anywhere. Because I didn't go anywhere. Though I have to give a bit of a forewarning. If you
notice that the stream might not be quite as smooth as it was, the thing I had to do behind
the scenes was just drop the FPS slightly. Just to bring it down from 60 FPS because
if I'm streaming, if I'm playing the game, I'm typically streaming in 60 FPS. But because
we have the Tankfest Online Historical Stream and the production crew behind the scenes
and all of their technical setup.
I just need to drop a bit of a wee bit.
Is this a trick?
No, it's fine.
It's all good.
Your tokens are good, Schwab.
Your tokens are good.
Everything is fine.
Fiat, your tokens are fine.
Every fresh people, people, people, it's fine.
It's OK.
It's all fine.
They're alive.
I'm still here.
Y'all here.
I'm here.
I see that chat's still here.
I realize that asking people not to panic is a,
is probably not gonna happen. Yeah, I know. I get it. It's okay. No, we're not panicking
yet. Quasarquisitor. No. So scoody. No. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't encourage them.
It's fine. I'm gonna make sure I'm live again. Am I still live? Are you making sure?
Cool. Cool. Cool. I see messages in chat and I'll just need to double check where
Am I actually live? We are actually live.
You're going to make me panic if you're not careful.
There you are, Timer. I'm OK.
No panicking for me.
Someone did ask me if I could play this at BZ, though.
And of course I can.
I was specifically asked by my management if I can bring it
on stream for a little bit and have a few games.
Because you do need to watch this space for a little bit
of news and a little bit more information
about this vehicle and how you can get hold of it, and all of that jazz, but I can at least
show it off and give you all, I would say a first look for those of you who were here
yesterday, I guess you could say it's now a second look, maybe technically a third
look because I believe this is game three, but you know the point I'm trying to make.
Who will it be today? Well I am going to be disappearing in a short amount of time.
I'll see you when I get someone walking in front of the camera and going,
TIDO, kill it, it's ATTA.
That should be any time between 10 minutes and 20 minutes.
So be ready, be patient.
It will be soon TM.
But don't worry, when I do, when I go, there are going to be lots of things to
look forward to, because as I said before, and as I'll probably continue to
That'll be when the Tankfest Online Historical Stream is going to be kicking off Woppa.
I have a cheeky shot at the area from here, you're not doing it, don't have a cheeky shot at the WZ,
now you're unspotted, that's a shame.
That is a shame.
If you do Exclamation Point Tankfest, it won't spoil...
It won't spoil whilst coming up during Tankfest Online Historical Stream,
but it will give you the rundown of all of the other things that you could have been looking forward to this weekend.
this weekend and throughout typefest period.
What are points?
The points are just ways to interact with the Twitch stream.
Twitch has a system called Twitch Channel Points.
You earn them, you accrue them by being here
in the Twitch chat watching streams.
And you can use those channel points to keep me hydrated
such as me drinking my other can of wine brew
or generally looking after myself.
because if all of you are well aware of a Twitch culture,
now we know that chat sometimes needs to make the streamer,
the streamer, care for themselves.
Victor is a little bit early for Christmas.
It is a wee bitty early to be yapping about Christmas.
Oh yeah, currently driving at Malolovka.
How are you doing going up the hill there
in your al-Nausim?
You were taking time, maybe using that time
you a brew yourself a cup of tea. I'll wait for this E75 and realise that I'm here on
my own. Hopefully I'm not going to be spotted by the object. No, away we go. Away we go.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought I was going to be like. Aha, see? We got away with
it. We got away with making a really dumb play. 50k points full spent. You're just
flexing your channel points. I mean, fair enough, G-Band. That is a thing that
you can do. We do have a redeem which is purely just flexing the channel points.
So you're on the spot at T832. Why? Everyone is a... Oh my gosh, it's not where I want to be.
APC. We tank over there. Hmm. APC over there. Okay, I'll wait for you. I'll come give you a...
Come and help you out. Hmm. Hi Basi. Welcome back. That's why you were at my leave.
That's fine, and yeah, I see only heavy around here, so I'm probably going to the air
Explode in... Ranch, I see a talking chat. I see a talk.
I wouldn't say it's stupid for a star, it was planned, it was intentional.
It was planned, it was intentional. It's all good.
New tie. Do you see elsewhere? Yes, it is a new vehicle, though not one which I'm showing off in the best of light.
of light. We had better games yesterday with it. I kind of got myself in a position. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, you're good with the cheap prototype. I had a bunch of really good names in the cheap
prototype. And I feel blessed because there's a chieftain here in person at Attack Museum.
And it is a beautiful, beautiful vehicle. It is, it is so cool. I adore it in person.
So I was asked by a member of our community what my favourite vehicles at the Tank Museum
are and I guess my top 3 which maybe you can expand to more than top 3 because I'm going
to list a collection of vehicles would be there's a Stritzwagen in the VCC, it's the
only vehicle of that type that I've seen at the Tank Museum and I absolutely love
it. It is so cool. The angry cheese wedge. It's beautiful. I think that's my favourite
single vehicle I've ever had to pick one. Following that, I can't pick which centurion.
There's a bunch of centurions, but I have a massive soft spot for the centurions, which
you'll hear at the TAC Museum. Maybe the 5-1, which is not too far from the World
of times gaming so if I had to narrow it down to one of them maybe but that's sort
of like I could go either way with some more centurions but then there is a
chieftain here as well yes revik they do feed me and because I'm going to be
finishing my part of the stream fairly soon this feels weirdly short for
stream I will go and get some lunch my plan once I finish my stream is get
lunch, get set up in a little place and then look after the giveaways. Oh, I'm
lucky. I thought I could lead it, but I couldn't quite lead it well enough.
Because there is the talk to giveaway, which is still ongoing, and you have
only a tiny amount of time left. Like generally, exclamation point talk too.
There's only a little bit of time left for the RC talk to giveaway. I will
play the VT one more time, I will make sure to play it out before the end of the stream
but you do need to get yourselves signed up and registered, do what you need to do.
How do you get a Cheaton prototype?
Well, a Cheaton prototype was available during the mystery jobs that we've had over the past few days,
not for today's mystery jobs, but it was available yesterday.
So if you were tuning into the streams yesterday and you were making progress towards those mystery drops, then you would have been-
Okay, I'm gonna go out.
You would have been in with a chance to pick up this beautiful, beautiful vehicle, which I am having here with no, uh, no particularly fancy style.
Just one of the historical British styles, which I think is all it needs.
It's a beautiful vehicle.
It's fantastic.
Absolutely wonderful. Hi. Hello. Good to see y'all
Now you 100 hello. I mean, that's a WC 120. Can we get a cheeky shot here?
There we go wanted to see if I can balance aiming as much as I can but not wanting you to run away
WC
Got a lovely bit of a hill here
Very British. I I don't have a bias to the British vehicles
vehicles. I just think they look neat. Speaking of vehicles looking neat though, I'm sure
that some of y'all might see some news articles going out and about over the next few days
because Challenger 3 was shown off for the first time in public at the Tank Museum during
Tankfest. If any of you are tank nerds and have been following us like me talking about
British tanks. I was able to see Challenger 3 in person. Yes Dimrod, yes, you are a fan
of the British current generation of British tanks. Not that they're in water tanks, this
is more just if you're a tank nut, so make sure to clarify. Then Challenger 3 is going
about. I saw Challenger 3 in person. I'm very happy. I took my parents to see Challenger
They were very happy. We were all very happy. It was very awesome, actually.
Well, the stream is going to be going on for a little while, then, non-destruct.
Because I'm only going to be live for, my gosh, barely 10 minutes until the historical stream starts.
But the stream is going to be going for a lot longer.
The other part, the tank vessel line historical stream is going to be starting immediately after I finish.
My plan is going to be, I will effectively pull the cord on this streaming PC and then the others all be taking over.
Do you want me to use Charlie 3? Well, I don't know the plans, proper plans yet for Charlie 3.
I don't know if it's, if it's actually, I don't know, it's not in service yet I believe.
I'm not going to speak with any level of authority because I'm still not a hundred percent sure of the logistics and the timelines.
All I know is it's beautiful.
It's a fact. It's just such a nice vehicle.
I was just geeking out while sitting there watching Challenger 1, Challenger 2 and Challenger 3 going around the museum together.
I was just so happy.
I was so, so happy.
Now the giveaway is for the UK and Europe for the RC TOG 2. There's a couple of vehicles,
a couple of countries that we are unable to ship to just due to behind the scenes logistics
which is always something we need to take into consideration. But I've tried to make
sure that as many places as possible are going to be able to chance to get it.
I mean that's that's by the by like I'm not a I'm sort of expecting expecting that to be the case if you are
Protostream people will naturally drop off. That's that's to be expected. That's not anything
Not anything which I can I could change I completely with that shot on the conqueror
Off you go
Oh, no, oh
Also, if you could get a little bit more damage on that mouse, but not quite, so it was giving
me a lovely side of its turret to penetrate, but never mind.
Sorry there, M5, why?
You want to check tank destroyer tree?
I'm sure there's many tech trees that people want, and many other vehicles people want.
We'll just have to see what the future brings.
Open hood?
Hello there.
Wait, what does that mean there, however?
Right.
I've been given a heads up, everyone, in a given little heads up.
You see this here, see this timer, when I have about five minutes to go, or I've got
about five minutes, I am going to have to end my stream.
I'm going to have to end the stream.
Keep watching.
The stream itself isn't ending.
The stream is going to seamlessly swap to the TankFest online historical stream.
You're okay.
No need to panic again.
I know that I've said dreaded words and I'm fully expecting the spam which is to come,
but I will be finishing my bit and it's going to be the Tankfest Online historical stream.
Now then, Velki, the mystery drops are different every single day.
Yesterday was the Cheetah prototype, but today there's two lots of mystery drops.
the ST66 which is a premium tier 8 medium tank that you can get potentially in the 60 minute
mystery drops or the premium vehicle that you can get after 180 minutes is a tier 9 premium
French light tank the Char MLE 75. Or kill the tank vessel line historical stream is going to be
taking over in a few minutes so don't you worry this is going to be as seamless as we can make
it. No need to run around circles. Yes indeed, historical stream is going to be on this channel.
With a timer, the timer for the historical stream starts in a few minutes. It's fine,
don't worry. But one thing which I want to make sure that you all see once more before I get
get some lunch actually and use the opportunity to catch up quickly and gather myself.
So I need to show you the videos for the remote controlled hog 2 and the remote controlled
king tiger v2.
Okay?
I'm going to show you the videos once more.
So enjoy a little bit of content.
That means I can save my voice for a few minutes longer.
and now it's time for the giveaway where you'll have a chance to earn something
that looks a lot like this so one and only talk to all you have to do is make
sure you enter into the gleam link provide your details it will be going
live on Friday and Saturday you'll still have a chance through Sunday we will
announce the winners during the Sunday historical live stream for a chance to
win this one-of-a-kind unique prize created by the community for the
community so make sure you don't miss out on Sunday's historical live
stream from both of them.
Hey there tankers, the museum is currently restoring this King Tiger V2 behind me, but
you, if you're lucky enough, were able to win this level 1 if you follow the green link
available in the chat. Good luck and we'll see you around.
Ah, so adorable, I love them.
Yes, actually, small, small Charlie.
No, these are not purchasable.
These are actually part of our giveaways that we're running.
We have the talk to give away exclamation point, talk two.
Whether you're doing talk number two or talk II in chat,
then there will be the giveaway links
for the King Tiger V2 RC Tank giveaway.
Once that giveaway starts in about six minutes,
five whole minutes.
But I have been requested to when it hits
about five minutes through the hour
that I need to say my goodbyes.
So, I'm gonna be wishing you a good bye once more.
I have been Captain Tito.
Thank you for joining me at this year Tankfest.
