Showing posts with label tank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tank. Show all posts

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Russia needed armor so badly that its biggest film studio, Mosfilm, donated 36 tanks that had been used as movie props, including the aging T-55, to Russia's defense ministry.

The director general of Mosfilm, Shakhnazarov said, according to a transcript published by the Kremlin. "In 2023, we handed over 28 T-55 tanks, eight PT-76 tanks, six infantry fighting vehicles, and eight trucks we had in our military department to the Armed Forces."

Mosfilm's website says the studio has over 190 armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and self-propelled guns

Figures from Dutch open-source tracking group Oryx say that Russia has lost 10,888 armored vehicles since the war began, including 3,558 tanks.

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Oddballs: The Shermans of ‘Kelly’s Heroes’


The Shermans of Kelly’s Heroes were a rather special model, one of the less well-known and less common to appear. The M4A3E4 was a post-war development of the M4A3. It took the standard model of M4A3 – welded hull, vertical volute suspension (VVSS), early turret, Ford GAA V8 engine – and up-gunned them with the addition of the 76 mm Tank Gun M1. Other additions to the older turret – such as the ‘All-Round Vision Cupola’ and cut-in loader’s hatch – were made to the Sherman between 1943 and 1944. Despite their use as such in the film, the E4s never served the US Military. Having previously trialed this configuration prior to the adoption of the T23 turret. However, it was found to be much too cramped for US military tastes.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Kim just tipped me to a cartoon about girls high school tank combat competition! (Thanks Kim!)


the experts will tell you what order that you should watch them in isn't chronological as there are 4 movies and 8 OVA episodes plus countless manga for one 12-episode season of the actual show as a base. Once it caught on, more content was made


Thursday, February 15, 2024

the crates (made of one-inch oak) in which Patton’s tanks had been delivered were bought as surplus, were used to build sturdy hangars at the Flabob airport in riverside. The airport owner traded a plane and flying lessons for the lumber

The huge pile of wood gradually became hangars and structures at the airport, so hard that it was necessary to drill holes to start nails. ​

Other buildings came from surplus at March Field, Madariaga explaining that his donkey Napoleon and some chickens borrowed from the neighbors made him a “farmer” and thus eligible for such surplus structures.


Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Land Excavating Trenching, aka, White Rabbit No. 6, This machine was an underground tank developed in 1939-1940 and designed to travel across "no-man's-land" in a trench of its own making, cutting a trench 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) wide and 5 ft (1.5 m) deep.

A company called Madill out of Canada uses Sherman tanks as the undercarriage for yarders, which are a mobile "spar" or towers used in cable logging operations.




A demolition company in Northern NJ, Ottilio and sons, had a couple of Shermans they used for taking down buildings in the 60's. There is a video of it.

There supposedly was one used for logging in the Schenectady-Glens Falls, NY area, possibly purchased from the Watervleit arsenal, that the turret had been removed and left in a barn somewhere long after the tank was scrapped.

In a small village in northern Minnesota, there was an older gentleman, who was the radio man at Battle of Bastogne. After the war he bought a tank without the turret to use for dragging the trees they cut down for his logging crew. 
It worked well, except it consumed 60 to 70 gallons of gas a day. Then they heard about a diesel engine they could convert it with, that cost $3,500 , which was a lot of money, back then, but he finally went for it, with his partners and then it only used an average of 10 to 12 gallons a day.

In the late 1960's there was a place in Salem Ma that sold Sherman tanks

An old zinc mine still has a Sherman tank in it. They removed the top and put a drill on top of it. It’s been sitting there since about the 70s when they got newer equipment. The mine is now shut down so you can’t get into see it anymore



a lot of logging machinery was abandoned on coastal Alaskan islands, here is one very obviously Sherman based tractor that has been rescued from rusting away completely


Shermans into ploughshares

In 1947 Sherman III T152649 was sold to Mr. Robert Crawford of Frithville, Lincs., who used it for ploughing until 1957. It was first used with only its turret removed, later the upper hull was cut off. The bulkhead and part of the rear hull were left in place. The rear hull supports the ploughing attachments and exhaust stacks for the GM 6046 twin diesel engine. The Sherman tractor was left outside until 1984, when it was restored for demonstration at the world ploughing contest in Lincolnshire.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=672545848200323&set=a.1385604728185174


https://www.facebook.com/TankHistoria

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

the Series 681 Military Payment Certificate featured Vietnam War Fighter Pilot and Jets

Because using U.S. currency at military establishments was out of the question thanks to the threat of black market trading and counterfeiting being far too great, U.S. troops were issued a variety of Military Payment Certificates (MPC) in several wars, from WW2 through Vietnam. Unlike standard U.S. currency, these notes were issued only to soldiers serving overseas, and were created to be tightly controlled and demonetized at a moment’s notice.








Friday, November 24, 2023

recommending the movie Sisu for the WW2 military trucks, tanks, and sidecar - and the unbelievable action





During the last desperate days of WWII, a solitary prospector (Jorma Tommila) crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. When the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with a legendary ex-commando

If you want to see the lead actor in another movie, I recommend Rare Exports. He is really fun to watch in action movies

Friday, October 13, 2023

Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the Austrian Army and became a tanker in 1965.


Before he moved to the US to enjoy massive success as a bodybuilder, movie star and politician, the future Governator had to perform military service back home. In 1965, an 18-year-old Schwarzenegger began his national service in the Austrian military, where he opted to train as a tank driver.

