The Tank Museum
Published 3 Sep 2021David Willey is back with another Tank Chat! This week’s episode is all about the Schützenpanzer. A West German infantry fighting vehicle developed from 1956 to 1958.
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December 21, 2021
Tank Chat #136 | Schützenpanzer | The Tank Museum
December 9, 2021
Tank Chat #135 | Marder | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 27 Aug 2021In this latest episode of Tank Chats, Curator David Willey details the German Marder. A post-war Infantry Fighting vehicle.
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December 1, 2021
Tank Chats #134 | Centurion | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 20 Aug 2021David Fletcher is back with another Tank Chat on one of the most successful post-war tank designs, Centurion. It was the primary British Army main battle tank of the post-World War II period.
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November 30, 2021
The Elgin Marbles
In The Critic, Zachary Hardman outlines the history of the Elgin Marbles and why the Greek government is re-opening the campaign to retrieve them from the British Museum:
Some of the sculptures in the Elgin Marbles collection on display in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.
Photo by Paul Hudson via Wikimedia Commons.
Last week, the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis was in London, with only one thing on his mind: the return of the so-called “Elgin Marbles” to Athens. 2021 is the two-hundredth anniversary of Greek independence, when the country liberated itself from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire and, for Athens, there would be no better birthday present than the restitution of the lost marbles.
The dispute about their rightful ownership is as old as the modern Greek state. In the early 19th century, the British Ambassador Lord Elgin was granted permission by Athens’ Ottoman rulers to remove half the remaining marble sculptures from a frieze on the Parthenon, the ruined ancient temple, which still adorns the Acropolis, the rocky outcrop overlooking the city.
Elgin had the marbles shipped to Britain. The journey, though, proved difficult. They were transported via Malta where, following a shipwreck, they spent a brief sojourn at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The rescue mission was ruinously expensive. Elgin intended to furnish his ancestral Scottish home with the marbles. On second thoughts, though, he cut his losses and sold them to the British Museum.
Public opinion was divided. Lord Byron wrote two poems denouncing Elgin. His supporters, meanwhile, claimed the marbles were saved from further damage at the hands of warring Greeks and Turks, who didn’t appreciate them anyway. The Greeks, understandably, took a dim view of this. Since the 1980s they have waged a sustained PR offensive for the return of the marbles. An impasse, though, remains.
To break it, Mitsotakis would do well to consider the insights of the ancient rhetoricians. Athens, of course, was the birthplace of not only democracy, but rhetoric: the art of persuasion. The philosopher Aristotle, who wrote the original guidebook on the subject, said it was about identifying “the means of persuasion in any given case”. It is the task of modern Athens to work out who it must persuade and what of.
The fresh campaign began with the Government. In Downing Street, after all, lives a man Mitsotakis regards a “true philhellene”. The return of the marbles, the Greek Prime Minister said, after a meeting with Johnson, would be a “coup” for “global Britannia”. Flattery, however, has its limits. The British Government is unwavering in its support for the Museum. Mitsotakis, however, was undeterred.
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November 24, 2021
Tank Chats #133 | Renault UE Chenillette | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 6 Aug 2021In this weeks Tank Chat, Curator David Willey talks about the Renault UE Chenillette. A light tracked armoured carrier produced by France between 1932 and 1940.
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November 17, 2021
Tank Chats #132 | Morris Light Reconnaissance Car | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 23 Jul 2021David Fletcher is back with another Tank Chat discussing the Morris Light Reconnaissance Car.
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November 10, 2021
Tank Chats #131 | Kanonenjagdpanzer | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 9 Jul 2021Curator David Willey discusses the German Cold War tank destroyer the Kanonenjagdpanzer or Jpz 4-5 for short.
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November 4, 2021
Anti-Tank Chats #2 | Panzerbüchse 39 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 2 Jul 2021Welcome to Anti-Tank Chats, a brand-new series on the history of infantry weapons used in Anti-Tank warfare. In the second episode, Archive and Supporting Collections Manager, Stuart Wheeler explores the Panzerbüchse 39 Anti-Tank Rifle.
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October 28, 2021
Tank Chats #130 | Ikv 91 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 18 Jun 2021Curator David Willey discusses the Cold War era Swedish Ikv 91. Short for Infanterikanonvagn 91, this tank destroyer was developed to meet the operational requirements of the Swedish Army post-WW2.
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October 21, 2021
Tank Chats #129 | Marmon-Herrington Mk. IV | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 11 Jun 2021David Fletcher examines the Marmon-Herrington Mk IV, an armoured car produced by South Africa and used by the British, among others, during the Second World War.
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October 14, 2021
Tank Chats #128 | Panzer 61 | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 4 Jun 2021Curator David Willey examines one of Switzerland’s first indigenously designed and produced tanks, the Panzer 61, put into service during the Cold War.
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October 7, 2021
Tank Chats #127 | Thornycroft Bison Concrete Armoured Lorry | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 28 May 2021David Fletcher looks at the eccentric Thornycroft Bison, a concrete armoured lorry, created by the British to defend airfields in the early years of the Second World War.
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September 30, 2021
Tank Chats #126 | Guy Armoured Car | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 21 May 2021David Fletcher MBE looks at the rare and most interesting Guy Armoured Car, thought to be the first welded vehicle used by the British Army.
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September 23, 2021
Tank Chats #125 | Sherman M74 ARV | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 7 May 2021David Fletcher takes a look at the mighty M74 Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV), built on a Sherman M4A3 chassis.
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September 16, 2021
Tanks Chat #124 | FV4005 Tank Destroyer | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 23 Apr 2021David Fletcher MBE explores the experimental FV4005, with original turret and 183mm gun fitted on a Centurion Mark 12 hull.
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