Soon I'll be leaving you all in the very, very, very, very capable hands of the team.
You are going to be handling the Tankfest, Online, HistoricalStream, Hangfire, Keep Watching.
I shall be seeing you all when I'm back in Prague.
I
Welcome to the Tank Museum, enter to Tankfest 2026.
My name's Nick Winus and I'm marking my 18th Tankfest already.
And I'm Richard Cullum from World of Tanks and a former Tankies.
What, like you said?
I did.
I'm from Matanky with the Royal Tank Regiment.
And I'm David Bagley, I come from World of Tanks 2, I'm the head of community.
So what's going on today?
So Nick, what is Tankfest?
Tankfest is the world's finest display of historic movie armoury.
You can see a little bit behind us in the tank part there,
but we've got living history, reenactments as well,
and that's before you go inside the museum and explore what is a fine collection of vehicles.
And what have we got coming up? We'll settle in for the next three plus hours.
We've got some amazing parts of the show to show you. Of course, it goes without saying.
We've got the arena displays. We've also got the reenactments.
We've also been visiting lots and lots of other places. We've got interviews
behind the scenes. And we're also going to take a quick trip to Samir to see
how they've been getting on with a rather special restoration. But, of course,
the very special news for Tankface 2026 was
the first public viewing of Challenger 3 and we'll be talking much more about that and of course seeing the vehicle in action later on.
But of course the Tank Museum don't forget is a registered charity and if you're appreciating the work we do in this fully live stream
we'd really appreciate your support. There are many different ways you can support us.
You can go to our online shop tankmuseum.org and buy something you never knew you needed from us
but you can also join us on Patreon, YouTube memberships, become a friend of the Tank Museum
and that's something we'll also be telling you a little bit more about later on.
Yep, you should definitely become a friend with the Tank Museum like World of Tanks is with the
Tank Museum and so I'm here to share some of the news like for World of Tanks we have some
special in-game discounts going on right now. I know many of you want to know about the
discount consumable and otherwise Tech Tree Tanks and Premium Tank discounts.
We also have a special prize giveaway going on right now with an RC Tog Tank. I'm sure you've seen it in Gleam Link.
It will be there every two minutes. And of course, for everybody on Twitch, you are here for the Twitch Drops information,
which requires me to flip the paper. And so after 60 minutes, you will have a chance of Crew Books or the Tier 10 Badger
Tech Tree tank, Modred 3D style, or the Tier VIII Premium Tank ST66. After 120 minutes
you will have a chance, or you will receive, two Tankfest token store tokens, which you
will can get some really cool tanks from there, as well as Richard's Commander, which is always good.
And after 180 minutes there's a chance of personal reserves, the Granite 3D style for the IS-4,
or the Tier IX French Premium Tank, the Char-Emily. And I think that's everything that I've
I've got a couple from... Well, as you know, we always like to open tankfests with a bang.
And of course, tankfests as an event is great fun, but we have to remember that there is,
of course, a really serious side to this, too, as we're going to see in our first video.
Iraq, June 2004. A rocket-propelled grenade slams into the front of a warrior infantry fighting
vehicle. Suddenly an entire troop is enveloped in the chaos of an enemy ambush. The RPG round
strikes interest in the driver's head. He's stunned and bleeding. His commander is incapacitated.
Many of the vehicle's occupants are wounded and choked by the rising smoke.
Despite his own life-threatening injuries and with no communication to the rest of the
troop, he manages to gain control of the warrior. The blood pouring from his head
obscures his vision, but he forces the warrior out of the ambush and into safety.
before finally losing the battle to stay conscious.
Just a few weeks before, that same driver was at the head of a Coldman warriors sent to rescue a foot patrol from another enemy ambush.
Pounded by enemy fire and repeated RPG strikes, the warrior is hit again and again.
Radio comms are down and the vision blocks are smashed.
The commander and the gunner both wounded.
Unable to see, unable to communicate, and unsure if the rest of his crew are even alive, he is forced to act alone.
He flings open his hatch so he can see his way forward.
Now, exposed to enemy fire, he drives his burning smoke-filled vehicle through the ambush, leading five other warriors and their occupants to safety.
But he does not stop there.
Still under fire, he pulls his wounded crew to safety, returning again and again to the stricken vehicle as it begins to burn.
These two individual acts of heroism carried out under intense enemy fire and an extraordinary
personal risk saved the lives of his fellow soldiers and earned Private Johnson Bahari,
the Victoria Cross.
The Victoria Cross is the United Kingdom's highest award for valor in the presence of
the enemy.
Since the end of World War II, just 15 have been presented.
Today, the Victoria Cross remains a mark of rare and extraordinary courage, of selflessness
and devotion to others.
Saturday the 27th of June is Armed Forces Day,
a national event that recognizes the contribution
of serving and former Armed Forces community.
We are therefore honored to welcome Johnson Bahari, V.C.,
to open Tankfest 2026, riding in one of the warriors
he drove in Iraq 22 years ago.
This weekend I'm gonna get to drive this vehicle again
for the Tankfest.
I'm looking forward to it.
Why?
part of me that's still on the battlefield. I hope that starting off the engine, hearing it again,
driving it, packing it up and switching it off would give me that closure I'm looking for.
If I don't get anything out of it and I could get that closure and I managed to mentally
leave the battlefield. I'll choose something.
Hey, dude.
It's an emotional moment, first time this tank's being driven.
and he's come out to do this for us today for you.
I've got one thing to ask you to do.
I need you to officially open Tankfest 2026.
Can you do that for us?
Ladies and gentlemen, it's my honor to declare Tankfest 2026 open.
What a way to start Tank Fence 20-26.
Now, wasn't that incredible Nick?
What a sight to see.
Challenge your one, two and three.
I know, it's incredible.
We're so fortunate to, and it's the first time
that the Challenge your one, two and three
have all been seen together, certainly in the world.
Let alone just here in our arena.
And yeah, what do you think is the next tanky
of the way the Challenge your three looks?
Can you see yourself driving one?
Yes, we're not gonna go too much in the detail
because there's a lovely video
coming up about all of that.
But could I see myself?
Of course, if I was a much younger man
because I feel I probably struggled
to get in the driver's cab at the moment.
Well I say Challenger 3, it's the next generation British Army main battle tank and our next
video has Chris Copsson who's going to tell us a little bit more about it.
On Friday we were delighted to see something special. The first public appearance of Challenger
3, the British Army's new main battle tank. So new that it hasn't yet entered regimental
service. Challenger 3 represents a huge step forward in tank technology. A new smoothbore
main gun compatible with NATO ammunition and 40-digital plug-and-play architecture. Challenger
3 embodies all the traditional qualities of the British main battle tank, hard-hitting
and heavily armoured, but is also capable of infinite development as the situation
dictates. This is the face of the future, a modern main battle tank designed for NATO
high intensity combat. I'm delighted to introduce Nick Bertran from RBSL. Nick, you're going
to fill us in on some of the detail about Challenger 3. Now, just to begin with, and
certainly to the uninitiated, this will look remarkably similar to Challenger 1 and Challenger
So in broad terms, what's different?
What is improved?
Well, so much has changed.
It's hard to know where to start.
But in the interest of brevity, the first thing is the armour.
So this is the latest iteration of British modular armour, which has proved its success
in Ukraine on Challenger 2.
Secondly, it's the new gun.
So the Smoothbore 120mm L55 gun is a NATO standard weapon and it can take any ammunition
from an accredited NATO country which will bring huge logistic improvements.
And then finally this is the first all digital main battle tank turret in the world.
It will massively simplify the commander's job and for the first time for example we
We have 24-hour day and night hunter-killer capability so that the commander and gunner
can hand off targets to one another seamlessly.
And there are some people who have queried the idea that the tank has a place on the
future battlefield.
How exactly would you say the Challenger 3 is adapted to cope with all that?
Well, as you said, the battlefield is changing.
The main thing is that the battlefield is now so heavily scanned and surveyed that we
have to really expect to be picked up and therefore probably engaged.
So we have to be able to survive a few hits.
British Modorama, fitted on this vehicle, will enable us to do that.
Secondly, we have AI in the vehicle, so the commander's station is supported with
automatic tracking and monitoring of targets.
We have an active protection system, which is capable of defeating incoming missiles
and automatically detecting them.
We have a laser warning system, which will cue the commander to laser threats and remains
at the heart of the British Army's 2040-40 battlefield design.
Now we've dealt with lethality.
We have dealt with protection.
I suppose the final element, the last bit of the iron triangle, mobility.
How is Challenger 3 improved?
Well the power pack on the vehicle has had some adjustments so that at low revolutions
you get much higher torque and that means it will be much more agile and manoeuvrable
at low speeds.
Yeah, they're still using the Cummins Beads and all right.
Secondly we have the Generation 3 Hydragas which effectively enables the tank to
squash bumps more easily, which means that power from the engine can go into speed and maneuverability
rather than overcoming bumps. And then the final thing is, and it seems a simple thing,
but we have a driver's rear view camera. So that means that the driver now can reverse
almost as easily as he can go forwards, which will take a huge weight off the commander
and free up his time for commanding his tank.
That sounds extraordinary, but after decades of standing in front of a tank pointing in
one direction and another so the driver goes around, that's a huge improvement.
And presumably the increased manoeuvrability that is going to be extremely useful in your
complex environment, potentially urban warfare sort.
That's right.
Yeah.
It's exactly what's needed.
Nick, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
And we're very pleased to now be joined by Mr. Chris Price, the director of the Tank Museum.
First of all Chris, how's your tankfest going?
Oh, this tankfest is, they're always great but this one, you know, the weather's been fantastic.
We've had plenty of tanks for people to see, the punters are coming up to me and saying
how wonderful it is, what's not to like from my point of view.
It is, I mean, I'll just say that the bowtie is absolutely beautiful.
Well, I thought I'd represent your former regiment, so I thought, look after the Royal
Thank you very much. Now, challenge of three of course, Chris. A surprise for everybody.
It was, yes. Absolutely. But why was there so much secrecy
concerned the unveiling of it? Well, I had seen on social media that somebody
commented on why is it being kept so secret and my first reaction was we'll take a wild stab.
The reason being basically is it's still at the moment, it's not been released to the army,
it's still a secret weapon. They want to get it out there in the public,
But what they didn't want was all the build up and all the secrecy around it to be broken
down before the event.
And I think that's quite, when you think it's a developmental weapon still, effectively,
I think that's a fair comment.
Plus, also, isn't it nice to give people a surprise?
Something they didn't expect.
Isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that great?
Doesn't that make people want to come back in case of something like it again in the
future?
Yeah, absolutely.
And as I said, a lot of us were, of course, incredibly surprised to see it in the
first place, considering it's not in service.
There was quite a lot of last minute wrangling, didn't you?
I'm sure, I'm sure.
Now other things, restoration projects we always like chatting about with you.
King Tiger obviously the biggie for the next few years, I imagine.
How's it going?
It's going very, very well.
The fundraising efforts that come in have really enabled us to really put some momentum
behind the effort.
There's still bits missing that we've got to go out and find, obviously, but fundamentally
what we've now got to a point very close to the end of the was stripped down stage.
So we're beginning to know exactly what we've got and exactly the size of the apple we've
got to eat to build this back up to a working King Tiger.
So I would say it's on track.
In fact, let's be optimistic.
I think we're slightly ahead of track.
My engineers will, my engineers will be, if they're watching this now, we'll probably
be kicking the TV or whatever, or the computer, but no, we're doing, I think
we're on track.
We're doing what we say we're going to do.
And just if the more that money can come in, the more confidence we'll get to keep
pushing forward with it.
And we'll be having, obviously later on in the show, we'll be having a much larger update
about how they're getting on that restoration.
So as a charity, why is Friends of the Museum such an important thing for you?
Well I think charities are there for public benefit.
