tiger II still running today and they’re pretty proud of that. Even though by design this monster is hardly suitable to run for long marches the museum was able to keep this specimen running even after some 74 years after it first left the factory. Last weekend, the vehicle…
The Panther: a British view
Among the great collection of AFVs at the Tank Museum in Bovington, United Kingdom there is a vehicle that is often described as one of the best tanks of the Second World War. This tank is better known as the Panzerkampfwagen ‘Panther’ 1. Germany produced over 6000 Panthers during the war. The majority of these were…
Parallel cut Panther turret armour
In another post I have already got to talk a bit about the Panther in Overloon, but a recent visit to the museum there lead me to believe there was something off with the Panther’s turret. I only fully realised this after reading about cutting methods of the steel plates at the armour manufacturers. In…
Humain’s Panther – then and now
While doing some research for another article that might (or might not) be published in the near future I wound up writing something that was slightly too long for the original article so I’ll be putting it up here as a separate article here instead 😉 It all began with this photo of a Panther Ausf.…
Leopard 2A4 “FIN”
What we have here is what I first presumed to be a Leopard 2A4FIN: the Finnish variant of the Leopard 2. It is, however, some sort of hybrid as it seems to lack all features that are typical to a Finnish Leopard. In 2002 Finland procured some 124 Leopard 2 tanks of the A4 standard…
BT-42
The Parola tank museum has a large collection of Russian tanks, some of which happen to be extremely rare — or ones that could otherwise only be found in Russia itself. One of these rare vehicles is the BT-42: a Finnish modification of the BT-7. During the Winter War and later the Continuation War, Finnish…
Vimoutiers Tiger
During August 1944, the German Wehrmacht lost a good deal of equipment during the closing of the Falaise pocket. On the 21st of August some five German vehicles found themselves eastward of the city of Falaise where they squeezed through the Falaise Gap. They managed to escape the pocket and headed towards the Guerquesalles area.…
Sekundärlafette für Turm KPZ Leopard 2 (PT)
In a recent post I showed you a Leopard 2 prototype and explained how the turret of this tank was a very special one since it could mount an overhead weapon system. In the summer of 2012 I visited the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung in Koblenz, where the very weapon system that was designed to be mounted…
