Published on 15 Apr 2015
The fourth in a series of short films about some of the vehicles in our collection presented by The Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher MBE.
Alongside their work for the British armed forces Vickers-Armstrongs produced military equipment for foreign buyers. Their earliest commercial tank designs failed to sell but in 1928 they produced a masterpiece. Known as the 6-ton or ‘six-tonner’, it was a remarkable design, with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine driving to a gearbox and track sprockets at the front of the tank. There were two main variants; some tanks were supplied with two machine-gun turrets (Type A) while others carried a larger single turret (Type B) like our exhibit.
Following trials the British Army turned it down but the tank was a major export success. It sold all around the world, from South America to Japan and was even studied by the United States Army. It was built under licence in Russia (see our T-26 exhibit) and influenced tank design in many other countries. Our exhibit is displayed in the fancy camouflage style adopted by Vickers for their commercial offerings; it is seen at a mythical army equipment exhibition some time in the thirties.
Shortly before World War II Vickers built a new version, powered by a Rolls-Royce engine (the Mark F) but this failed to sell. Subsequent to this the government of Siam (Thailand) placed a repeat order but specified the original Armstrong-Siddeley engine. These were completed closer to the Mark F design but few, if any, reached their destination. With the outbreak of war the British Government impounded all commercial tanks still in the factories and the remaining stock of six-tonners, of which this is one, were used by British forces for training.
April 4, 2017
Tank Chats #4 Vickers Armstrongs Type E
April 28, 2016
QotD: That’s why they call it “Sex Education”
I’m on the road in Thailand, speaking at a U.N. conference on sustainable A development in the Third World. Earlier today I listened to a presentation on the effects of sex education for women. The presentation mentioned some cultural value conflicts about sex education, but it occurred to me that it didn’t touch the biggest one. To wit: worldwide, the teachers want the kids to learn abstinence, but what the kids [want] to learn is technique.
Eric S. Raymond, “That’s Why They Call It ‘Sex Education'”, Armed and Dangerous, 2002-05-20.
January 22, 2014
Thai protests trigger state of emergency declaration
BBC News on the Thai government’s attempts to deal with the ongoing protests:
The Thai government has imposed a 60-day state of emergency in the capital, Bangkok, and the surrounding provinces, from Wednesday, to cope with unrest.
The decree gives the government wide-ranging powers to deal with disorder.
Anti-government protesters have been blocking parts of the capital to try to force PM Yingluck Shinawatra to resign.
They accuse the government of being run by exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, the brother of the current prime minister.
Ms Yingluck has refused to resign and has called an election on 2 February to pacify the protesters.
The state of emergency was announced after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday and comes after a spate of attacks with explosives and firearms on the anti-government protesters blockading central Bangkok for which the government and the protesters blame each other.
On Sunday, 28 people were injured when grenades were thrown at one of several protest sites set up at major road sections in the city.
“The cabinet decided to invoke the emergency decree to take care of the situation and to enforce the law,” Deputy Prime Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said.
The emergency decree gives the government power to censor the media, ban public gatherings and detain suspects without charge.
George Talusan, a friend and former co-worker of mine was on vacation in Thailand recently and posted some brilliant photos to his Facebook feed. I’ve asked his permission to include a few of them here:
A protester stops his motorcycle and holds up a handmade sign near Lumpini Park (Jan 13)
PDRC protesters wave flags at Victory Monument (Jan 14)
Suthep Thaugsuban delivers a speech at Asok BTS (Jan 15)
PDRC protesters are offered water during a sit-in at Royal Thai Police HQ (Jan 15)
PDRC security guard poses outside Royal Thai Police HQ which had been vandalized after a sit-in (Jan 19)
June 30, 2012
Thai farm workers arrested for “causing global warming”
A weird little story from Thailand:
PHETCHABUN – Early one Thursday morning, a gun was pointed at Ms. Kwanla Saikhumtung, a 34-year-old mother, because she was farming.