They're there because a lot of people believe we're just a collection of tanks and it's
all about getting tanks going.
But it's not, it's all about the educational side of what we do and giving something
back to society as a charity.
And for us, the Friends are key to that, having people engaged in what we're doing,
the people we can talk to, the people we can take counsel from, but also the point is they're
giving something back to that charitable function of this museum. And yes, some of that money
does go towards restoration, but an awful lot of it goes towards making sure that the
world of tanks that we now all live in and respond to by is able to be broadcast to
the world.
Chris, thank you so much for taking time out to join us here. I mean, firstly obviously
for you and all your staff, amazing event as always. And we saw there from Chris
talking about the Friends and here's a video about how you can join the Friends.
closer to the collection, tatizium.org forward slash friends.
And now it's time for the giveaway, where you'll have a chance to earn something that
looks a lot like this.
So one and only, Tog 2.
All you have to do is make sure you enter into the Gleam link, provide your details.
It will be going live on Friday and Saturday.
You'll still have a chance through Sunday.
We will announce the winners during the Sunday Historical Livestream for a chance
the wind is one of a kind, unique prize created by the community, for the community, so make
sure you don't miss out on Sunday's historical live stream from World of Tanks, from the Tango
Museum. And welcome back, of course it's really important to highlight a little bit more information
about the Tog2 RC tank, give away I was speaking about earlier. You may or may not see it driving
around by my feet, we'll see how the signal is going on right now, it does even have
a firing gun make some noise all you have to do is make sure you keep an eye
on twitch chat or you can find a gleam link with this enter into the details as
long as you in a reviable country that we can ship to you will have a chance of
winning it it's free it costs you nothing you should be all good and we
may if you're lucky have another tank to give away which would be the Tiger
2. So Richard what do you think of it? David can I I mean my one question is
Can I please enter on my not allowed to I will tell people to look out for a rich
Isn't that absolutely fantastic? I I love it. I I think it's absolutely fantastic now
Next up is going to be an introduction to one of the morning recaps
Which I need to make sure I get this right which is from the World War one display
And while they may be replicas
They are as close as possible to the original thing and in fact you're going to see a whip it driving around the arena
shortly and it's going to be the first time it's running at Tangfest.
This is a medium mark A, this is a Whippet. A Whippet is a small fast dog. This is, well
fast is probably a bit of a misnomer, but mark four the standard British heavy tank
across the country will do two miles an hour. This is a replica of musical box.
box, one particular tank in 1918 got down the German lines, roamed about for about nine
hours shooting the living daylights out of everything. And this is a replica of D-51,
Deborah, the tank that wound up buried in a hole just outside Combre at Fleckier. Lots
of rifle fire, they are firing back. Whip it and the two Mark IVs, one FEMO, big
six pounder guns, one, I beg your pardon, one male six pounder guns and one female which
is machine gun armed. The idea here is that the males go to strong points, the females
use machine gun fire to knock out the infantry and trenches to cut them down. These German
soldiers they've seen taxed before but they're also aware that they are going to
be infinite here. No, I think they're thinking the better of it. They are
aware that they can't stand up against this combination of infantry and armour.
They are retreating. I think they're very wise to do that. They're retreating, they're pushing off, and they will live to fight another day.
The Mark 4 is one of the most important tanks during the First World War, and one of the slowest.
It was designed to break through the barbed wire and mud of no-man's land, and to provide support for surrounding infantry, which it did at a whopping two and a half miles per hour.
These early British tanks were far from perfect and the Mark IV was an improved version of the previous models,
but despite this, it's still probably one of the last tanks you'd ever want to be in.
The entire crew is positioned around a 105 horsepower engine, which was not only loud,
but was incredibly hot, bringing the internal temperature of the tank up to 50 degrees Celsius.
Due to the exhaust design, carbon monoxide leaked into the cab,
which meant crews operated whilst suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.
As if that wasn't enough, they'd also be breathing in fumes from the petrol,
cordite and smoke building up on the inside, which made it a lot harder to see and think.
And speaking of the crew, the tank would be operated by 8 men.
Sometimes when tanks were crossing muddy ground,
tank commanders even walked ahead of their tanks,
testing the thickness of the mud with a cane to see whether or not it was suitable for the tank to cross.
The driver, funnily enough, drives but they aren't able to steer the tank.
They can only select whether or not the tank drives forward or in reverse.
The steering was left to two other members of the crew, the Gearsmen.
These two men changed the gears of the individual tracks, allowing the tank to turn.
Because of the required communication between the commander and the Gearsmen
and how loud the tank was, it was common to use hand signals.
The final four crew members are two gunners and two loaders
who loaded and fired the six pounder guns.
There are also two types of these infantry tanks.
This particular one is a male tank,
which means it has machine guns in the Swanson,
as well as a six pounder gun.
And these tanks were primarily used against defensive positions.
This is a female tank, which is armed with machine guns only.
These focused on infantry and often drove alongside trenches,
allowing the crews to fire down into them.
In this case, the final four crew members were all machine gunners.
Suffice to say, Tank Warfare has come a long way over the past century.
of British armoured vehicles going through the World War II period.
Those of you who know your wartime history, 1940, the British Expeditionary Force has
a pretty torrid time out in France. We leave much of our equipment at Dunkirk. So the British
Army are looking and the British government are looking for other places to get tanks from,
especially as our own manufacturer tends to go towards aeroplanes to defend Britain and
bombers to get back at Germany. So we go to America and order tanks from the Americans
and this is a ground tank that was used by the British Army. Now we wanted the Americans
to actually make tanks for us, like the Valentine, the Yellowy tank in the middle there. But
quite rightly the Americans said, hang on a second, the French are asking us to make
tanks too. We're making our own tank, why don't you buy that? So we very quickly buy
into the M3 Grant. We're going to see that later on, we can talk about it more, and
the famous M4 Sherman. Meanwhile, back in Britain, Vickers comes along, we're now
gearing up and it says to the war office in 1938 we can also make you an infantry tank.
Now that dinosaur that looked like it's going around in the background that's actually the
fourth type of infantry tank Britain ordered 1940 we changed the order you've got to get it right
in a year they said to the company Voxel who is a parent body they working with the tank
designers at Woolwich. This particular one is the Mark III Churchill that sees action at Dieppe
and it sees action in North Africa at the Battle of Alamein and it's got that thick armor an
infantry tank needs. The Mark VII Churchill has got thicker armor on the front than the famous
German Tiger tank and the very first manuals that went out with these tanks to the troops.
If you look at the first page of the manual and it says sorry lads we know
this has got problems but we think we better give it to you now than later.
It's got a lovely big roomy interior, it's got doors on the side, we can do
other things with this vehicle so we're starting to find the church you're
being used for. You've seen all your D-Day programs, things it can carry a
mortar, a petard mortar, it can carry a bridge. Late 30s, part of this rearmament program,
they get three companies to come up with a new specification for a scouting vehicle,
a scout car, not an armored car, it's for scouting. The Dingo, it can go 55 miles
an hour on the open road, it's got five reverse gears, you've got an inch of armor
plate on the front to protect you, carries a 19 radio set. You carry a
brand gun but really your role is not to fight the enemy, your role is to find
out where they are, back off quick, get that message back to the main force
formation. Now that Valentine there as it moves around that's a Mark 9 model
it's got the larger gun on it, the British 6-pounder. They got rid of one
of the crew, we had a three-man, pretty small turret, they got rid of
one of the crew members in the turret to squeeze the bigger gun in, because as the war progresses
and we'll see this again later on, it becomes a gun vs armour race in some of the areas
of tank design. But there goes our Valentine, as I mentioned, 25% of British tank production
in the Second World War and sea service all over the place, just like the Matilda
that's leading it off there. The Matilda sees action in France in 1940, fourth and seventh
raw tank regiment with Matilda I's and Matilda II's, 16 Matilda II's, cause mayhem.
A show featuring my favourite, the Matilda II, another incredible restoration by the
Tainte Museum and of course Queen of the Desert was not to love about the Matilda
quite right controversial opinion I think the world war two best tank of
world war two might well have been the Matilda 2 is one of the few vehicles in
service at the beginning and still in service at the end anyway moving on our
next display celebrates two of the vital vehicles of world war two's that for
some reason the British decided to name after American Civil War generals it
features one of our guest vehicles from the Heritage War Institute in
Belgium who very kindly brought over the Sherman Jumbo Forest this year and we'll catch up with the
team at the Heritage War Institute later on but now let's go over to the arena.
Now the medium tank for Americans they give an M number it's even it's experimental as soon as
they approve it it's given an M1 number so M1 M2 etc they're about to build a new medium
tank they're going to call the M2. They realise because of reports coming back from what's
going on in Europe it won't be good enough. The European observers from the American Army
they've seen the Germans with a 75mm gun on their Panzer IVs. It's only small, short,
but it's powerful. So they say you're going to need a 75mm gun. So they're about to
start making the M2 tank and they stop and they say no we're going to do a new
tank with a turret that's going to turn out to be like this one the Sherman
it's going to have a 75 millimeter gun this famous later version of it's got
the 76 millimeter but we're not ready yet so they make an interim model tank
called the M3 and that becomes for Britain the Grand Tank for America the
the Lee tank. Now other tanks, if you go in the museum, you'll see the French Char-B
tank. That's got a gun in the hull as well. The first British Churchill, we saw
the Mark III. That also had a howitzer in the hull. So the idea behind that is
trying to find a way of putting a bigger gun on the tank until we're
ready to make the new turret.
And that new turret is designed with French help.
The French have an engineer who's ordering tanks
from the Americans in 1940 called Jean Monnet.
He's brought out all lots of engineers from France.
France falls, of course, in May, June 1940.
So they stay behind, and they help the Americans put
together the casting skills so they can make that new M4 the Sherman tank. Very
thick armor, an extra inch welded on the front. This ends up giving it a layer of
protection. Even that the crews didn't think were enough and sometimes they
go and put concrete or sometimes even sandbags over the front. Same 75 millimeter
gun as a normal Sherman they thought the high explosive was better on that
than the latest Sherman, our fury one, where we put a bigger gun on, I say we,
the Americans put the 76mm, it doesn't sound much in the difference, 76mm longer
gun, a millimeter difference the size of the hole at the end of the barrel, but
it's a higher velocity gun. And one other tank he agreed on is a Sherman with
105mm gun, again so that if they come across the German
fortifications in the Siegfried line they'd be able to pound those whereas a
normal tank gun might not be strong enough so there's exceptions to the rule
but his overall aim keep it simple make a good effective tank and the Sherman
certainly was it's got to be easily repaired maintainable we've got a
citizen army that they're not skilled specialists they need to be able to keep
these tanks going. They're not going to have an enormous amount of training time,
so no point giving them very sophisticated kits if they don't know how
to use it. And there's plenty of modern analogies where we can have very clever
things, but absolutely no point if we can't get the best from it. And that's
the thought behind the Sherman series of tanks. Of course, as the war goes on
as they're building these tanks in America, we pay Britain pays for the
first big American tank factory to be built. Then we have Lend-Lease, so Roosevelt allows
us to borrow tanks on the Never Never in the British military and inevitably they start
improving them throughout the production run. So this particular M4, it's got the twin
diesel in the back, as opposed to many M4 Grand Tanks that has a radial engine.
Now yesterday I had the chance to catch up with Mr William Bannister who is the trustee
of the museum and also an avid private collector and he's got some very exciting news to share
But let the man himself share it.
Here we are now back on the Tank Park and fresh off the arena.
Mr William Bannister, how was it?
It's a bit hot and sweaty here.
Now William of course is the owner of the Bannister Historic Armour Collection
and also a trustee at the Tank Museum.
Now the reason we want to catch up with William,
we are about to show a very special video.
So can you just explain it for us William?
