The Tank Museum
Published Jul 19, 2024Lightly armed airborne troops are at a huge disadvantage when faced with regular troops with heavy weapons and armour. In World War II this led to huge losses for paratroops on Crete and at Arnhem. Since then, many attempts have been made to level the playing field, to give airborne soldiers a fighting chance.
From the Hamilcar gliders of World War II to the C17 Globemaster, we look at how to make a tank fly.
00:00 | Intro
00:47 | The Origins of Airbourne Operations
02:34 | Gliders
07:20 | A Tank Light Enough to Fly?
09:02 | Success & Failure
14:24 | Post-War Solutions
17:41 | Better Aircraft – Better Tanks?
20:15 | Strategic Deployment
21:39 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé. This video features imagery courtesy of http://www.hamilcar.co.uk/
#tankmuseum
December 3, 2024
Evolution of Airborne Armour
November 30, 2024
$7 BILLION – Is Ajax Worth It? | Tank Chats #177
The Tank Museum
Published Aug 2, 2024This is how the UK’s newest armoured fighting vehicle, Ajax, has been described time and time again by the British media. With repeated delays and continual bad press, the Ajax programme has been subject to much scrutiny over the course of its procurement and development. Public opinion of this vehicle is, in a word, poor.
But is this perception wholly accurate, or is there more to the Ajax story?
In this video, David Willey guides us through the problematic history of the Ajax family, discusses its reconnaissance capabilities on the modern battlefield and hears from members of the British Army who have had a chance to put this vehicle to the test.
October 23, 2024
The Last Surviving Giant Passenger Hovercraft
The Tim Traveller
Published Jul 2, 2024In early 1968, Britain launched a revolutionary new form of sea transport: the giant SRN4-class hovercraft. They are the largest passenger hovercraft ever built, and they could fly between England and France in just 30 minutes — three times faster than anything else on the water. So why don’t we have anything like them any more?
MORE INFO
The Hovercraft Museum: https://www.hovercraft-museum.org/
The museum’s “Support Us” page, if you’d like to help them out: https://www.hovercraft-museum.org/sup…
October 14, 2024
Quality v Quantity? | Panzer IV v M4 Sherman | Tank V Tank – Normandy, 1944
The Tank Museum
Published Jun 14, 2024Normandy, 1944: in the dense bocage countryside, two tanks, the US-built M4 Sherman and the German PzKpfw IV go head-to-head in the fighting around the Allied bridgehead. Both are similar in capabilities but which will prevail?
In this film, Chris Copson compares the armour protection, firepower and mobility of the two designs, and we recount the events of a specific engagement fought at Mouen near Caen on 28th June, 1944.
00:00 | Intro
01:45 | Meet the Tanks
03:08 | Armour
07:37 | Firepower
12:19 | Mobility & Operation
13:29 | Tank Crews
16:37 | Summary
17:15 | Mouen, Normandy, 28 June 1944
23:10 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum
October 3, 2024
D-Day 80th Anniversary Special, Part 2: Landings with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson
Royal Armouries
Published Jun 12, 2024This year marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of France which took place on 6th June 1944. From landing on the beaches of Normandy, the Allies would push the Nazi war machine and breach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.
To commemorate this, we’re collaborating with IWM to release a special two-part episode as Jonathan will look at some of the weapons that influenced and shaped this historic moment in history.
Part 2 is all about the pivotal landings, including allied efforts to aid in its success.
0:00 Intro
0:25 Twin Vickers K Gun
2:03 Pointe du Hoc
2:45 Water off a DUKW’s back?
3:50 Magazines x3
4:07 Usage & History
5:50 Bring up the PIAT!
7:00 Dispelling (Or Projecting via Spigot) Myths
7:55 PIAT Firing Process
9:50 PIAT Details
10:31 Usage in D-Day
13:19 Pegasus Bridge
15:05 MG 42
15:41 Defensive Machine Gun
16:37 1200 RPM
17:35 Replaceable Barrel
19:08 Usage in D-Day
21:37 Sexton Self-Propelled Gun
21:33 Artillery in D-Day
22:15 Run-In Shoot
22:40 The Need for Mobile Artillery
23:25 Usage in D-Day
24:21 17-Pounder Gun
25:11 Function & Usage
26:05 Usage in D-Day
28:00 IWM at HMS Belfast
30:27 Outro
(more…)
September 27, 2024
So much “modern art” ages like milk
Most of Andrew Doyle’s latest column is behind the paywall, but I found myself nodding along to the first portion about the descent of modern art:
The works on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) have been curated with care. On my recent visit I began on the fifth floor, where you can admire art from the 1880s until the 1940s. On the fourth floor you will find works from the 1950s to the 1970s, and then two floors below are the collections from the 1980s until the present day. I wonder whether this arrangement is deliberate; the literal descent of the visitor from one floor to the next reflecting the figurative descent of artistic quality through the century.
