The overgrown 11 year old boys who infest this forum have had threads for cars, for planes, for weird planes and planes that never were, but they've not yet had a thread for tanks. So here, to start you off, is a British Mark IV tank, circa 1918.
Down memory lane: that white tank? I worked in an office overlooking Brixton High Road and, when that tank came thundering by, at the best part of 30mph, the whole building would shake.
Can have a ruling on whether we're being very specific about the definition of 'tanks' - are we restricted to the pure version, the Main Battle Tank, or are we open to a much larger genre of 'big, heavy shit with tracks'? that includes recovery vehicles, self-propelled guns, armoured infantry carriers and the like?
I like the modeller who recreated the ‘Pink Tank’ (an old Czechoslovak T34) from 1 Mandela Way in diorama form: Armorama :: Pink Tank
My dad used to build tanks. It's possibly what killed him (the materials that were used - his doc said it's likely what caused his cancer, and indeed it's the same cancer that killed my granddad, who worked with him -- my mum's dad, not my dad's dad). I got to ferret around inside a tank on an open day one year. Felt like Maggie, I did. He worked at Chilwell Depot. It was a shell factory before it built tanks. Apparently every other shell that was fired during WWI was made there.
Ooohhh, I went to Bovington last year ... camera was being a bit arsey and I didn't have much luck with it, got a few shots. btm - Tank Museum, Bovington some big toys there ! A few years ago I got to drive a Ferret - around a busy campsite ! and, no, I didn't cause mayhem, but it was great fun. The following afternoon I was in the "turret" of a Warrior, managed to traverse it and almost got the sergeant with the barrel ...
Just found this question in Parliament about the closure of the workshops at Chilwell REME Workshop, Chilwell (Hansard, 23 February 1987) - this will be when my dad was made redundant. I guess I thought it was later than that, but obviously not. He went on to work for Royal Ordnance in Nottingham, but didn't like it, and moved on to ZF Gears. He liked it there, and he got to go to West Germany for them during the 1990 World Cup and was in a bar there for the semi between England and W Germany Thankfully he wasn't much of a football fan so no tears (or blood) were spilled that night
My experience with tanks is limited to a very brief ride in a Saudi M60. It seemed like a very noisy, hot and claustrophobic way to go to war.
