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Any tank nuts here? WW1, WW2 Korea, Vietnam?

nice model ,cool thread .

dig armour(ww2) as much as cars/ aircraft

noticed in the earlier posts a couple about Sherman v's tiger and someone posted "Kelly's hero's version .thought I'd update

here's the one from "FURY " ,its quit confronting :eusa_think: yes I know its a movie

but have seen lots of doco's(recent ones not the ha ha we won 60's 70's ones ) where tankers ( especially British) talk about the "88" going through the Sherman's armour like a "hot knife through butter" .even one instance where the round passed completely through one tank and knocked out the one behind it . gallant allied lives , shear weight of numbers and industrial might was what won the war


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8vFGQ0uJQc
 
Being a big Caterpillar guy, I always thought it was too bad that they didn't end up using the Caterpillar RD1820 in the Shermans. They only built 120 of the radial diesels IIRC. A diesel probably would've been difficult to start out in the field in winter, however.
 
the Russians only ran diesels (v2 12cylinders ), don't think they had the starting problems that the German maybach engine did
 
Ah!
Tanks!
Doesn't every Red Blooded American Male have a thing for ARMY TANKS?

PS: My Bud , a former Marine, has a son at Ft. Irwin, Barstow CA
The kid is doing well, ARMY and in "Mechanized"
He fixes battle damaged Tanks etc.
How cool!
 
Yes Ski most of us do have a "thing" for tanks LOL..............

It's in our male DNA. But I can tell you from first hand experience they are not built for comfort. (well maybe the driver's hole in an M-1 Abrams is)

But at the least the US made tanks are more "Crew Oriented" than the former Soviet Union tanks were by what we were told. In the winter they are COLD. Imagine trying to live inside your refrigerator. Your surrounded by Cold steel. Then in the summer they are HOT !!!!!!!!! Especially in the desert. Sometimes our OVM tools were too hot to touch without wearing gloves. I have cooked an egg on a front fender of one. Wouldn't want to eat it afterwards....... too gritty......... LOL

My Dad was an Army tanker and Infantry "grunt" in the Korean War. He crewed M-4 Sherman's and M-26 Pershing's / M-46 Patton's. Pops told me that he experienced first hand how quick the Sherman would "cook off" after being hit. He told me you only had a few seconds to get out (if you could). Then it would go up in flames. On his death bed, Dad told me that he had 4 tanks knocked out from under him while in Korea. He was lucky to survive. He NEVER talked about his war experiences until close to the end of his life. He mentioned running over a land mine, flipping the tank on it's side. He mentioned a North Korean soldier throwing a "satchel" charge on the rear deck that knocked out their engine. One was due to a direct hit from what he thought was a 122 MM mortar on the rear deck. One he said they had a track shot off by the Chinese that disabled the tank. During all of this he never mentioned the fate of the other crewmen. God bless those guys !!!!!!!!!!!!

Freedom is not free.

I had the pleasure of talking with a WW2 British tanker a few years ago.

He told me that the Germans also had a "Nasty Habit" of shooting THROUGH buildings and houses with an 88MM and knocking out Allied tanks that way. Horrific stuff.

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Also there was a variant of the Sherman that used a radial aircraft engine. It had to be run up above an idle quite often to keep it from fouling the plugs out.

The only problem I knew of with starting a Maybach was carb fires. The early Panther and Tiger tanks didn't have the engine compartments properly vented. Gasoline vapors accumulated as a result. When the engine experienced a backfire, it sometimes sat the tank on fire.

No one except for the Russian T-34 (to my knowledge) used a diesel engine in a tank (except for a possible prototype). They were all gas engines in all countries except for Russia.

The M-48 was the first US tank to use a diesel, and it was in the mid 1950's.

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Diesel tank engines burn too. I can tell you another story about my first hand experience on that one............................

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T-34 Diesel engine

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and a T-34...........................

Both photos courtesy of the internet.

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US made Continental R-975 Sherman tank radial engine

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It was used in some Sherman M4's and M4-A1's

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Ford also made a V-8 engine for the Sherman's.

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Here is one with a valve cover off.
 
That's pretty cool, Airgrabber. A big aluminum diesel! They still use a descendant of that engine - the V-92S2 with 1000 hp. - in the current T-90 tank.
 
I like the flame arrestors on the late panther G exhaust. The Germans actually had infrared cameras on some late G's for the driver scope, main gunner and commander cupola so they could fight at night. Good design like the MP44 assault rifle, but fortunately for the free world it was too little too late!

Is that the tamiya or DML panther model?
 
It's the 1/35 Tamiya one. Good eye!!!! I have a few of the Dragon / DML kits yet to build.

I like the exhaust too. The Jadgpanther had a similar set up since it was based on the Panther chassis.

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Panther G 11.jpg

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Here is a Panther with the IR spot light on top of the turret (commander's cupola).

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Here is a picture of the exhaust I mentioned. This one is a model someone else built.

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That's pretty cool, Airgrabber. A big aluminum diesel! They still use a descendant of that engine - the V-92S2 with 1000 hp. - in the current T-90 tank.

That's amazing !!!!!!!!!!!!

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I guess if it's not broke ....................

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don't fix it !!!!!!!!!!! LOL
 
The Littlefield collection in 2010 when I first posted this thread, I just went back to post one and saw the link for photobucket was set to private, that's fixed but here are the pics if you don't want to go to post 1 :) Thanks for keeping this thread alive and for all those who served a huge thank you for your service!

























































































































 
M-50-Ontos-May-1965[1].jpg[video]https://youtu.be/OUpl4vf5juA[/video]
 
Long ago (he passed away years ago) I had an old Hungarian friend who was part of a crew on Tiger tanks, as a radio operator. He recalled how they would often travel with one tank pulling two others down the road because fuel was so scarce and they had to save it for combat.
 
I met this German man at an air show in Virginia about 8 years ago. He was a Tiger tank crewman and I got to talk to him and his family for a few minutes. He was very nice as he told me he was in North Africa and he fought there. Said he moved to America in the 50's and became a citizen. I dont remember which crewman he was in the tank but I think he was the mechanic of the crew. My friends and I had a great time talking with him as he told us some of the problems tankers had. It was cool to actually meet and talk with a Tiger tank crew member. Ron

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my youngest son and I last fall we went to a well known military surplus dealer that I used to go to for a lot of parts needs that I needed for my military vehicle restorations 20151116_154144.jpg

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