I'm not sure it's so special that we were approached a while back
and somebody said to us, well, you could make a program
with Gavin, our engineer and myself, about restoring historic armoured vehicles.
So, they did what they call in the business a sizzle, which is about a three and a half
minute long promo video, and so we're going to show it to all of you, and if you like
it, please say so, shout out, and we might be allowed to make a tele-program.
Whole series passed.
Fantastic. A star in the making, Mr William Bannister, roll the VT.
Not so sure.
The Crusader tank is a lightweight, highly manoeuvrable and fast tank we use in open warfare.
Crusader tanks are really famous in the early days of the Western Desert campaign when the
UK was all alone.
At the end of the day, I mean, these are the equivalent of the Spitfire, you know, when
we're up against it, 941, nobody else is helping us in the Western Desert, and
is all we had.
My name's Gavin Barlow and I restore tanks.
My customers are generally made up of private vehicle collectors.
William Bannister is one of my best clients.
So where do we start with these two?
What do you want to do first?
I've worked a lot with Gavin as my engineer
and he is restoring all of the island vehicles
that we're collecting, hopefully to preserve for the future.
The port needs to start working.
Is it all about that starting, is that it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, let's go Gary.
Kevin's looked after my collection of tanks and armour vehicles for nearly ten years.
Or perhaps it's just two big kids playing with McConaugh on steroids.
William's latest project is a pair of Crusader II tanks from World War II.
The client is very, I wouldn't say picky, he knows what he wants.
It's going to take what? A couple of years?
Probably each tank.
And currently I'm saying?
Mmm, alright.
The biggest challenge when restoring tanks is the unknown.
I've taken all the armour off the side.
and we had to use a mag drill to drill out every single bolt.
I mean, looking inside, he's empty, isn't he?
Yeah. This is the one that was robbed of all the internal parts,
and I mean everything in the crew compartment.
It's completely empty, even the data plates missing.
But it does have the Liberty engine and the gearbox in the back.
We got the important bits.
It's all possible, isn't it? It's just time and money.
You've got the time and I'll have to keep working.
I'd like to take engines out and maybe do an engine build for us.
How long do you think that would take?
How long is it to do a strip?
We don't have the manuals or anything else.
So all that stuff, it becomes rather more difficult when you're 80 years on.
It is achievable, but it's...
It's fenced.
Yeah.
It's not a project for the faint hearted.
If you get something like this to running order,
you're going to be spending £300,000 or £400,000.
Potentially.
£0.25 million up.
Each.
But I'm not going to think about that.
We genuinely have no idea what's wrong with it until we take it apart.
That is the fear.
We can strip all of these engines down.
I'll say that pretty quickly.
I'm telling you, all is going to go wrong.
Can't let you know that all is going to go wrong.
We're going to have to talk to people that have worked on Crusaders before,
and there's not many of those around.
These are the hardest to do yet,
because British stuff is much harder to restore.
There's a lot less of it around.
You could take an engine apart and find that it has a crankshaft snapped in two.
Where'd you get a crankshaft from for a World War II tank?
If you've got no engine and no final drive,
we've not got anything moving.
With that engine, you haven't got a tank.
any 24 of them in existence. None of them run at the moment, but with these two, they will
be the only two runners in the world, I think. It's daunting, isn't it? It's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work.
Now, I know they'd love to hear your comments about that video, so if you do have anything
you'd like to say about it, please put them in the comments section below. Now, there
There are loads of traders you can browse around the site at Tankfest. Richard, have you done any shopping yet?
Well, the children will of course expect me to return with gifts.
Hopefully after this.
There's books, there's military, models, all sorts of things. But one stall in particular caught my attention.
Well, if you thought tanks and fine art didn't go together, you'd be very wrong indeed,
because amongst all of the fine and varied trade stands that you can find at Tankfest,
bunting to the fantastic Mick Graham who's built up quite a following amongst Tangfest crowds and
Mick how long have you been coming to Tangfest and displaying your works of art here?
This is my 10th year at the pitch at Tangfest and it's just grown and grown and grown. The feedback
I get from people coming in is just astonishing. I love it when people come in and just keep
pointing and they recall their memories all the time and that's what motivates me to
to play nice things. Yeah so I was an old school cold war tanky and that's what I thrive on and
everybody seems to love it. I didn't ask to be here just ended up here and it's just mind blowing.
We had to wait for a few minutes to catch you because you were busy signing copies of your
new book which is also available from the Tank Museum shop and this tells you well everything about
your life and how you got into how you got into art your military career and your life after the
military which is involved a lot more paint than perhaps you thought it might have. Yeah
I'm a squaudy brat in other words that's the term used affectionately for a child of a soldier
So my dad was RSM when he left the army and I followed in his footsteps.
Not that I made RSM, he had a big set of boots to fill.
But yeah, I doubled it on the tank park a little bit.
There's one over there that a guy's actually bought to me this morning
that I sold to him in 84 on the tank park.
And he brought it in to show me because I haven't seen it for 40 odd years.
And it was just mind-blowing to see the progress from them days to what I do now.
now. Left the Army in 93, became a forklift instructor on all your big machines, your 50 ton VNAs,
Jerry Pickers the whole watch, did that for 20 years. My bornsman started on the creek
and my wife Marion said, did you used to pin before I met you, Mick? And
to the double binning, nothing serious, just give it a go. Here I am about 12,
13 years later and I just can't keep up.
Thank goodness she did. I mean there's a fantastic selection of some of the pieces you've painted behind us.
All tanks, that's obviously your chosen preferred subject. I can see Tiger 131 there.
Are there any kind of particular favourites amongst the bunch here that we can see on the wall behind us?
I like the Lebanese one, because I like the story behind it.
because they used to belong to the Americans.
The Americans gave it to the British,
the British gave it to the French,
the French converted it,
then it went to the Israelis
and then they gave it to Lebanese.
And it's painted blue,
because it was in the Golan Heights.
The theory was, you look up,
it blended in with the sky.
It's a nice story to it.
I can see the chiefs and tank preachers
quite heavily in your work.
I'm guessing that's an old, familiar vehicle
from your service days.
Yeah, well, I ended up,
I was a rubbish driver, all right?
I didn't like my first exercise, Crusader in Germany,
I bogged the tank.
And my commander, the true leader, wasn't happy.
Before I knew it, I was in the gunner's seat
and I've never looked back
to the point where I became a gunner instructor as well.
I just love firing their machines
and these are my new ones up there.
So you're a big chieftain, Fern,
then I think it's fair to say.
I did 15 years on chieftain.
So, when did you get started? I mean, when did you paint your first picture?
The motorbike on the wall.
My goodness, yeah.
I did that at school.
And that helped me pass my old level art exam.
Yeah.
And the one under it is the current commission I've got for Operation Marquette Harbour.
All right, which shows the Well Foundation Jagdpanther.
That's the one.
Fantastic.
And what are you going to, what's the plan with that piece of work?
You're going to display Operation Marquette Harbour?
It's exclusive for Market Harbour, they'll be prints produced of it just there but not here.
Brilliant, well if you'd like to find out more about the big grand story you can get a copy of
his book, it's his live story and a big selection of some of his best pieces in the year. Mick,
thank you so much, it's been a pleasure to meet you, I hope you have a fantastic weekend.
Thank you folks.
You're watching Tankfest Online 2026 and a huge thank you of course to Mr. Graham there,
what an incredibly talented man. I've been following for a number of years now and of
course to make him even better and more credible ex-Tanky.
Had to be, had to be. Now our next segment features even more fantastic World War 2 armor,
including some of our special guests. We've got the Stug 3 from the World Foundation.
We've got the Nashorn, which has come all the way from the Netherlands, and you may remember
is the one that almost made it to Tankfest a couple of years ago.
But before we go over to that display, earlier I had a closer look at the Sherman Jumbo,
one of our guests all the way from Belgium.
You're joining me in a very hot tank park where one of our special guests has just
arrived.
from the War Heritage Institute over in Belgium. Pierre tell us about this
fantastic vehicle you brought for us. This vehicle is our German M4R3E2
jumbo. It's an American assault tank of the Second World War. In fact it's a
fat German. He was made in 44 as an assault tank. And they're pretty rare
aren't they? They didn't convert or make many of these Sherman Jumbos?
Who many?
Aless more than 254.
Wow, yeah.
And now in the world there are nine exemplars, two in Europe and yeah, this Jumbo is the
only one in running condition in Europe.
And it's the first time we've ever seen a Sherman Jumbo here at the Town Museum
and here for Tankfest.
But the first thing I noticed about it
when you started the engine was just
how incredibly noisy it was.
So it's just got a different sort of engine in it
from the regular Shermans.
Yes, it's the same one, because it's a 4G-A motors.
It's the same motor than the M4 and 3G Sherman.
It's the same motor.
But yeah, the jumbo is a little,
It's very fast, but it's slower than the other versions of the German.
So very heavy, very slow.
It's going to be fantastic to see her alongside some of the other Shermans that we've got in our collection.
They're visiting with us here today.
And where can people actually see this vehicle?
And most importantly, there's some interesting markings on the side.
What are those in commemoration of?
Yes, the markings are the markings of the German jumbo cobra king.
Why? It's because the Cobra King was the first tanks in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge,
famously rescuing the 101st, right? Yes, indeed. But the original Cobra King is now in the USA,
in Fort Belvoir. It's an original jumbo, but it's not the original first in Bastogne.
I mean nothing can really know about the jumbo it's just how thick that armor is on the
manor of the gun there and they're spinning the turret now so we can get a really good
look at that.
Yes indeed the turret is more armor-eterned the Tiger 1 because for the Manclet this
is armor of 178mm it's more than one Tiger 1.
Wow that's incredible, incredibly heavy.
And I just heard that this is your first visit to the Time Museum, first visit to Time First.
Is there anything in particular that you're looking forward to seeing this weekend?
To see. I am very curious about some vehicles here because it's an incredible location
to see incredible vehicles. Also here I see the National, you have also a TogTanks.
It's very interesting I think but I love much the Mark IV tank because we have
his brother in Brussels. Yes that's right. Fantastic. Brilliant. Well Pierre thank you
very much. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for bringing this amazing
specimen of a vehicle. I hope you have a fantastic weekend. An M5 Stuart tank.
It's the upgraded version, new engine in the back, of the tank called the M3 Stuart that
the British first use, the Americans give to us, we use out in the western desert.
We thought they were great because they were reliable, much more reliable it seemed than
British tanks at the time and famously a guy says when he's asked after driving one
what do you think of it and he says sir it's a honey and the name stuck.
We often called the American Stuart the honeychank.
This is a later version, but as the war progresses, even a light tank doing its reconnaissance
roles they said we want more punch.
So it's followed by what starts in 1943 by Cadillac who were already making the M5.
They'd make a more powerful tank, the Chaffee, but the same role going ahead they start
thinking, let's put in little combinations together of lighter vehicles. So this is the
version for reconnaissance with a 75mm gun, but actually they start building other things
on top of that lighter vehicle. It's followed by, we've seen already, our Sherman done
up as it was in the Fury movie. The Sherman, I've already mentioned, they wanted it to
be a standard tank that could be very easily produced. They've upped the gun size. This
has now got a 76mm gun on it. And we've already mentioned as well the jumbo with thicker armor
so it's got a different role. I'm now going to hand you to Chris who's going to talk
a little bit about the German vehicles coming on now.
Bringing up the rear, we have two German vehicles, the Stuck 3, and the vehicle called Nasshorn,
sometimes known as the Hornis.
Now you may be noticing there's a bit of a difference between the American vehicles you've
seen and the German vehicles. This is down to the fact that the Wehrmacht as the war
goes on is facing different problems. The Allies, whether it's on the Eastern Front
or in Europe on the Front foot, the Wehrmacht is very much on the Back foot. So that's
having to start to think defensively,
they're having to start to think about how they deal
with this colossal weight of Allied armor.