Looking back, Schwarzenegger reflects, “I was an 18-year-old kid, still really not ripe enough I would say, to take on the responsibility of a 50-ton tank. But there I was, I was going through tank driving school, I passed easily, I was very very excited and enthusiastic, studied everything about the tank. Then I had my own tank, I started driving the tank, it was wonderful.”

After retiring from bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger moved into acting and wound up becoming one of the biggest box office stars of the 80s. By the 90s, he made his first side-step into politics, enlisted by President George HW Bush to chair a Presidential committee on fitness – and during this time, nostalgic for his army days, Schwarzenegger had a fanciful idea.

Reflecting on his love for his old M47 tank, “I said to myself, ‘well, now they don’t need it anymore… they’ve become obsolete.’ So I asked the Austrian army if I can have it back.” 

To receive his tank, he had to obtain permission from the Austrian government, the Pentagon, and the US military.

With the help of high-ranking White House figures Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, Schwarzenegger was indeed able to get the very tank he had driven all those years earlier, paying $20,000 to transport it to his US home.

Understanding that the spectacle of a tank’s destructive power is a novelty to most people, Schwarzenegger starting putting his tank to good use at charitable events, including a 2014 fundraiser in which one lucky raffle winner got to head out to LA to run things over in Schwarzenegger’s tank. (This is the vehicle’s only destructive power, as its gun has been disabled.)


As Schwarzenegger explained “I’m very passionate about after-school programs, which I’ve been doing nationwide for the last twenty-some years. And we always need money so we can enroll more kids in after-school programs. Here we found a way of having people participate and pay, and we raised through this fundraiser over a million dollars.”

Schwarzenegger continues to use the tank’s pulling power to get kids to participate in the after-school program. “I bring kids out here from the after-school programs. When they stay in school their reward is to come out here and drive tanks with me,”

Schwarzenegger’s association with tanks endures. 2021 saw a petition launched on Reddit to make Schwarzenegger part of video game World of Tanks. In response, Schwarzenegger did indeed collaborate with the makers of the game on a special event.


Monday, August 21, 2023

the Detroit Riots of 1967 displaced 388 families and destroyed 412 buildings beyond repair, more than 2,500 businesses were damaged or looted, and 43 people were killed. It began with a Blind Pig (I do not remember this ever being mentioned in my Michigan public school history, in any grade or class)




In the midnight hours of July 23, 1967, a Detroit police raid on an unlicensed after-hours bar,The Blind Pig, a black, unlicensed, late-night drinking club where locals were celebrating the return of two soldiers from Vietnam, turned violent, and an uprising, fueled by reports of police brutality and driven by underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools and rising black unemployment, began.

By the time the riots ended four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned.



Hatred of the police was widespread among the poor in Detroit, especially the black poor. The vast majority of cops were white and the police excelled at recruiting and promoting the most bigoted (so nothing really has changed).

Officers routinely stopped and searched young men and women—and were not afraid to lash out if anyone didn’t know their place. Even old black men were routinely addressed by police as “Boy”.

Small scale disturbances were common, so top cops expected things at the Blind Pig to calm down as the morning wore on. But by afternoon buildings were ablaze and smoke billowed across the city.

Evening saw rioting spread and the overwhelmed Detroit police call in reinforcements from Michigan State and Wayne County. Hundreds of white officers carrying shotguns and long-held resentments against the black poor were off the leash


On Sunday the looting became more strategic. As the dam of anger broke, the greatest targets became the pawn shops which wound up yielding 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns. 

By Tuesday evening the third and final phase of the riot, sniping. Only this time, instead of civilian targets like grocery stores, now the authorities were to draw the ire of the rioters. 

Within a 50 minute period around midnight, nine different police and fire stations would be under fire by mad snipers who were venting their anger against the most visible symbol of the white power structure, the police. http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Snipers.html




The president used the Insurrection Act of 1807 and gave the order to send in troops. The US Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were among those who had recently returned from the Vietnam War. Now they were on streets of one of the US’s greatest cities. 

Tanks and armored cars took up positions, on occasion firing shells into homes suspected of harboring shooters. But compared to the police, the troops were relatively restrained.



notice that the above Jeep has crossed revolvers as nose art










there were actual tanks from the 101st Airborne during the riot and one even shot the steeple off a church







From the mid-1950s onwards unemployment for black people soared to double the national average.

Thousands of black families lived in permanent poverty, depending on welfare payments for survival. Long after formal segregation ended, black people in Northern cities were everywhere faced with white authority—in the schools, in the welfare departments, and especially the police. 

A study of black people in Los Angeles after the Watts riots of 1965 showed that large percentages had been subject to or witnessed police mistreatment. One fifth had been unnecessarily stopped and searched, two fifths had seen it happen to others. 

How could leading Democrat politicians support black rights in the South but ignore racist policing, prejudicial hiring and firing, and appalling housing in the ghettos of the North? (nothing has changed)

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/city-on-fire-12-powerful-photos-from-the-1967-detroit-riot/Slideshow/29234487

You can read first hand accounts and recollections of the week of the riots at 


Detroit wasn't the first of the riots in the summer of 1967, and it was far from the last. Buffalo, New York, and Newark, New Jersey, preceded it


K Bigelow who famously made Hurt Locker, made a movie "Detroit" about the 67 Riots


I think it's available on Hulu