For those interested in military gear,

[rossmum]

I came down for the Oberon Show (yes, posting from dad's terribad satellite 'internet'), and as it happens, I got to spend more or less all day Saturday and most of Sunday riding tanks. A friend of a friend owns a whole load of armour and brought it along for the show, giving out free rides to anyone who wanted to hop on. As a result, I spent several hours riding about on a 1939 Matilda Mk.III, formerly used as a dozer on the family farm before restoration, a Centurion which had been bought from the Army, and two Bren carriers. The Matilda had been more or less stripped inside the turret and was two tons lighter than a combat-loaded tank, but is one of few remaining 'roadworthy' Matilda tanks anywhere, let alone in the country. The Centurion had been one of six sent to Hong Kong for storage during Vietnam, but was sent back to Australia after another of the tanks was lost. It still had all the bells and whistles, including an IR spotlight, optics, and the entire gun (which, I'm told, works - no need for a license for guns over 40mm as ammo is both illegal to buy and as rare as hen's teeth). All that was missing were the M2 ranging gun and the AA machine gun. Matt, along with his brother and a few of his mates were driving all of the vehicles about all day and when not on the move, they were left with hatches open so anyone could climb inside for a look. I got a fair few photos which I'll post when I get home (as I said, dad's 'net' is bloody horrible), and chances are I'll be able to go around and spend some more time working on them and riding them about at some point soon.

We got a pretty sweet deal as far as the rides go - I saw a place in Victoria advertising Centurion rides at $145 p.p. for 20 minutes!

e/ fun fact: one of our Centurions was 'borrowed' for a nuclear test in the desert. It was placed 500m from the centre of the blast, engine running - when they returned to assess the damage, the only reason it'd stopped running was that it had run out of fuel. The tank was driven out, minor repairs were made to the optics and other more fragile bits, and then it went on to serve in Vietnam. It's the only known case of a tank surviving such a near blast from a nuke, so they're pretty solid tanks. The engine is basically a non-supercharged Rolls-Royce Merlin, of Spitfire fame.

e2/ Oh, forgot to mention the fact that there were two 1944 Chrysler petrol-powered army cooksets still in the original packing and the gun controls off a ship for sale, too. People bring in all manners of awesome stuff to these shows, I love it.

[legionaire45]

And I thought my ammo-case lunchbox was pimp :<.

Awesome shit.

[n00b1n8R]

No planes though. :p

[DarkHalo003]

We have this Military Veterans Ceremony in the city of Roswell every year that I usually attend and it has some pretty cool stuff. They show a lot of WWII stuff there, along with Jeeps and even a Helicopter. Cool stuff though. History withing the last century is always interesting to look at, with the exception of a few parts.

[Bodzilla]

sounds like,
a blast.

yeah.

but seriously man, very cool.

[Hotrod]

Man, I'd do anything to be able to ride in a tank, now I'm jealous. :(

Glad you had fun though.

[rossmum]

No planes though. :p
*used to live within a short and leisurely drive of every major WWII airfield in the southeastern UK, including Duxford*

http://sa.tweek.us/emots/images/emot-owned.gif

going home today, pics should be up by this arvo if my internet isn't being a cock

[n00b1n8R]

*used to live within a short and leisurely drive of every major WWII airfield in the southeastern UK, including Duxford*

http://sa.tweek.us/emots/images/emot-owned.gif

going home today, pics should be up by this arvo if my internet isn't being a cock
*moved to Australia though because the UK was still shit

[Cortexian]

I got to ride around in a LAV III (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=LAV+III&btnG=Google+Search&meta=) for a day during an Airsoft MilSim (Military Simulation) game once. That's the only "tank" that I've rode in, I've climbed on/looked in a bunch of tanks though. Only other cool military stuff that I've got to ride in was a CF-18B (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=CF-18B&btnG=Search&meta=) at an airshow through Cadets, and a few rides in the Canadian "G Wagon" (http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=CF%20G%20Wagon&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi).

Sounds like you had your fair share of excitment Ros! Time to get back to postin!

[rossmum]

*moved to Australia though because the UK was still shit
*actually while I was there the UK still owned and I only moved because of dad's work but apparently it's gone downhill since oh well*

ps, pics;

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00001.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00002.jpg

I love mechanical shit, they had loads of antique engines there

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00003.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00004.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00006.jpg

THE BEASTS (largest is the Centurion, 55 tons, combat weight 64 tons, ridiculously strong; Matilda Mk.III is 25 tons, combat weight 27 tons, one of few left running. The paint job is partly the original desert scheme and partly Matt playing around with a spraycan, though he got the colours exactly right. Patches of yellow where the tank's name was originally painted on are visible in line with the turret on either side if you stand next to it. The smaller things are Bren carriers, about 5-7 tons a piece.)

