About tracks, thick steel and more
One of only a handful left, this King Tiger is perhaps the best known of the lot. Located in the picturesque town of La Gleize in the Ardennes, Belgium, this is the only Tiger II visible from the public road. Because of the incredible amount of photos I have taken, I decided to split this walk-around into multiple parts. In
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As promised, here is the walk-around of Bovington’s Panther tank. According to the plaque welded to glacis, this was the 8th vehicle to be completed at the Laatzen factory under command of 823rd REME workshop. If you are interested in a comprehensive history of the post-war Panthers completed under supervision of the the British Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME)
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At this year’s Tank fest, Wargaming presented the newly restored Bretagne Panther. Starting in 2017, this Panther was restored at Musée des Blindés courtesy of the publisher of World of Tanks. The reveal of the Panther tank was accompanied by a campaign “Make the Panther roar again” and the introduction of a premium in-game version of Bretagne. To promote the
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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 meet. This unique tank is
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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 travelled to the Netherlands where
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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 from the German army’s surplus
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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 troops captured some BT series
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In this post I’ll look at another Leopard 2 prototype (yes, again!). This one can be found in the Musée de Blindés in Saumur, France. In contrast to the prototype I discussed on this site earlier (you can find that post here) this specimen is equipped with a 120 mm gun. During the design and trial period for the Leopard
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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. Approximately 5 km from the
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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 on this turret is on
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In July 2014 I was able to visit Försvarsfordons museum Arsenalen in Strägnäs, Sweden. Number one reason for me to visit this museum was that I had heard that a Leopard 2 prototype is on display there. After I roamed the museum and admired its collection I still hadn’t found any sign of this Leopard 2 prototype however. The happier I
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The Panssarimuseo Parola, Finland features some tanks that you wouldn’t see in a typical tank museum. This museum has a great arsenal of Russian vehicles that were captured by the Finns. In 2014 I paid the museum a visit and were truly impressed by their collection. Sadly, since most vehicles are exhibited outside, their paint jobs aren’t in a great shape. For
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