So both of those vehicles, both Stuck Free
and the Nasshorn, they're effectively their Panzer Jäger.
One didn't start off like that,
but that's what they evolved into.
They evolve into tank killers.
So the American vehicles, you're looking at them
and you're thinking, yeah, these are very much
about reconnaissance and going forward into attack.
German vehicles, just look at the style of them.
They are low-slunk.
They are designed for defensive use,
and they're designed to really strike from cover.
But you say that's about right, David.
Come on.
And one thing we sometimes forget, even in wartime,
money's important, that German Sturmgeschütz costs about a third or two-thirds the price
of the turreted Panzer III. You're going to see the Panzer III later on today. So the
Germans aren't stupid, they realise, hang on, we're making an effective tank destroyer,
Panzer Jäger like Chris said, with actually less money. And as early as 1943 the Germans
realize, Sturmgeschütze's are knocking out more tanks than Tigers. So this is a really
effective bit of kit if you want to spread your money around the place. But that idea
of what's an attack tank, so the Sherman is there to exploit a gap made in the front
line, its original design criteria. Don't try and fight other tanks, you might meet
some. We've got tank destroyers for that, that's what they argue, actually tanks
inevitably bump into other tanks. So people like, I mentioned that name,
McNair, he's trying to say to the American tank crew, try not to get
obsessed with fighting German tanks and try to think of your key role with
his exploitation. Now that gun, Crystal tell us about, that is one massive
great gun that Hitler loves on the you carry on Chris. I've got some figures to
back that up actually for those of you who are into the account side of things.
For a Stug you can lash out 80,000 Reichsmarks. For a Tiger I it's over 300
350,000 Reichsmarks so economically these vehicles make a lot of sense. The
the Stug there, that is a Panzer III chassis, turret off and it's got a Stug-47.5 cm gun
in the front. Now, it didn't start out like that, it starts off as a Sturmgeschütz to
assist infantry. It's an assault gun, but the short barrel 75 is replaced with this
long barrel version
and it becomes a tank killer
now the Nassorn
the Hornies
that's a different cattle of fish
if you go into the museum, if you go into the tank story hall
you will see a pack of 43
it's a massively powerful anti-tank weapon
it'll put the ground through the frontal arm of just about any allied tank
two and a half kilometers away perhaps
But the trouble is, it's big and it's heavy.
The crew's called it the Schöntor, the barn door,
because it's so damn difficult to move around on its wheels.
And you need something big to pull it,
something like a pharma, one of the big half-racks.
So what can we do to make that mobile?
Well, let's stick it on a tracked chassis.
And what they do, there's a vehicle in development
called the Gershwitzwagen, right here.
And they're going to stick, originally a hatch on that,
called it the hobble, the bumblebee.
But then they think, well, hang on a second.
We really try.
If we move the engine to the center,
if we lengthen the chassis, because it's
a combination of parts of 70's from Panzer III, Panzer IV,
and it's a slightly lengthened Panzer IV chassis.
And they're able to put that huge gun on top of it.
And it's very, very successful.
on the Eastern Front particularly, they build just under 500 of these things,
on the Eastern Front particularly when they're in use.
They are able to take out things like T-34s on mass at distance.
There are reports of these things knocking out T-34s four and a half kilometers away.
The problem with it, and when you go and have a look at the tank car,
The upper works very thin, they're only about a centimetre thick, that'll keep out small arms far,
small bits of shrapnel won't do much else, and it's open topped.
So if you're in somewhere like Italy, mountainous zone, you're going to have problems with that.
Now, I see we have the honey coming about round.
This is a tracked wrecky vehicle, isn't it?
tracks good for reconnaissance? I've never really thought so to be honest.
So this one as well we're lucky to have here we've got a range of armoured
vehicles that some belong to the Tank Museum some of privately owned that are
housed here and they're bringing them along so we can show you off that
hornese that was going around just a bit earlier has come all the way from
the Netherlands it's a bit of a restoration like many of these
vehicles now. As you can imagine as time moves on that was actually put together
from some parts that were found in the Kirlan pocket. It's basically an area
that was being fought over and defended by the Germans. Wrecks of
tanks there being dug up. That one particularly has a modern engine. It's
got the steering system from a 432 armored personnel in it. But again it
gives us that sense we can see just like our first world war tanks we're not
going to run those because they're so rare so the fact that we were able to
put those three replicas out earlier on that's another one of these things that
again you know we're not trying to hide it from anyone you know what's real
what's not but to be able to have this range of very classic armored
vehicles going around so you can see there the M5 version of the Stuart the
later version there as it runs around. Why is it done that way? Well, they actually started
the Stuart earlier in the 1930s and very early on the Americans had an obsession about putting
machine guns everywhere on a vehicle. It had two in the front by the driver. It ended
up having another one in the turret. 37mm gun, which at the time it was copied from
the German anti-tank gun that was 37mm, the Russian copied it too, and of course after
those early tank engagements they realised it's not much good if you come across a proper
German tank like a Panzer III. Hence the need to upgrade to that 75mm gun that we're
seeing now on the chaff as it moves off, that gun originally was designed to go in
a Mitchell bomber. Can you believe that way? It was flying around with a gun on to fire
at ships and they realised it had got a very effective way of taking the recoil instead
of recuperators, chambers, bit like a shock absorber, to take the recoil action. This
This one ends up with a circular system of taking the pressure off as that gun recovers
because they knew if they were putting on that on an aircraft, you don't want to shake
the aircraft out of the sky every time it fires.
Cadillac has got a high dramatic gear change system.
The guy, Harley Earl, who helped design this particular vehicle, goes on to design Cadillac
cars in the 50s, famous for the fins on the back.
So you've got some really important American names in engineering helping putting these
designs together.
So this gets out to Europe, again most tanks, this is done quite quickly because they're
dealing with people that knew what they were on about, gets to Europe at the end of 1944
and it first sees action with American forces around the time of the Battle of
the Bulge.
So and it goes on like so many of those World War II vehicles they see much further
and longer service, Korean War, etc, and again, they're very sensible that way because they
build other types of vehicles on top.
I can just butt in there one little fact about the Chaffee.
Not Korean War, but the French in Indochina.
Anybody heard of a place called Din Bin Fu?
Yep.
The French were establishing a remote base supplied by air.
They wanted to get armour in there.
They hadn't got the heavy lift capability to take a tank.
They took ten chaffies apart and air freighted them and reassembled them on the battlefield.
They used them basically until they're all knocked out.
They carried on using the static build-offs.
So with the Sherman going around, again without, I hope, confusing you, one of these things.
Why is it an M1 Sherman?
Why is it an M4 Sherman?
So all showmen's are M4s, M4A1 is a cast hull, in other words it's molded, it's not welded
together, M4A2 has the twin diesel engine in, the M4A3 we end up using different engine
types that we're using. We're giving those different names. M4A4 has got that multi-bank
engine where Chrysler comes along, bolts a whole series of engines together around the
common crank shafts. That's got five of the engines there to do that. Means a hull has
to be made a bit longer. And this is to match because they can't make enough of the original
design. It's got something like an R95 radial engine in. And the problem you've
got there, it's the same engine that's powering aeroplanes and if you're
building lots of bombers, fighters, etc. everyone's after the same thing, hence
this diversion of different engine types which leads us to have all these
different bits and pieces in terms of after there. So you know if you want to
learn every last one become a tank nerd but don't worry about it just call
it a Sherman you get away with it. Supply is a bit part of the story
there. And the other side of things is just the competitiveness between American
industry. You have got vast industrial capacity. You've got Ford, you've got
Kaisers, you've got Railway Works. Do they want to build their other people's stuff?
Do they want to make Ford engines? Do they help?
Consequently, rather than re-jigging to make another engine, what they do is
build their own somebody asked me the other day what engine does the Sherman tank have in it and I just said well which one
He got five different and then you have different hull types as well. You've got cast welded composite
It is quite complicated, but it works
50,000 Shermans in their various marks. I mean this is my opinion with the T-34
This is one of the two tanks in one or two
Welcome back to Tankfest Online 2026, and you may have noticed we have now moved across
the arena to catch up with the first of our very live arena shows, Battlefield Machines,
an explosive illustration of Battlefield Tactics.
But before we throw over to the arena, I can't think of a better time to remind you
if you're enjoying what you see, tickets for next year's Tankfest are available now
at tankmuseum.org.
So I will be very quick, as you can see behind us there are some vehicles moving and we need
to get a move on here.
Just a quick reminder for everybody on Twitch right now, you are still able to get Twitch
drops.
So after 60 minutes you have a chance of Crewbox or the Badger 3D style called Moderad or AT-Rate
Premium Tank the ST66.
After 120 minutes it's a tank fest token store tokens where you can get commanders
like Richard Cutland here or even some other in-game goods which is amazing,
helps you get some better RNG.
180 minutes you have a chance of personal reserves, the IS-4 Granite 3D style or the Tier 9 French
premium tank the Char MLE. And I think that's everything from me right now. I believe we
can now cut to the live show where you can see the vehicles getting into stage. So thank
you very much and we'll be back shortly.
you
to the Soviet Union in 1941, it was known as the Army born of the Soviet Union, and
because as soon as it came up against T-34s and KV-1s, well that's all it really did.
It sort of just knocked on the side and that's not really much more than that.
However, it is an anti-tank gun.
It will fire an armor piercing round and against a light armor or flanking shots against light tanks,
it's an anti-tank gun. It will do damage.
I wouldn't necessarily like to be behind the gun screen on that one though.
And following up the pack we have everybody's favourite kind of over complicated bicycle,
the Kettenkrad.
You see in the back there a couple of infantrymen with a rather large anti-tank weapon.
That is going to be the real problem for Allied armour.
As they were pushing through this period, the Panzerschrecks and the Panzerfausts were really, really problematic.
The ambush positions the Germans could get themselves into, hit the flanks of any allied column, really was causing havoc.
You've got to remember, by 1945 the Germans are fighting in their backyard.
It would be like the British army fighting on Salisbury Plain, or here on the Bovington training areas.
They're going to know every nut, crannies, bush, bit of wood lock, divot in the terrain, they're going to know where it is,
especially if you end up actually as the British had to do fighting their way
through trading areas. Right what are they up to? That is a deployment of an
anti-tank weapon. They're clearly setting up some sort of rear guard I reckon.
That's the cutting-crab moving into position. You don't want to get that
thing in a firefight but it's brilliant at dropping troops off and getting out
there again. At this time you're not going to want to commit all of your force
so the heavier side of this formation is probably going to bug out. Done a bit of
reconnaissance nothing's really happening but they know Allied forces are
coming this way. It is an inevitability and more than likely going to be armor
in there somewhere.
The Germans are very good at doing this, this sort of fighting withdrawal from line to defensive
line to defensive line, which makes it really difficult to weed them out and push them back.
You are going to need to break them and exploit the break as soon as possible.
So these vehicles are all bugging out, they don't want to be part of the main, the
The initial assault I should say, they're being held back for that main assault.
More than likely if I was the German camp group commander, I'm going to be setting up
another line of defence because all that anti-tank gun and that handheld anti-tank weapon is
supposed to do is delay.
Rough them up a bit, make them think twice.
Maybe push them in a different direction, hold them up.
We will see what happens there. Have they made the correct decision?
Well, you've got to remember as well, our arena isn't arena. It isn't a full-on battlefield.
So the ranges are going to be much exaggerated.
To rain, we don't really have any. We have a bit of a hill, and it's a brilliant hill, and we love the hill,
but it isn't what you're going to be finding in a realistic environment.
They're going to be using that terrain, that wood block, hiding as best as possible.
Here comes the Allied Recky formations.
We've got the two extremes of how to do reconnaissance in the Second World War.