The man who pointed the gun was one of ten armed officers from Phu Pha Daeng, the local wildlife sanctuary in Lomsak district. After observing the villagers for three days, the officers finally informed Ms. Kwanla and twelve fellow villagers from Huay Kontha that they were trespassing on wildlife sanctuary land. They demanded that the villagers come to the police station to talk with them.
They refused. The villager that hired them paid taxes on the plot, leading the villagers to believe they had a right to work the land, and they worried about finishing their work.
[. . .]
This incident was the beginning of a seven-year-long legal battle, pitting Ms. Kwanla against the Thai government. She and the other twelve villagers — the youngest only sixteen at the time — were first charged with trespassing.
The real shock, however, came when they were slapped with a 470,000 baht fine for contributing to global warming under the charge of causing environmental damage.
[. . .]
The Royal Forestry Department (RFD) fined the villagers for cutting down trees and farming, drawing from the 1992 National Environmental Quality Act which forbids “destruction, loss, or damage to natural resources owned by the State.” Their fine was determined according to a formula used to calculate environmental damage. The formula measures the increase in temperature caused by cutting down trees. Any increase in the land temperature shows ‘global warming’. In essence, cutting down trees to farm corn leads to global warming.
The Huay Kontha villagers have a running joke, “Because we pick the corn, the world gets hotter.”
The charges that Ms. Kwanla and the other villagers face shed light on an emerging trend in Thailand. Land dispute issues are becoming increasingly common. According to Pramote Pholpinyo, coordinator of the Northeast Land Reform Network (LRN), there are currently 35-40 “global warming” cases against villagers in Thailand, with charges amounting to almost 33 million baht.
H/T to Anthony Watts for the link.
July 1, 2011
Guardian contributer learns not to confuse “sociopathy” with “social network”
Kia Abdullah will think twice before letting her inner sociopath out on Twitter in future:
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, three young British men were killed in a bus crash in Thailand, just days after starting their gap year travels. A deeply tragic case — and one that will have left many British parents sick with worry. Annually about 100,000 young Brits take gap years.
But here’s a Twitter reaction from Kia Abdullah, a Guardian contributor:
Even if you think this sort of thing, sending it out immediately over Facebook or Twitter is just asking for a landslide of public abuse to land on your head. People who work in media have the least excuse for this kind of absent-minded faux pas, as they often pounce on celebrity or politician errors of exactly this sort.
January 18, 2011
Singapore diplomats caught speaking very undiplomatically
Sometimes, the information in the various WikiLeaks releases shocks and surprises. Other times, it merely confirms common beliefs:
Singaporean officials are putting up a brave face after highly embarrassing Wikileaks’ disclosures. They have rubbished the leaked cables as “cocktail talk” and accused the media of blowing the casual remarks out of context. Singapore-specific cables have shown that diplomats and officials of this tiny but prosperous city state have scant regard for leaders of neighboring countries and have insulted their neighbors with disparaging remarks.
[. . .]
Tommy Koh, a senior diplomat of Singapore, took pot shots at Japan and said that Japan was “the big fat loser” in the larger strategic matrix as China’s relations with ASEAN nations continued to improve. This is not insulting had Koh stopped at that only. However, the Singaporean diplomat blabbed on and blamed Japan’s “stupidity, bad leadership, and lack of vision.” Koh dragged in the Indians as well and called India “stupid” for being “half-in, half-out” of ASEAN.
Another leaked cable quotes Peter Ho, Singapore’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Secretary, telling a U.S. official in March 2008 that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was an “opportunist”. Another Singapore diplomat remarked senior colleague in Singapore’s foreign ministry, Bilahari Kausikan, told US Deputy Secretary of Defence for South that ousted Thailand leader Thaksin Shinawatra was ‘corrupt’, along with “everyone else, including the opposition.”
The art of diplomacy is saying in public what your government wants everyone to believe, while saying to your government what is really happening.
