Bovington Tank Museum

 
This week it was my Dad's 65th birthday and as a bit of a treat I said I'd take him and Mum to Bovington Tank Museum.
  Of course being an ex-squaddie and a fully paid up member of the regimental association, Dad got in free. And did all the driving. Meanwhile Mum paid for me and her to get in.
 So really I just treated Mum and Dad to breakfast on the way up.

Hmm. Doesn't sound so generous now, does it?

It was quite a good breakfast mind you. I particularly liked the sausages.

 The British Army has been training tank crews at Bovington since 1916 while the museum was founded in the 1920s on the suggestion of Rudyard Kipling. It is currently the world's largest collection of tanks, many of which are kept in running order.
 I visited Bovington during the 1970s and I have vague memories of it being pretty much an enormous shed stuffed with tanks. These days it's a lot more sophisticated.


 As you pull up outside, your eyes are immediately draw to the bronze outside.

A group of young tankies wait expectantly for their vehicle to arrive. 

There's also a wall commemorating the Armoured Corps men killed in action since 1945.

You can't help noticing that there's an awful lot of them.

  After pottering around the obligatory shop, we moved on into the museum proper, beginning with the Trench Experience. 

  Entering through a recruiters, decorated with flags and posters exhorting the men of England to do their bit, we went through a door and found ourselves somewhere in France, with a barrage rumbling away on the horizon. Although the mockup could only do so much to capture the mud and the stink, there was one thing that did hit me hard.  In a little scrape in the trench wall, so easy to walk past without notice, I found this.   

 When I got a little closer I realised that thanks to cunningly concealed speakers I could hear him sobbing. 

Moving on, we arrived at a little diorama depicting the moment warfare changed forever.

 . What you can't see - and I wish I'd got a picture - is the German soldier huddled against the other wall of the trench, rifle raised to try and fend off the steel behemoth looming over him. Whoever did that particular mannequin deserves praise. The poor bastard looked utterly terrified.  

  And that leads us into a hall full of WW1 armour. 

Mk IV - backbone of the British Tank Regiments.  

 The MK VIII  International. 

Intended to be mass produced by Britain, France and the USA, the war ended before more than a handful were completed.

   

Rolls-Royce Armoured Car. (UK)

The German reply to the tank threat. The A7V. 

Basically a metal box on tracks.

Unfortunately the Germans would get a lot better at tank design. 

With part of the Museum closed while they prepared a new exhibit, we backtracked and headed for the Discovery Centre. Dad promptly got chatting to a couple of other ex-tankies while Mum and I wandered off in different directions. I took a lot of photos so I'm just going to stick to the more interesting ones.

Saracen "Water Dispenser" (UK)

A water cannon in other words.

The FV4401 Contentious.(UK) An abortive attempt at a light Tank Destroyer.  It does look a bit half-finished, doesn't it?

Tiger (Germany)

The Great Beast that gave Allied tank crews nightmares.

This is the only one in the world in running order and the Tank Museum is very proud of it. 

By way of contrast...

Proving that Germans do have a sense of humour, this is "Goliath" - a radio controlled mini-tank packed with explosives. 

Note the Sprite bottle to give you some sense of scale.

I did pick it up again afterwards.    

Somua S35 (France)

One of the best tanks the French had in 1940 

Not entirely sure about the camouflage scheme though. 

The frankly bizarre "Praying Mantis" two-seat light tank. (UK)

The idea was that the body could be raised up and poke over the top of hedges and walls.

Looks like a bloody deathtrap to me.   

Tortoise (UK)

At some point the British Army decided  "Right. Let's see how much armour and how much gun we can fit onto one tank."

Sadly the end result was barely mobile so they they then went with...

Black Prince. (UK)

A stretched, widened Churchill with a Tiger-killing 77mm gun. 

Might have worked if they'd remembered to give it a bigger engine to cope with all the extra weight.

Muppets.

Valiant (UK)

Some of these tanks were preserved because of their importance to future design. 

Others, their novelty.

This is the only tank that was specifically preserved as an object lesson in how not to design a tank. 

Luckily British tank design got a bit better.  

Centurion.(UK)

One of the most effective tanks of the 50/60s and I think there's still armies using them.

My Dad used to drive one of these and he has a certain affection for it to this day.  

He also used to drive this.

 Chieftain (UK)

 With everybody running out of energy and suffering from sore feet, there was just time for me to hunt down my favourite tank of WW2 and get a quick snap. 

Me and a Matilda MK II. 

This had a crew of 4.

How the hell did they all fit in?

More to the point, how did they all get out in a hurry? 

   

 If you have a fondness for Military History and ever happen to find yourself in Dorset, I can definitely recommend a visit to Bovington.  If you can, try and go in the summer when they have vehicles rumbling around outside. 

 That's all folks.