And so while on the upper floor you can admire the melting clocks of Salvador Dalí’s most famous and haunting work, The Persistence of Memory (1931), and René Magritte’s The Lovers (1928), a curious meditation on romanticised desire, by the time you reach the second floor there are some cuddly toys glued together into clumps which are dangling from the ceiling. I didn’t bother to check who was responsible for this nonsense.
I have often tried to defend some of the more intriguing efforts at modern conceptual art, but I also recognise that we must be able to admit when art is simply bad. I felt the same when I saw the most recent sculpture to grace the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. It is a piece by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles entitled Mil Veces un Instante. It consists of over seven-hundred death masks of trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people arranged into a cuboid. The faces are meant to represent those who have been the victims of violence, including the artist’s friend Karla who was murdered in Juárez in December 2015.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of the passion behind the project, or how the tragedy of this death informed the vision of the piece, but as a work of art it is banal. Like many conceptual pieces inspired by voguish identity politics, it is propagandistic and uninspiring. The Pink News has claimed that those who dislike the piece are “bigots”. I would say they simply have good taste.
I suppose it is an improvement on Heather Phillipson’s godawful “The End”, a sculpture of a dollop of whipped cream with a cherry, a drone and a fly on the top which was finally taken down from the fourth plinth in 2022. I doubt that anyone except the artist and her close family members were disappointed to see it gone. While I understand the subjectivity of such matters, surely we should be aspiring to higher standards when it comes to art in public spaces?
September 19, 2024
D-Day Tanks: Operation Overlord’s Strangest Tanks
The Tank Museum
Published Jun 7, 2024An opposed beach landing is the most difficult and dangerous military operation it is possible to undertake. Anticipating massive casualties in the Normandy Landings, the British Army devised a series of highly specialized tanks to solve some of the problems – Hobart’s Funnies.
Named after General Sir Percy Hobart, commander of their parent unit, 79th Armoured Division, the Funnies included a mine clearing tank – the Sherman Crab, a flamethrower – the Churchill Crocodile and the AVRE – Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers which could lay bridges and trackways, blow up fortifications and much else besides.
In this video, Chris Copson looks at surviving examples of the Funnies and assesses their effectiveness on D Day and after.
00:00 | Introduction
01:24 | Operation Overlord
03:02 | Lessons from the Dieppe Raid
05:31 | The Sherman DD
07:21 | Exercise Smash
14:38 | Sherman Crab
17:38 | The AVRE
19:47 | Churchill Crocodile
23:15 | Did the Funnies Work?
28:49 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum #d-day #operationoverlord
September 18, 2024
D-Day 80th Anniversary Special, Part 1: Paratroopers, with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson
Royal Armouries
Published Jun 5, 2024This year marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of France which took place on 6th June 1944. From landing on the beaches of Normandy, the Allies would push the Nazi war machine and breach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.
To commemorate this, we’re collaborating with Imperial War Museums to release a special two-part episode as Jonathan will look at some of the weapons that influenced and shaped this historic moment in history.
Part 1 is all about the “tip of the spear”, the Paratroopers.
0:00 Intro
0:55 STEN MK V
1:40 History of the Sten
3:00 Mark V Details
6:23 Usage in D-Day
8:38 M1A1 Carbine
10:38 M1A1 Details
14:09 Usage in D-Day
15:01 ACME ‘Cricket’ Clicker
17:31 The Longest Day
19:30 Outro[NR: I’m glad Jonathan discussed that bloody clicker scene in The Longest Day … it bugged me the very first time I watched the movie as a young army cadet in the mid-1970s.]
(more…)
September 12, 2024
PIAT: The weapon that could punch through steel but needed nerves to match
Forces News
Published Jun 3, 2024Tanks, soft-skin vehicles, bunkers and buildings — the PIAT could deal with them all.
The PIAT — Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank — was a British weapon that proved its worth during the Normandy Landings.
It was introduced in 1943, first seeing action in Tunisia, but was used to good effect in France, and despite its name it was a true multi-purpose weapon.
(more…)
September 5, 2024
Matilda I – The Little Tank That Did | Tank Chat #176
The Tank Museum
Published May 24, 2024In 1940, this small but well armoured tank was pretty much all that stood between the German Blitzkrieg and a battered British Army that was retreating to the coast.
Slow, small, and armed only with a machine gun, the A11 Infantry Tank (Matilda I) would achieve great things in its only significant battlefield action – effectively saving the British Expeditionary Force from annihilation.
At Arras on 21st May 1940, Matilda Is and IIs of 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiment counterattacked the rapidly advancing 7th Panzer Division. In doing so, they successfully halted the German advance and unnerved Hitler so much that he issued an order forbidding further advances — thus giving the British and French chance to organize the Dunkirk evacuation.
In this video, David Willey covers the history of this diminutive and often ridiculed little tank which altered the course of history by saving an entire army.
