What happens after the war?

Are you refering to Canada as well or just the U.S.?

 

And what about the Ulstermen, should they be removed to return the land to it's rightful Catholic owners? Or the Australians? Or the New Zealanders? What about Britain, should everyone whose ancestors took land from the rightful inhabitants back to Anglo-Saxon or even Roman times be forced to return it to the natives it rightfully belongs too?

There are so many more groupings internationally that it is futile and pointless to list them all.

Many people live where they do because of land taken from its rightful owners, to reorganise the globe on who "Belongs" where is more an unrealistic nonsense.

Making comments that you would like to see a nuclear weapon dropped on a people because you disagree with their nation existing is more than unrealistic nonsense though, that is advocating religious genocide.

 

:roll: Why did I choose yesterday to have a day off?

Right - Gunter, thanks for removing your post, but frankly from the sound of it it should never have been there. While you are entitled to your views on the issue of Israel, please do remember to express them within the guidelines of this forum.
And preferably in the Israel & Patestine topic, but that is a side issue.

Yes, this is a warning.

Right, can we get on with the discussion of what fate met all the surplas tanks after WW2?

 

I'll try and get this right.I read that a college acquired a Sherman to use as a bulldozer.When they had no further use for it,they buried it.Thirty years later some totally righteous geeks dug it up and restored it.It now graces an armored museum in North America.

 

Yes, that would be http://www.aaftankmuseum.com. Some day I'm going to visit that place.

What all the U.S. did with military hardware after WW II is appalling to me. Many Shermans were used to help create coral reefs near beaches. Others were sealed in waterproof sealed containers (only to be removed during Korea). So many Pershings were used as "tank statues" that, when Korea broke out, they reworked their engines, greased the guns, and sent them to Korea without bow machine guns (couldn't find them after removing them for "statue duty"). Too much of an attitude that the A-Bomb would make conventional warfare obsolete.

 

Actually many tanks were made into statues. Both axis and allies.





http://data.primeportal.net/tanks

A few examples, also I beleive there is many in France also but most the sites that have information on those ar in French.

 

The top one is the Panther at Houffalize, Belgium. Here's some pictures from when I visited it last August:

 

Aside from a few missing wheels and sagging suspension,why does this Panther look strange to me?Great pics BTW.

 

It's a Panther G, so it has no driver's visor, but it also lacks the skirts and the add-on armour for the lower mantlet. Other than that I can't find any difference with normal Panthers, so I wouldn't know what struck you as odd.

 

mmm yes , why looks odd to you? :-?
looks very normal to me,
i just want to ask if is the same panther? cos the position of the turret is different also the base is completly different, :roll:

 

It is the same tank. Check out the camouflage pattern on the turret, the number and the background (which is to the upper left of my pictures). Also compare the white-painted air drop canisters around the monument.

I guess they just reorganized their monument somewhere between now and when the first picture was taken.

 

I see lots of WW2 armor scattered around small town-squares in static displays in the midwest of the USA.
I've seen "Easy 8" Shermans, and lots of quad 40mm gun mounts, and even a 3inch gun mount in front of a few of the local VFW-clubs. (Veteran of Foreign Wars.)
The little town of Linton, IN has an M48 in static display at the town's edge.
The stories of "army surplus" in the late 40's and early 50's is enough to take your breath away.
I just hate it I missed-out on a post-war P-38L Lightning for $1,500. Surplus jeeps were common as dandelions. And those neat little tow-behind trailers too. Too bad I was all of 6 yrs old at the time.

Tim

 

Click on the museum link.See anything unusual behind the Panzer IV?

 

the Houfallize tank above is a good example of "what happens after the war". It had fallen of the bridge (or pushed out of the way into) over the local river and lay there for years on its side.

After some years (1948), Panthers had become rare and it was decided to haul it out the river and put it on a monument. By that time everything removable had been ripped off the tank. The fact that it has so few road wheels is due to the fact that all wheells from the accessible side had been taken off and scrapped. the remaining wheels (these were on the side the tank was lying on) where then redistributed to both sides to give it a little more a look of a real tank. You can see that innere and outer wheels are mixed (!) (i don't know where they got the tracks, maybe they are even the wrong type, any specialists here ?)

BTW, the Celles panther is even worse, as it sat upright all wheels have dissapeared. The first time i visited it, it was just a pile of rusting metal sitting by the road (basically only armour plates and gun left). Since then it has been made into a monumetn and given a horrible paint job....:
http://battlefieldsww2.50megs.com/celles_panther.htm

it really was much more impressive in its abandoned state, no it looks like a toy.

Aglooka

 

I agree that is a pretty ugly paint camo, I think the tank crew would ahve painted it better (as the camo was often painted by the crews rite?). Dind tthe americans auction off the surplus?

 

I don't know how horrible it is - seems fairly accurate to me.

 

Back to the original question - we had a topic about a Sherman that was converted into a tractor!

http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1092

Sadly all the pictures have disappeared... :cry:

 

there is one here:

http://www.aaftankmuseum.com/Tank_Ordnance.htm

some nice ones here: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/spoelstra ... hshare.htm

aglooka

 

Algooka - the secong link was exactly what I was after!

Thanks,
Ricky

 

actually I beleive that the buldozer the first one was an officail conversion during WWII.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paters ... rtanks.htm