The utility vehicle, the Jeep, the ubiquitous with Allied victory.
It is really very versatile.
It's quite good at providing a very light, small, nimble reconnaissance force.
Then there's a command car, a bit of a motorised runner as it were, taking messages to where
they need to go.
And as you can see, I was just packing a little bit of extra firepower on top of it, which
may or may not come in handy.
Behind it, the other end of the spectrum, a chaffee, late war, American light tank.
Built for that reconnaissance role, it packs a punch though.
It is lightweight, there's not much armour, but it is rapid and it has a 75mm.
First American light tank, the M3 Stuart has a 37mm, that is now the same calibre as the
medium tank, the Sherman.
It's not quite the same gun, that one was developed to operate off the bottom of the
bomber.
It's a bit more successful than the chaffee, and here's what we're going to see today.
Behind that we have a juice and a half, the iconic American truck of this period.
Very good, they're going long distances, transporting, well basically anything you never want.
Today we have a shed load of infantry in the back.
These armoured formations are useless without infantry providing flank security.
Oh, dear me, that is the anti-tank gun opening up.
The ambush has been sprung.
You don't want to hang about in an unarmoured truck for particularly long.
British infantry are deploying.
Now having to get down, the Germans are pinning them down.
If you look up on the mound, they've got into their second defensive position as well.
This is potentially now the British are being flanked, which is, you know, less than ideal.
A fierce firefight is now breaking out.
Allied formations can't really move. You're going to have to rely on the armour from now on.
Now, have to force their way through.
That jeep is taking a bit of a risk, but that chaffee is hoping its armour's going to do the job.
That is quite close and personal for a light tank.
That doesn't appear to be a successful hit.
The PAK 36 is still opening up.
That chaffee is now suspiciously quiet, so potentially they've just got very, very lucky
with that PAK 36.
That truck is not going to hang around in the firefight.
It will get blown to smithereens particularly quickly.
that is getting out of there, letting the infantry fight the Germans on foot.
These two formations have bolt action rifles and maybe a bit of extra fire support coming.
The Germans are dropping something on the British positions.
One thing about planning in defensive lines means you can plan in the artillery to come down
when you're being attacked. This will all be pre-registered.
Now, this is quite important. We've bought in reinforcements.
Not only the armored vehicles that you see, the Dingo with its Bren gun opening up, we've got the Stuart M5 with its 37mm opening up.
Plus, if you can see, in and amongst that infantry, there is another Bren gun.
By this point in history the entire British infantry unit was built around
getting that rapid-firing Bren gun into action. If that Bren gun ran out of
ammunition and as an infantryman you had ammunition suddenly the Bren gun had
more ammunition. The Germans have fallen back. The overwhelming Allied manor
the material is taking its toll on these Germans. They're falling back, they're going back to
their second defensive line. Unfortunately the Germans have been given a little bit of
time to repair. They're now pretty dug in, they've got some nice cover there. This is
going to be difficult for the Allies to be able to weed them out. Everybody's trying
to keep their heads down. If you listen carefully over the rather large amount of gunfire we've
got going on here, you will hear the infantry absolutely screaming at each other, different
orders, different movements. Where they're going, this is not the time for subtlety.
You're going to be firing your weapon, keeping that enemy head down while you try to advance
through the battlefield. Usually here we say the tank moves in, in that wrecky
vehicle like the Dingo, you don't want to be firing your main gun, something's gone
horribly wrong. But if you're supporting infantry, pinning enemy infantry down,
that is exactly where a little lightweight bulletproof vehicle with a
machine gun is going to come in vital.
It's all a bit cagey now, no one wants to necessarily make a move, the Germans know it's the Allies
move to make, but at the same time they're not just going to want to sit there and take
it, they're probably planning something else.
That being said, we've got more Allied armour in the field now.
This isn't just the Racky Force anymore.
This is the tank battalion, tank regiment coming forward.
We've got two chaffees in our arena, which apart from, well Friday and Saturday, I don't
think has ever happened before.
With Sherman Fury behind it, that is the most powerful gun on the battlefield.
Sherman gets a lot of stick, but in this situation, you probably wouldn't want to
be in much else.
Does appear the Germans are making their move.
To quote one of my colleagues, there are three inevitabilities in life.
Death, taxes and German counterattacks.
This is the German counterattack.
If I was the Allied commander, I would be expecting this.
We played into that.
We knew the Germans would, inevitably, counterattack.
Where, how or when was the question?
Well, the armour moves into position, the infantry are making moves, because while that
plans us three, isn't necessarily the best tank on the battlefield, it is still a tank
on the battlefield.
And that 5cm main gun is going to rip a hole through most of what we've got here today.
That 20mm on the 222, the armoured car is going to help with that suppressive fire
as well.
The infantry are reasonably well protected, they are just trying to make movements.
They're using the armored vehicles as physical barriers occasionally as they move forward.
Doesn't appear the Panzer III is getting into a position to fire.
Who that?
I'm not sure.
That is a very large explosion.
Just shots of being exchanged here, the mouse from a battle, no one really knows who's shooting
at who, who's getting the kill, does it really matter, I don't think it does.
You are going to keep firing, both sides have a reasonably target rich environment
at this point.
Germans of the enemy armour can't really assist the infantry, so at the moment they're on their own.
Germans are falling back, yes, again, we are slowly pressing them into a smaller and smaller pocket here.
They've clearly had enough, they're getting out of there.
This force is just too large for what they have in their arsenal at the moment.
They're trying to get out, they're trying to leave the battlefield, but Allied armour is mobile.
That Shafi especially is absolutely rapid.
And Assurman's not too sluggish either.
It doesn't pair without flankmen.
They cannot escape.
And no matter how good that half truck is at moving its infantry around the battlefield,
when it comes face to face, they have a 75mm and a 76mm main gun, it's not going to stand
a chance.
You can see the infantry moving around the back to support the Allied thrust forward.
You're going to need to keep up with them.
You don't want to isolate your armour or allow your armour to be isolated.
The first chaffee and the M5 are moving through the middle of the arena to directly support
the infantry advance.
There's a lot of shooting but we have flanked them.
They cut off their lines of communication, their way of retreating.
There is no real hope for the Germans at this point.
It is now just a matter of when and how.
Allied armour is moving around in support.
We're going to need to keep them pinned in as much as possible.
Armour in this situation is fantastic.
It will provide you that mobility, that protection, that firepower to bring the fight to the enemy.
But when it comes to weeding the amount of foxholes in place positions,
bits of building that they've managed to acquire.
You are going to need boots on the ground and infantry moving forwards.
For many men it was the case of going in their bayonets fixed.
You can see the Bren gun being used to great effect over there,
really pinning down any attempt at the Germans at moving anywhere.
That doesn't mean they're going to give up, they're going to fight all of the way, hopefully
try and bring out the pocket, break out the pocket.
They were pretty good at this, being encircled and keep fighting, any sliver of hope so the
allies have to be careful.
You'll see a few of the soldiers here firing either their Bren gun or their rifle from the
hip.
This isn't them trying to be cool, this is a tridentastic method of keeping the
enemy set down.
while you're potentially quite exposed.
Even now we've got the lighter armour moving up, that Bren gun on the dingo is going to be helpful
and the Browning on the back of the Jeep there.
Well at the end of the day it is a very large machine gun.
The infantry may well need picking up as well, so the truck's going to hang around
just in case we need a speedy exit.
Fjord is going to bring himself round just to completely cut off and isolate the German forces here.
There is no way they can escape. Surely not.
All a bit cagey. Who's going to make the move?
The Allies don't really have the time
to wait for the Germans to try and break out. They're going to have to go in hard.
Purple smoke is being dropped. That is for air strikes coming in hopefully.
Second tactical air force is an absolutely immense formation that can be called upon.
Why go in there on foot when you can soften them up with air power and artillery?
Signalling smoke, covering smoke, smoke from artillery going off, explosions. It is just chaos.
But that chaos can be exploited. Infantry are slowly squeezing the Germans tighter and tighter into this pocket.
They're bringing every single weapon to bear now.
You've got to keep them moving.
Panzer III is knocked out.
2-2-2 is knocked out.
I don't think that half truck's going anywhere either.
Oh, they've given up the German's alleging it.
That's the problem.
You may have them surrounded, but pockets of infantry can still escape.
I mean, that works both ways to refer to exactly what we did at Arnhem.
The infantry got out in small groups at night.
So clearly the Germans have picked something up from their fighting on the Eastern Front as well.
What you're going to have to do now, you've got to be really careful when taking this position.
The Germans would have booby-trapped it.
Almost certainly. They would not give up their ground easily.
Those infantry are going to have to be careful, but they are going to have to clear that position.
And they're going to have to fight through it.
Well, they don't want to do is hang around in this position for us. Well any longer than they really need to
Remember what I said earlier about pre-registered artillery?
Well, yes, it's here
So they're going to have a few minutes before the Germans are going to be able to cool down artillery
straight on to this position
As you fight through potentially even get to the next German defensive line before you can take a breather
And let's be honest. There are no breathers at this point in the war. It needs to be over
we need to keep the Germans on the back foot.
So the infantry, they're all getting back
into their respective vehicles as quickly as possible,
move on next objective.
This was a utterly resounding victory for the Allied forces,
but this is not the end of the war.
They will keep having to fight and fight and fight.
All these vehicles are going to do now is they're going to have one big
victory lap around the arena a couple of times. Please give them a round of applause, our Allied forces
brought to you by history in the making.
Hope you've enjoyed what you've seen here. All these vehicles are going to now filter out
onto the tank park if you've not seen that one already.
These vehicles are a mixture of ones from the Tank Museum, from the William Bannister Collection,
and from History and the Making Themselves.
Where else are you going to see this amount of Second World War armour on display in a reenactment?
We are the Tank Museum, you are a tank fest, but it isn't just tanks.
you need the infantry, you need the armored cars, you need the trucks, the lorries, the jeeps.
Everything needs to come together to achieve what you just saw there.
And by 1945, the Allies were exceptionally good at this sort of warfare,
combining everything together.
It is a common fact that the Germans, as you saw, were very good at forming Kampfgrupper,
battle groups, impromptu formations to achieve a goal with various different assets.
What gets overlooked is the British and the Americans are very good at doing exactly the
same thing, arguably sometimes a little bit better.
You aren't necessarily going to want to leave the arena too soon after this, we have got
some big guns coming out as we move into the Cold War.
That's not to say any of these vehicles are not Cold War vehicles, because even though
they were built in the Second World War, both fury, well, the type of vehicle the
furies and chaffees serve long into the late four season early fifties.
You're at the Tang Museum for Tag Press 2026 and my goodness wasn't that an exciting display.
So a big thank you to our re-enactors ably directed by Hamish Bercloud from History and
the Making who I only found the other day was very much involved in the sharp series of the
the 1990s, which will only make sense to British viewers of the show. Are you a big fan of
Sharp yourself? I loved it. One of my favorite shows to watch.
Watching. Watch it through every year. Yeah, I try. So, Nick, I have to ask, before I introduce
the next bit, where did you get the cool shirt from?
Well, I thought you'd never ask, David, but shirts like this was actually designed
by Ella, Ryan House designer. And as you can see, it's got the Tank Museum logo
on in there. Sorry, another camera adds 10 pounds. This is a dangerous look, but you can get hold
of one yourself at tankmuseumshotdite.org. And remember the Tank Museum is a registered charity,
so every penny you spend helps support our work. So I need to read this next name so I get it right,
because I would like to introduce James Donaldson and Kirsten from World of Tanks,
Mononama. Many of you will know us KB, and what they're going to do is take you as a quick
run through the VCC or the Vehicle Conservation Centre, as I like to call it, the Cave of Wonder.
The Cave of Wonder, I like that. I'm Kirsten, and today I'm here in the VCC with James,
who is going to take us on a brief tour, point out some tanks and tell us all about the VCC.
