Jump to content

Post war repurposing of tanks


Mikel2

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 61
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

10 hours ago, bojan said:

There is large abandoned bridge in Czech Republic, but IIRC it is pre-ww2 construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borovsko_Bridge

Yeah, that one was certainly on there, but it wasnt the one I was thinking of. Perhaps I was dreaming again.

Thanks anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/4/2021 at 8:26 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

I read an article from a world war one newsletter suggesting deturreted FT17's were being used as canal tugs in Belgium in 1919. I guess there was a distinct shortage of horses by that point.

In WWI Belgium lost about 40 % (net) of its horses and the remaining ones were underfed and usually 2nd or 3rd rate and beyond breeding age..... (from a pre war stock of about 150 000 - 200 000)

At Versailles Belgium was allocated 10000 horses as reparations (after much higher and more realisitc requests by Belgium had been turned down by the great powers) but only 4500 were given by 1920. The Germans sent the worst of the horses as there was no inspection for quality by a 3rd party before they were delivered to Belgium.

30000 Horses were bought from the British War office, 24000 from the Canadians.

These horses ofc did sterling work in restarting the economy but they were not a long term solution and there were not enough of them.

Problem was that the breeding stock of the heavy draught horses for agricultural and transportation work (The Brabanders  or more generally the Belgian Horse etc...) had largely dissapeared and that could not be solved by imports of random races.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC after the 1990 Gulf War the first of these "jet engine on tank chassis" contraptions were built to literally blow out a burning oil well. I have no idea wether they were a success, but it was much in the news back then due to its novelty/weirdness factor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Inhapi said:

In WWI Belgium lost about 40 % (net) of its horses and the remaining ones were underfed and usually 2nd or 3rd rate and beyond breeding age..... (from a pre war stock of about 150 000 - 200 000)

At Versailles Belgium was allocated 10000 horses as reparations (after much higher and more realisitc requests by Belgium had been turned down by the great powers) but only 4500 were given by 1920. The Germans sent the worst of the horses as there was no inspection for quality by a 3rd party before they were delivered to Belgium.

30000 Horses were bought from the British War office, 24000 from the Canadians.

These horses ofc did sterling work in restarting the economy but they were not a long term solution and there were not enough of them.

Problem was that the breeding stock of the heavy draught horses for agricultural and transportation work (The Brabanders  or more generally the Belgian Horse etc...) had largely dissapeared and that could not be solved by imports of random races.

Yes, I remember hearing most of the British Army's stock of horse from WW1 never went home, I guess for this very reason. And because after we knocked out all those Army lorries, there wasnt much call for horses in the cities anymore.

Thats very interesting though, thanks for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Inhapi said:

IIRC after the 1990 Gulf War the first of these "jet engine on tank chassis" contraptions were built to literally blow out a burning oil well. I have no idea wether they were a success, but it was much in the news back then due to its novelty/weirdness factor.

I remember Red Adair predicting it could take years to put out all those oil field fires. As it turned out it was only months, the tech seemed to work fairly well.

Just had a memory of one of the few positive things to come out of Britains disastrous 'Ground Nut' scheme. The Shervick.

1523031646_vickers-shervick-1.jpg

JS71269286.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a comment from the "Out of Town" (rebranded "Old Country" presenter Jack Hargreaves in a Youtube video of one of the old episodes who recounted that he left the fields seeing everything done by horses and came back from the war to see it all done by tractor. Primarily US imports.

In fact - here it is, along with using the word "corn" to mean "the local cereal crop" - in this case wheat.

 

Edited by DB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting article about the purchase and shipment of horses/mules to Europe during ww1.  

https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/brookeusa-buying-animals.html

This surprised me but probably shouldn't have.

Quote

The foals of 1914 would have been only three-year-olds by 1917, ready for training and possibly sold into service that year or the next. All the other horses that went to war were born before 1914, and bred before 1913 (an equine pregnancy lasts 11 months). And, not knowing how long the war would go on, but with no real reason to believe it would last for even a decade, breeders were not moved to try to increase their breeding operations.

This book has lists by year and destination country of horse exports and imports.  In 1917 the US exported 100k horses to the UK.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Foreign_Crops_and_Markets/u51CAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=horse exports from the us to the uk after 1919&pg=PA162&printsec=frontcover&bsq=horse exports from the us to the uk after 1919

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/13/2021 at 9:44 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, I remember hearing most of the British Army's stock of horse from WW1 never went home, I guess for this very reason. And because after we knocked out all those Army lorries, there wasnt much call for horses in the cities anymore.

Thats very interesting though, thanks for that.

Also by the early twenties more than 1300 tractors were in use in Belgium in agriculture alone, no mean feat for such a small country that was completely broke in 1918.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Cue jokes about Lucas electric, in 3, 2, 1...

Well, Ok, I'll give it my best shot. Two goldfish are in a tank. One says to the other: “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

At long last, the product of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill's Landships committee sets sail.

... it was only at this point that he realised the term "fish tank" could be misinterpreted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Marc at VMMV has related a farmer he met who bought a surplus centurion, removed the turret and then used it to pull 5 plows in a line and plow his farm with one pass of the plows vs the usual 5 he did for every spring. 

Matt McMahon has 5 iirc. His father or grandfather bought several post war in Australia. 2 were converted to run bulldozer blades with the hydraulics run through the front direct vision port. The family apparently used them for quite a while for farming and logging. I've corresponded off and on with him over the years. 

 

Lots of examples of US M3/M4 hull types being used to make up Yarders and the like for Forestry and Ag purposes. Drag lines for mining. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...