Excellent project but it is not a tank. A tank has a turret and a cannon/barrel. This is a tracked armoured recovery vehicle. The nearest it gets to being a tank is that it has a Centurion tank chassis - but that does not make it a tank. F
Regarding that video, I thought it was the voice of an old bloke in tatty overalls & it turns out to be a young lad.
If I had a quid for every time a journalist described an AFV 432 as a tank, I would be a very rich man. I even heard one a few weeks ago describe the 105mm Abbott tracked gun as a tank. Muppet. Regards Frank
I like the ivy covered garage behind it as much as the BARV. Looks like something from a diorama when they overdue realism
Was the Stridsvagn 103 a tank? Was the reason it had no turret to enhance crew protection etc, or to better fit through railway tunnels? Was .......? Ah, the after dinner discussions .....
Have to say I now find the 'That's not a tank' circular debate about as strange as jam/cream order on scones or which way around the toilet paper should be hung. More something people say than anything particularly worth getting bothered by. The bloke does say at the earliest point that it's not really a tank, which is OK with me. (I still smile at the memes, but Little Willie had its turret taken off, and remained the prototank. Qualifying rhomboids' barbettes as turrets rather stretches a point. A7V & Schneider don't fit many definitions, but remain quite tanky. Etc etc. - Thread from a decade+ back that, err, digressed a tad, here: Favourite Allied tank of the War (and semantic digressions) - I still probably subscribe to Patrick Wright's perception of them as a phenomenon rather than the purely military... 'People know a tank when they see one.' ) Nice BARV, though. And always good to have some conflict history (is this the Aeroventure one? Accents certainly fit Doncaster. Landed at San Carlos, apparently. Not checked the registrations, but there seem to have been a couple there.) Wonder how long they spend in surf during their service life. I'm picturing some remarkable rust revealing itself. (Unless because of that role they're actually more carefully washed down than non-waders.)
From the point of view of the ordinary infantryman: If it has tracks, stops your bullets and can crush you into the ground without any problems.....it is definitely "tank" enough!
"Modified tank" works for me. https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar-uk-fv4018-centurion-barv/ All interesting stuff, hope the restoration works out. Kind regards, always, Jim.
Ok so who opperated them in the Falklands? Normal REME , green bereted REME or RM badged bootnecks ? I have no clue.
Hi van Poop Not sure about the crew uniforms, or the rust factor, but apparently they are all low milage because they do so much of their work backwards, which does not register on the mileometer. Chris
A comment by Mr Herriot elsewhere got me back on this chap's channel. Quite funny. https://www.youtube.com/@fittermat/videos Decent Canuck range Sherman vid: And the person that actually owns/sells all these vehicles. Some good T34 content. (While at least trying to be less demonetised than the above surely is.) https://www.youtube.com/@MrHewes/videos Edit: Is/was that Sherman/Ram a Kangaroo?
If nothing else, most all of these videos illustrate the efficiency of Engine packs. Pop one out - pop one in. Never really specifically considered how far down that path some WW2 gear went. Certainly M4 transmission swapping is in the territory. Maybe some radials, Chaffee etc. I like the fact they're not really tank nerds, either. Watching the actual detailed/historical understanding grow, led front-and-centre by the mechanical interest/ability/dicking about.is fascinating.
It's definitely an early Ram and not a Sherman, as it has the Ram machine gun turret which was later replaced with a bow MG. As to whether it was a Kangaroo or not, I'm not entirely sure there would be visible indicators vs a tank which simply had its turret removed for some other reason. I mean if we had a view from standing on top of the tank and looking down into the turret space, I think some things were rearranged.
RM. (They seem to have been 'ship property' on amphibious assault gear like HMS Fearless.) Two sent, only one usable. They do mention finding out this one never went. Used for trials/testing.