So yeah, the VCC for the Tank Museum is really important. It's not just a shed built just
over 10 years ago, and for the first time it allowed all of our tanks to be under cover,
which in Dorset with the sea air is really important to prevent corrosion and keep these things
in as good a condition as possible. Right now we're probably less than 100 vehicles in here,
give or take. Just about. Yeah if we were to remove any walking space of any description we
could probably push it to about 140 in here. That's a lot of tanks. Yeah when we've got over
350 vehicles in the collection we do need that space. You absolutely do. As we're walking
past here we've got our replica a7v got a couple of vehicles from Iraq and
Afghanistan at the bottom there and I recognize chieftain here yes we believe
this is the only mark two remaining but for many years we called it the mark
five but actually it was never a mark five it's a gunnery training tank we
got gunnery trials tank we think that was a mark two crazy horse is my
favorite tank in here it is a remote control chieftain because what more
could you want from life really? Remote-controlled life-size tanks I'd take one home today if I
got it. So here we've got a bunch of prototypes that almost take you on that story from Centurion
to Chieftain and into Challenger. So it's a really important group of vehicles not that we have time
to talk about them because that would be an hour in itself I reckon. I think it would be
more. I recognise so many tanks in here. So we've got just so many different engines. We
We use them as reference pieces.
These are not running engines.
We've got stuff like this, the 438 swing fire
when you again want a 432 to kill things quite quickly.
But yeah, it's anything from Cascavel,
which is still in service to the Bohound,
which only about 22 were ever made.
And this is part of our core collection.
So what is your core collection?
Yeah, so the collection breaks down
into three parts effectively.
We've got the core, which are vehicles we don't run,
that we probably only have one of or are really important.
Like, as I said, the borehound, or I think our BDRM,
the RDM1 here is core collection.
What about the bulldog?
Yeah, that's core because we don't have another one.
Hybrid is a mixture, well, it is core vehicles
that we run, like Tiger, like Panzer III.
I think even 4005 is technically hybrid.
And then we've got our running fleet,
which our vehicles specifically procured sometime,
you know, we buy them in or we've been donated them
for the running fleet.
So they don't sit in the collection,
they sit for your viewing benefit, basically.
Of course, of course.
Can I see a scimitar in front of us?
I see two scimitar in front of us.
Basically the entire CVRT family here,
but similar to Mark I, Mark II,
which was built for the wars on terror
to give the crew a little bit more mind protection.
And we've got literally every single variant of CVRT
CBRW in the VCC at the moment. And I believe we're walking past the streets
far. Our resident S tank, absolutely brilliant
bit of kit. It is a tank. I will fight anyone who says it isn't.
But really interesting about that one was it was in our tank factory exhibition for
near enough 10 years. And we got the Swedes over, they came over,
helped us sort of have a look at the gas turbine and the diesel engine and it
drove out after 10 years on its own power.
That's incredible.
She's really cool.
We've got some other chieftain.
It's a Khalid, which is arguably the best chieftain ever.
Because it's a chieftain without that one year.
With a Challenger engine in the back, really quite good.
Leopard 1.
Yep.
Which version?
It's one of them.
Leopard 1A, 1A2, I think.
It's our German Leopard.
We'll leave it at that.
This is quite cool.
It used to run around the arena, but it's a T55 with holes cut inside of it for training
the commanders.
Oh, okay.
East German was given to us post German unification, I believe.
A couple of important vehicles here to note as well.
BTR, which is our only BTR.
And the BMP1.
Absolutely vital vehicle.
And a BMP1 from Iraq 1991 with the original paint scheme on it, with the original
shrapnel marks.
That's tricky, incredible.
So it came straight off the battlefield here and this I'm sure.
I do recognise KV-1.
And all the viewers will recognise that thing and we believe due to a rather large hefty book
that's come out recently, this is the most complete KV-1 left on the planet.
You know what?
I wonder this whole, well, conservation centre.
Pretty much every year I come down for Tankfest and I still learn something here every
time.
Oh, I do.
I work here.
We've got stealth tank in here.
We've got various different prototypes of getting from chieftain to challenger, that's our aluminium
chieftain there.
This is a remnant of the T-34-76 that came over alongside the KV-1 actually, it was an
evaluation thing, so the army obviously cut it into several pieces.
Of course they did.
Various engines and gearboxes and a tank without a main gun, it was a strobe light
instead because the idea was you blind the enemy, basically.
Well, if you blind them, they cannot see what's getting them afterwards.
Exactly. I just wouldn't want to be in the tank that's doing the blinding.
Oh, no, me never.
So as you can see down here, if you can see on the shelving, the amount of guest vehicles that we have,
the amount of vehicles that we put out for event days, they all require their own signage.
Lots of signage about that.
A little much signage. Bunch of random vehicles in here.
Sensimal, obviously known for very mature reasons.
Incredibly mature reasons that we do not need to go into.
I'm not a child, it's fine.
We're all children, right?
Yeah, universal carriers, various vickers, armstrong things from the interwar period,
the last British light tank in the Second World War, the Harry Hopkins.
It's not very good.
No, but neither is this one coming up, is it?
No, no, this is probably the worst tank.
David Fletcher definitely said it, absolutely it's the worst tank.
The driver got in this thing, the valiant, drove it for about 13 miles,
miles and then when I'm never doing that again.
I like my limbs as it turns out.
This is actually relatively new item in our collection.
That's robotics,
because that's something we're now having to look at.
How do we collect robotics?
What do we look at?
The autonomous battlefield needs preserving
as much as anything else.
Guys can see there,
one of my favorite pieces of engineering
when you strap,
I think it's five, six straight fives
around a single crankshaft.
Because we need that.
Found American.
Yeah.
Chrysler by any chance.
Yes, Sherman M4A4, the most used by the British.
Of course, I did like adapting those tanks.
You can never have a tank museum without a helicopter.
Obviously, many people ask.
Why?
What, yes.
Because back in the day,
the Royal Armour Corps in the Cold War period
had an air wing.
Now you use reconnaissance in those things
which I don't think would have lasted particularly long against the Russians, but we had them.
So what I'm feeling here is that was drones before drones?
Yes, the idea of having observation from the air is now just a hell of a lot safer, really,
for everybody else involved.
Yes.
That is a very cool bit of collection, procured for the running fleet.
It is one of the post-war hetzers, so it's not a hetzer, but it's close enough.
It's close enough to a hetzer.
Close enough that we can run it around the arena.
I have quite a few people who would be very interested in that, but thank you for this
lovely tour, I'm sure everybody at home has enjoyed it as well, and thank you again for
pointing out so many of the wonderful things.
Yeah, and I was only allowed like six minutes, so we could have kept going for like two hours
if you like me.
Oh, well that's a shame.
Shall we go back?
Yeah.
This absolute behemoth is FV4005, also sometimes referred to as the best star, the Doom
barn and another nickname which we can't in good conscious say in this video.
It was a testbed vehicle made to trial the colossal 183mm gun which was intended to be
mounted on a tank called FV215.
This was essentially a reconfigured conqueror hull designed to mount this massive gun.
The FV4005 was built on a Centurion chassis which was smaller but still suitable for
trial purposes.
Whilst FV4005 was never intended for mass production, its gun was designed to take on
Soviet heavy tanks.
After the Soviets showed off their impressive looking IS-3s at the Berlin Victory Parade
in 1945 and with tensions rising between the East and West, the British wanted to
be ready in case of another war in Europe.
It wasn't designed necessarily to take on IS-3, but to take out whatever the Soviets
would develop next.
If the British would eventually be fighting these big tanks, they'd need a big gun to
take them out, and so the ordnance QF-183mm was born.
A standard Centurion has a crew of four, a driver, gunner, loader, and commander.
But FV4005 has one additional crew member, and that's a second loader.
The ammunition for the 183mm gun was truly massive.
The projectile and propellant had to be loaded separately.
This gun was designed to fire only one type of round, HESH, High Explosive Squash Head,
an ammunition type which the British Army still use today.
The HESH projectile used with the 183mm gun weighed a whopping 65.8 kilos and the propellant
cases weighed another 30.7 kilos.
With all this heavy ammo and with two loaders, FV4005 could fire at a rate of 2 rounds
per minute, which is just one of the many reasons the project was ultimately cancelled.
Whilst the gun had truly devastating firepower, it didn't seem worth it when guns like the
L7 105mm were entering service, which could fire far more than two rounds per minute
and were still more than capable of dealing huge amounts of damage to enemy armour.
Ah, the FV4,005 was the star of the show at Tankfest in 2024
and it's going to be part of our next display.
Now, you might remember that the FV4,005 was brought back to life
in a three-way project between the Tank Museum, World of Tanks, and Mr Hughes.
And it was very successful, and we have an interesting announcement coming up about another
project that we're going to be working on together. So more about that later on.
Lovely to see the FE4005. As I said at the moment, we are just waiting for it. There you go.
It's actually just about to trundle on to the arena.
Right on cue.
Right on cue. How about that?
So this next live arena display is actually called, we're going to need,
funnily enough, a bigger gun.
And it's all about the development of these tanks to face new threats after the Second World War.
So without further ado, let's go live to the arena.
And already the West is starting to fall out with the Soviet block countries.
So we're starting to design vehicles with guns on
that they're going to have to take on the new enemy, which is potentially the Soviet Union.
And we know they've got massive tanks, so we think we're going to need a massive gun.
And to leave this parade on now is the biggest ever gun fitted in a direct fire role on a tank chassis.
This is never going to go into production like this, but it is still the biggest one that they've ever used that way.
This is FV, fighting vehicle 4005 and it's been part of a restoration project, some of
you here may have helped.
Huge, great big 183mm gun on the top there.
Now, I mentioned the word ammunition for tanks knocking out other tanks.
In the Second World War, the main way we did it is having a solid piece of very dense metal.
Britain, America, we had access to tungsten.
In Germany it was called Wolfram, but they couldn't get enough of it.
They were importing it from Spain.
They ended up doing a sort of, we're not going to sell Spain any oil
if they didn't stop selling tungsten.
We had to stop Sweden from giving special iron ores and alloys to Germany as well.
as well. Thompson really dense metal, twice the density of steel. Put that in the
center of your round and it's got great penetration. At the same time other
ideas are coming along for knocking out tanks. Hollow charge weapons. You've seen
the Panzerfaust. We have the Pier in Britain and Britain comes up with
another weird one called High Explosive Squash Head and over at Fort Halstead
in Kent, they come up with a very thin casing, like a high explosive round, packed inside
with plastic explosive. And the idea of that type of round, if you fire it at a tank, it
doesn't have to have a lot of welly behind to penetrate the armour, it squashes on the
side of the enemy's tank and a detonator at the back, just after it squashed on
a millisecond later, detonates the plastic explosive.
And it sends a shockwave through the tank's armour,
means a whopping great scab flies off on the inside.
And it's also good for knocking down pillboxes or buildings.
So we like it in Britain.
And we fire hesh rounds in our tanks
right up to recently.
We'll see the issue there with the British Army
a bit later on.
And that's the type of round
They test in that whopping great big 183mm gun.
FB4005, it gets overtaken by events.
It's not that it's a bad idea, but all of a sudden another weapon system comes on
that seems to do the same job better, the missile.
We don't need quite as big a gun, they were saying,
and also it was starting to cost a lot of money.
The government cancels the project, so it never gets to see action,
but still a bit of a wow factor rarity, the biggest one ever put on for direct fire on a tank.
Now, after the Second World War, the Americans said, we've had the nuclear bomb, they've
now built up a really big strategic air force.
takes its foot off the idea of developing tanks. There's a bit of work going on, not that
interested. We've got other things to fight wars with. And then all of a sudden what kicks
off in 1950 is the Korean War. And for the first time, the Americans won, not even the
first time, for another time, the Americans are suddenly found wanting. They need kit quickly.