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00005.jpg

25pdr. field gun

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00008.jpg

Matilda's driver's compartment, dangled camera down the hatch. Levers on each side are for steering, driver's periscope is visible just to the left of the vision block.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00007.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00009.jpg

Inside the turret through the commander's hatch, mostly stripped out though. Seat at top of photo is driver's, with the commander's seat on the left. The gun is pointing in the 1 o'clock direction.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00010.jpg

The slanted 'vents' on the Matilda's side are actually dirt chutes to stop crap falling from the upper side of the track onto the lower side, and as well as return rollers fixed to the intervening plate between chutes, the upper track is supported by metal rails. Never seen this before on a tank, thought it was an interesting design feature which certain people might want to be aware of before modelling one ;o

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00011.jpg

Through the Centurion's cupola. The seat directly below is the commander's, the one fore of that (left in this photo) and slightly below is the gunner's seat. The loader is on the left side of the gun on a fold-down jumpseat, not visible here. Shit on the side of the turret is mainly electrical, fuseboxes and system tests and so on. The radio is on the aft loader's side, racks for the coaxial M2's ammo boxes are on the fore loader's side next to the M2's mounting (empty, sadly), and the gun controls are directly in front of the gunner's seat. The sight visible on the front of the cupola is a stereoscopic rangefinding scope, not the gunsight. The orange-red knob on the left releases a spring which slams the hatch shut, and the red knob on its right is the commander's override for the gun elevation controls. He can also override the traverse with the grey lever visible roughly between the seat and the cupola (twists on one axis, as it controls traverse only). The turret traverses under hydraulic power when the tank is running but has to be hand-cranked when the engine is off. The cupola has periscopes set around it to allow more or less 360-degree vision without opening the hatch.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00012.jpg

Radio. Loader's hatch is just visible behind the overhead cables in the foreground. Breech is to the right, not visible.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00013.jpg

Breech of the 20pdr. main gun; note that the gun still fires but I think Matt took a few of the essentials off for the show (presumably so people don't jam themselves in it accidentally, the tank's quite cramped). The image should be portrait but I forgot to rotate it before uploading; rotate it 90 degrees CCW if it bothers you that much.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00015.jpg

Gunner's pedals. I can only assume these fire the guns, as is often the case on tanks and ships alike.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00016.jpg

Gunner's sights: below the rubber headguard is the spotting periscope, and below that is the 8x boresight. To the left is some form of scale which I presume shows elevation and the drop-off of the various rounds used in the 20pdr. Below and to the right is a gauge showing turret traverse and elevation angles (it has one hand for each, looks a little like a clock in that regard). It's not visible in this picture but is quite large. Elevation handwheel is to the left, not visible; traverse handwheel is to the right with the axis pointing to the floor, the hydraulic traverse stick is below it. Neither are visible here, the camera only wanted to save half my photos.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00017.jpg

Boresight (rotate this one 90 degrees CW, had to go portrait to fit the camera in). It's a bit faded but the camera makes it look worse than it really is.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00018.jpg

Various fuses and electrical system controls, situated to the commander's right.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00019.jpg

Aerial tuner, situated below the gunsight.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00021.jpg

Loader's jumpseat and radio gear, breech in foreground and to right (not visible)

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00022.jpg

Shot of ammo baskets for both the coax M2 and AA gun (most likely an M1919 or M60 in its serving days). Loader's periscope is evident as is the air vent next to it, the cord running into the vent goes to the IR spotlight mounted on the left side of the mantlet. A pair of two-round ready racks are directly below the MG ammo baskets but aren't in the picture, with more ammo storage space on the turret floor and a further rack in the driver's compartment. Total capacity is some 70 rounds. Gun sticks out like a sore thumb in the foreground. Its frame extends nearly to the back of the turret, with good reason - recoil distance is some two feet.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00027.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00026.jpg

1944 Army cookset, still in original packaging. $200, would have bought it on the spot if I had the cash. Feeds 60 or so.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm258/rossmumv2/DSC00028.jpg

What show would be complete without steam traction engines?

Also present were a whole shitload of Willys jeeps and vintage cars, as well as vintage tractors and farm implements.