This video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
August 25, 2024
After Wittmann’s Tiger Tank Rampage – The Fight back at Villers-Bocage
The Tank Museum
Published May 10, 2024 16 productsMichael Wittmann’s rampage at Villers-Bocage was just the start of a fight that was far from the great victory the Germans would claim it to be. At 0930 on 13 June 1944, in the chaos that followed Wittmann’s fortuitous lunge into the British column, the men of the 4th County of London Yeomanry lick their wounds and set up their defences. They’ve been given the order to hold the Villers-Bocage at all costs — and will soon be fighting for their lives against a superior German force.
By the end of the day, a young Lt. Bill Cotton will have earned the Military Cross and a promotion to Captain. His Sergeant will earn a Military Medal and his Corporal a Distinguished Conduct Medal … In the hype surrounding the career of Michal Wittmann, has the role of Bill Cotton and his troop been overlooked? Was he the real hero of Villers-Bocage?
Watch our video on Wittmann’s Tiger Tank Rampage:
• Wittmann’s Tiger Tank Rampage | Ville…00:00 | Introduction
00:56 | Aftermath of Wittmann’s Rampage
01:48 | Reconnaissance and Reinforcements
03:24 | Lt. Bill Cotton
05:26 | Bayerlein Strikes
07:05 | Three Tigers Taken Out
08:18 | The Heroes of Villers-Bocage
10:42 | Bramall’s Ingenuity
14:48 | The End of the Assault
16:16 | ConclusionThis video features footage courtesy of British Pathe.
#tankmuseum #tankactions #villersbocage
August 19, 2024
Evolution of WW2 German Tank Destroyers
The Tank Museum
Published May 3, 2024 19 productsUsed extensively by the German army of World War Two, the “tank destroyer” was developed to counter the increasing dominance of the tank on the battlefield.
Germany would field a massive 18 different types of tank destroyer in World War Two – compared with the 7 or 8 different types used by US, British and Commonwealth forces. One of these in particular, Sturmgeschütz III, would destroy more tanks than any other AFV in the entire conflict.
In this video we look at the development, strengths and weaknesses of German tank destroyers: from the 17 tonne Hetzer to the massive 70 tonne Jagdtiger — the heaviest tracked vehicle of the War.
00:00 | Introduction
00:59 | The First Tank Destroyers
04:14 | Avoiding Close Combat
06:59 | Jagdpanther
12:05 | Jagdtiger
15:31 | Hetzer
18:01 | Stug III
22:51 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum #jagdpanther #stugiii #hetzer #jagdtiger
August 8, 2024
Panzer III: Versatile stalwart of the Panzer force
The Tank Museum
Published Apr 19, 2024See inside the Panzer III and discover the story of the most numerous German armoured fighting vehicle of World War II.
Intended as the German army’s main gun tank, with its brother, the Panzer IV, acting as support, the Panzer III fought in Europe and North Africa but was effectively obsolete by 1942 in the face of better opposition like the Soviet T-34. So the two changed places – an up-gunned Panzer IV becoming the gun tank with the Panzer III — now with a short barrelled 75mm gun — in the support role. This wouldn’t last long — but the Panzer III chassis would form the basis of the highly successful Stug III.
00:00 | Introduction
00:15 | Background
02:12 | Two Similar Designs
02:57 | Panzer III Designs
10:22 | Take a Look Inside
14:46 | An Interview with Mike Hayton
23:52 | What’s it like to Drive?
26:00 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum #panzeriii
July 24, 2024
Chieftain V T-62 | Operation Nasr, Iran – Iraq War, 1981
The Tank Museum
Published Apr 13, 2024Two tanks designed to fight each other in Northern Europe would face each other during the Iran-Iraq war in 1981. On one side, the British built Chieftain MBT. On the other, the Soviet-built T-62.
In this video, we examine what happened during Operation Nasr to find out which tank came out on top …
00:00 | Intro
01:19 | Meet the Tanks
02:15 | The T-62
03:26 | The Chieftain
06:21 | From Paper to the Battlefield
09:25 | The Outcome and Findings
(more…)
July 11, 2024
Wittmann’s Tiger Rampage | Villers-Bocage, June 1944
The Tank Museum
Published Mar 30, 2024In the space of 15 minutes, Michael Wittmann took a single Tiger tank and stopped a major British advance, destroying 10 tanks, 10 halftracks, 8 Bren carriers, 1 scout car and a six-pounder anti-tank gun in the process. An eye-catching achievement … But was this a victory handed on a plate?
John Delaney outlines Wittmann’s audacious and decisive action at Villers Bocage against the British Desert Rats, examining its military significance. It’s become the stuff of legend. It was a gift to Nazi propagandists, who wasted no time in championing the achievements of their “tank ace”. For the British, it was an embarrassing blow to military prestige.
Wittmann got lucky. But luck runs out eventually …
00:00 | Introduction
00:42 | Arrival into Villers-Bocage
03:08 | Wittmann’s Rampage Begins
04:51 | Rampaging Through the Village
11:56 | Wittmann’s Luck Runs Out
14:09 | Was Wittmann Really a Tank Ace?
16:54 | ConclusionThis video features archive footage courtesy of British Pathé.
#tankmuseum #tankactions #johndelaney #michaelwittmann #tigertank