They are literally getting World War II tanks, like the M26 Pershing tank. They're
taking them off plinths to reactivate them to send them off to Korea. They've
got a couple of tank projects on the go. One is using the hull of the M26 and put
a new turret on the top. We've actually got the tank that comes out there on
our mound at the moment, the M407. They put a 90mm gun in it.
So again, back to slightly bigger than the World War Two German gun.
They put it together in a hurry in the early 1950s to go to Korea.
Doesn't work very well. It is not a success.
So that as a tank was given away quickly by the Americans.
And if you're looking at it there on the mound, you might recognize it from loads of war movies in the 50s and 60s.
because basically 99% of the production was given away to other countries.
They moved straight on to another tank, the M48 instead.
Now, FV4005 as you see is it's moving around there.
Such a big gun, it needs a cradle on the front to stop the gun waving around, a couple of
tonnes worth there, so you don't want that rocking on what's called the trunnions, holding
it in the turret.
And it's even got an anchor on the back that they drop into the ground if it was
going to fire.
bit of a danger if you fire at 90 degrees from the hull because there's so much recoil.
They test it with a loading assist equipment. It's basically not an auto loader but two-part
ammunition in goes around, that's rammed in and then followed by a massive brass case
full of the explosive to blast that 183mm round out.
The armoured box on the top wasn't really meant for a turret, it was just to house
to see how big a space the crews would need to actually work on the inside.
But as that vehicle goes off, we've got the Centurion now driving round.
And I mentioned that as the tank that at the end of World War II, Britain developed,
starts off with a 17-pounder gun on.
So that is a 77.2mm, the same gun that was on the Sherman Firefly.
very effective, very quickly, because they designed it with upgrades in mind,
we had the next generation gun on called the 20-pounder.
And one of these weird things comes along as well, just like the Korean War that shakes everyone up.
And that was in 1956 in Budapest, Hungarian uprising is going on,
and the Hungarians get hold of a Russian T-54A tank and drive it into the British Embassy Compound.
And it gives the defence attache a chance to measure the thickness of the frontal armour on what would be the enemy's tank,
potentially if the Cold War became a hot war, and look at the size of the gun.
And it frightens NATO.
We are worried now that 20 pounder on our centurions is not going to be good enough.
So again, over at Fort Halstead in Kent, they quickly come up with a new design gun.
It's going to be called the L705mm gun and they end up using that, they fit it the same
size as the £20, it goes straight on the Centurions just like this one and that 105mm
gun with new types of ammunition can penetrate that T-54 and it's so much
better it actually makes some other guns are already in service or even bigger
it makes them redundant and it is a very effective bit of kit. We start putting
them on our centurion tanks towards the end of the 1950s the Americans
copy us straight away and that's what makes some of these earlier American
tanks like the M47, M48, we're going to see the M60 at a moment, those become redundant.
The M60, they're starting to build it in America, they're doing this progression of what they
call pattern tanks. The M48 looks very much like the M47 driving around, but it's better,
it's more reliable, it's bigger. And the M60 that we've seen that Sandy coloured
one, same thing. It looks the same sort of tank but on steroids, they're just
getting them bigger each time. But this time the Americans, they do a gunnery trial, six
guns, what ones are best, the British L705mm gun. So that's the one they build under license
and put on their M60 tanks.
One of the things the Americans experimented with, they're trialing 90mm gun on the M47.
If you look on the front of the turret, two little round balls it looks like.
That actually contains across the front of the turret, there's a range finder.
If you can work out the exact distance the enemy are away, instead of World War Two,
one round over, one round under, if you're lucky the third round's on target,
That helps judge the distance, so you've got more chance of a first round hit.
And ironically, when those M47s were given away to other armies and had the chance of being improved, they did very well.
The Italian army once won the Canada Cup, which was basically the sort of tank gunnery competition between all the Allied nations,
who can hit the most targets accurately in the quickest time.
So those American building this series of tanks, you can see the M60 driving around now, there were always aspirations as there always is for new technology to go on a vehicle but it's never ready in time.
And the Americans had a new type of armor they wanted steel with silica glass in between as a sandwich that was going to be more effective against certain types of incoming rounds, not ready in time.
in time. So that's why you see this whopper now with great big bits of cast armour still
on it. Great big cast turret, cast hull as well.
Now for this generation they put in a huge great big diesel engine in the back and these
These tanks as well, over 8,000 made, actually more than that on the M60s, sold or passed
on all around the world, a lot of them still in service, they're still being used by the
Egyptians, the Turkish army has many of them at the moment, used by the Americans in
the First Gulf War, by the US Marines as well, and it was a reliable tank but not particularly
exciting for many people. It had got a good gun, reasonable armour, a reasonable reliability
but it certainly wasn't at the cutting edge in any way. And in the end again the Americans
replaced this by the famous Abrams tanks and most of these were finally given away.
They somewhat went to the National Guard units. So the British gun in essence on
that tank and on the side of the turret as well British smoke dischargers, those
funny little banks of tubes to fire out patterns of smoke grenade.
Now this other one was made in nine till designed in 1950 as well as part of that response to
the Korean War. This is the American heavy tank, the M102.
So when the debate was going on in America about what would be the best way of knocking
out a tank, most of the time, tank guns, many of them, would come from anti-aircraft guns
because the whole idea of the anti-aircraft gun has got a fire at a target way up in
the air, so it leaves lots of welly behind the round.
With this 120mm gun there, it comes from something called the stratosphere gun.
could fire around up to 60,000 feet up in the air.
So they have a go with that on this enormous casting,
120 millimetre gun.
We actually copy that gun from the Americans.
We put it on our conqueror tanks.
And that's what's so ridiculous about it all
because it was powerful, it was big.
They have to do a huge turret.
Look at the size of that turret to cope with that gun.
Two-part ammunition, two loaders needed again.
and then all of a sudden one bit of new technology comes along
and they got rid of these because they were redundant.
That British 105 gun outclassed this one in terms of penetration.
No point having a tank this big with a hundred twenty millimeter gun on
if you could do the same thing with that British gun which is why these
weren't in service long
because they were superseded quickly
or put it bluntly they were dumped on the American Marines.
Now the technology of ammunition still continues to be developed.
The next generation after tungsten rounds were just fig rounds.
In other words, a metal dart in a cylinder fired out the end of the barrel of a tank.
the cylinder falls away, the metal dart, no explosive on it, just made of dense metal like
tungsten or depleted uranium, that going through the air will penetrate a tank and the latest
generation ones have actually got metal darts in two parts. So if the first part of the
dart penetrates or is defeated, the second part will go all the way through. So the
ammunition is also part of that story of how you knock out tanks, not just the size
of these whopping great big guns we can see over there on those different tanks.
And we can see what the British Army's got a little bit later on today by seeing some
of those, well we'll see the Army's kit when it comes in a bit later on.
So that's some of the guns from the Cold War and we're now, I'm just going to hand
over to Siebert in a moment we're going to look at how those tanks were combined
together to actually make a battle group.
So tanks never on their own, what did they fight with?
Thank you very much indeed David, welcome back.
This is tank first 2026 powered and presented by the world of tanks here at the Tank Museum
home of the Tank.
What an awesome display Nick there and certainly some big guns.
4005 of course, M-60 and of course one of my five, it's a Centurion.
Yeah and the M-47 don't forget, which is a vehicle we had restored in time for
Tankfest last year so thank you to all of those that supported that and the FV4005 project
but speaking about restoration projects as you may know as a result of the popularity
of the King Tiger which you guys brought to Tankfest last year we've decided we were
going to have a go at restoring one of our own and in our next video we're going to
have a look at how that restoration project is going so far.
KTV2. It's the oldest King Tiger in the world, the only survivor with this unique pre-production
turret and the focus of our most ambitious restoration yet. Since launching our fundraiser
in September, we've raised over £400,000 and we've made big steps in the restoration
So sit back, relax and enjoy the story so far.
Yeah, so it's finally back in the workshop and we're going to start with the chair down of this project.
We don't know what we're going to find, so it'll give you a learning process all throughout this project.
We are at the moment prepping for the gun to be removed.
So we're going for our second option which is to remove the entire breech and gun
through the back hatch right now and we're going to do the final measurements to
see if it actually all fits as it is through that back hatch.
We're just walking it back until we can get enough on out here to get the crane this side
and then we'll pull the whole thing through.
We're in the middle of threatening to get the turret off, going to take the wait, and
obviously wait, and then hopefully the turret and the basket will come out in one.
The hand's broken off. They've usually got a bit on my hand and they've got these little
collars that go over it that's broken off.
What we're going to do next is we're going to remove the sprocket carrier. So we've
We've unlearned all the bolts and not more than not washers, yeah it's fairly loose so
in theory we shouldn't need the jacking bolt so it should come off quite easy.
It's a bit tricky that sort.
And now we've got the sprocket carrier off, as you can see, our final drive so we've
got to remove it so we can't remove the final drive until we've got the brakes off
inside hopefully we can remove them as a unit if not we'll have to take them apart.
This looks intelligent man, would you like a pointy finger?
Right now we're doing the rim rock check so getting ready to remove the
suspension but first blast it all together. Let's see what condition it's in.
So we're at the stage where the vehicle is on some trucks, so it's raised off the ground,
so we can start moving the suspension road wheels. We're having a bit of issue
figuring out how we actually remove the road wheels.
Thanks to our generous supporters, we've already achieved so much,
but there's still plenty more to do.
If you want to play a part in bringing KTV2 back to life, then support the project at
tankyzm.org forward slash ktv2.
I'm here now in my favorite place
in the whole museum in the workshops.
And I'm fortunate enough to be joined
by Duncan, the workshop manager,
to give us a very quick look and a talk
around what's been going on the lead up to Tankfest.
Now Duncan, first thing I've got to say is
I've been in there many times over the years.
I've never seen it looking so tidy.
That's how it should look, is it?
As it is now, you've caught us where
we've actually got everything prepared
ready for Tankfest.
So what you see in the workshop is one vehicle.
We are trying to get ready for tomorrow,
but the others are doing here for storage,
for security reasons.
Is it getting a bit of a problem on sort of like,
generally with the museum that I get the impression
that you've got so many vehicles now,
there's spaces of a premium.
We could say that we're full,
the inn is seriously full, you know.
We're playing Tetris with vehicles.
So if we sell one, we seem to buy two,
I've yet to work out where we store it all.
I mean, a prime example,
I mean these two vehicles at the moment,
I think they're just stacked up for...
Yeah, so these are,
so the Irish Defence Force are here supporting us,
And these are two vehicles they're brought over.
So Landwerk J60, which is one of their tanks
and they've also brought over a Landwerk 188,
which is a personal armored car, two of their collection.
They're the same people supporting us
with the Rolls Royce armored car.
Absolutely.
As you can see, gleaming gray paint,
everything polished with an inch of its life.
There is something about them
that everything is absolutely immaculate, isn't it?
I always recall looking at the engine bay
of that Rolls Royce.
Yes, definitely.
And you definitely eat your dinner.
How is it definitely war-torn?
Yes, absolutely, but one incredible vehicle.
Yes, yes.
So we're really pleased to have these guys here.
They're a fun bunch to have over as well.
What about as far as the team are concerned,
when do you, I mean, does the preparation for Tankfest
never stop, is it all year round?
No, so we spend the first six months of the year prepping.
So imagine we've got 52 to 60 vehicles we run anyway,
which form part of Tankfest and tanks in action.
So the guys from Christmas,
we have two to three vehicles a week
that have to be serviced right up to this week.
If we don't keep that drum beat, then we don't have enough vehicles out to meet tank fest
nor tanks in action.
Good heavens.
And is it always a panic?
I can only imagine it's such a large historic fleet you're running that...
you