Bovington Tank Museum

I've never been to Bovington before, so in late August Al and I did a day trip down there for the day to see some tanks.

There are a lot of tanks at the Tank Museum, and this article contains photos of a lot of them. If you don't want to look at lots of photos of tanks, turn away now, but if you do like that sort of think this may be the perfect article for you. So with very brief additional comments, here are the pictures.

Enjoy

"Rentokill? Sorry, can't talk right now, he's listening"

 At the start to the museum you walk through some replica WW1 trenches that introduce the reasons why the tank was invented in the first place.

WWI British tank

WWI German tank. Nice try but the design was not good enough to cope with the mud.

Al always wanted a Rolls Royce

Matilda I

One of two King Tigers. Almost too big to get a decent photo of

A miniature Sherman. Not really - it's a Locust (an intended replacement for the Tetrarch)

Pershing. As used by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge (the film, at least)

M8 Greyhound. Nice camo

Ram Kangaroo

Hetzer

You can almost hear the Jagdpanther: "I am your father"

The other King Tiger, with zimmeritt

PaK 43/41

Somua

A9 Cruiser Mk I

A38 Cruiser Mk III

Panzerbefehlswagen

M1A1 Sherman 75mm with a very small M1A4 76mm in front. The rear one is life size :-)

Information board for the (rubbish) Valiant

The Valiant. A very bad tank indeed

Thorneycroft Bison. A concrete bunker on a flatbed truck. Yes, really.

Covenanter - Cruiser Mark V

Churchill AVRE

Sturmi

The Stuart - a tank that is smaller than an armoured car

Panzer IV

After a long debate with Al I guessed this to be a Panzer IVH (though it wasn't quite right), and found I was half right. The tank is actually a Panzer IV D that was refitted later in the war to be compliant with the H standard, hence the up-armoured cab and spaced turret armour
.

Tetrarch (in the frame of a Hamilcar glider)

Sherman crab

The beautiful, monstrous, enormous Jagdtiger

The Jagdtiger, which looks like it is armed with a naval gun, is one of my favourites of all the tanks at Bovington (yes I know it's a tank destroyer really, not a tank).  I used to have the Tamiya model of one of these when I was a kid!

The Chafee, a good tank (though the glass window on the front isn't a good idea on this one)

SU-76. A thing of beauty

KV-1. Another excellent tank to see

Panzer II L Luchs

T-26 (in Finnish service)

LVT-2 Buffalo

Panzer III N (for some reason missing its tracks)

Italian M-14. Really pleased to see this one

L-3 Lanciafiamme

Crusader

Valentine

Japanese Chi-Ha

The TOG. Very big and no wonder it was never put into production

Challenger

Swedish S-Tank (is this really a tank?)

Something that looks even more ridiculous than the Jagdtiger

Centurion

Sherman Firefly

Va va voom. Not. Renault rubbish

A crazy tank from the twenties. This was the fastest tank in the world at that time, with a top speed of 8mph

Char B

Panzer II

British Light Mk IV

Tiger I

This is the only operational Tiger I anywhere in the world and is currently the pride of Bovington. It's recently returned to the museum having been used in a recent Brad Pitt film. It is not a replica but is made from many parts of Tiger I tanks obtained from many sources. And they're still looking for odd bits like ammunition boxes, in case you have any of them around you'd be happy to part with.

I love Kettenkrads!

Panzer III - this time with its tracks on

Grant

Matilda II

Cromwell

Panther (with very strange coloured camo)

Churchill Crocodile

T-72

T-62

There is another big shed at Bovington which you can go in, so we did. It's full of odd tanks they haven't sorted out yet or which perhaps they won't ever get around to. This includes tanks that do not have enough historical merit to warrant the cost of restoration as well as tanks that are extremely rare for which they don't have parts - or even for which paerts might not exist. Here's a shot of the shed, but don't ask me what everything is!

The T-72 in the foreground is the museum's newest acquisition, a straight swap for a Chieftain with a Polish museum

And finally...

Cobra. The smallest tank in the museum