"WWI Russian Tanks Restored !" Topic

Check out this article on some MKV tanks the Russians used in WWI, and then in the Revolution and Russian Civil War. They were found abandoned in some village, and restored. the photos are VERY neat.

englishrussia.com/?p=5241

Respects,

Very cool! One wonders how tanks that large get abandoned for years in an area as fought over as Russia.

Very cool!

Clearly the design was unique and never done by the Brits for example.

Certainly come a long way from Wolverhampton!
I wonder, though, if these could have been left behind by British forces allied to the White Russians, rather than originally in use by the Russian Army?

I wonder if these were really used by the Russian (imperial or kerenski) Army during the Great War, to fight the Germans that is. I suspect they were sent over by British to the Whites to help in Civil War.

Say what you want about Russia, but respect for the deeds of their soldiers has always been high. These were probably on some rusting plinth somewhere and Russian military buffs took the initiative to restore them. There has never been a "Tommy this and Tommy that" attitude in Russia.

The MkV s were not used by the Russians during the Great War. All of them were either shipped to the White Armies for their use or were handed over from the small tank force present, which was essentially there to train up White forces anyway. In addition to the MkVs nearly all of which were 'hermaphrodite models' there were a couple of Mk B tanks handed over at Archangel.

The Bolsheviks captured or recovered many of these, inclsuing a handful left by Britain in Latvia and put them to use. Many were used as range targets in the 1930s a few were explicitly ordered to be preserved as monuments. A number of these fell into disrepair after the fall of communism. I can't recall where but I've seen a list cataloguing all the extant models.

Wake me up when they renovate and drive around a Tsar Tank: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Tank

Two ferris wheels, 1 turreted cannon, two sponson cannons, multiple other guns under the belly… A little better design and this would have "literally rolled over Germany."

"I'm here all week, be sure to tip the wait staff!"

So what's a hermaphrodite model? I'm not putting that into Google on my wife's lap top. She already thinks I'm a little odd (but loveable, thankfully).

WW I British armour is not my favourite subject, but I understand that:

'male': armed with cannon and MGs;

'female': armed with MGs only; and

'hermaphrodite': armed with cannon and MGs, but in a different configuration?

Had a sponson from each, varied which side the cannon/MG was on.

Great pictures. Thanks.

Very cool.

I did get a kick out of the Russ-glish in the opening sentence.
Militarism can be a nice hobby to join together people

I dunno, it didn't work out too well for the Germans…

hmmm, looks to me as if they had been used as monuments.

Over the years I have seen pictures of either these tanks, or ones very much like them, rusting away as monuments.

Some interesting details:

It appears that each of them has a cannon sponson on the right side and an MG sponson on the left. IN one of the interior shots you can see the U-spaed mounting for the cannon.

One of them still has a rail extending over the top for the unhitching beam. Both tanks originally had two of these.

In the picture with the female photographer you can see tubes for holding the cannon rounds, and behind the guy the rectangular openings were for MG ammo. (I think that the photgrapher for this shot can be seen 5 photos up from this one; as if they both took pictures at the same time.)

I like the "B" and "C" on the pedals. I wonder where pedal "A" is.

The photos illustrate nicely how the bottom of the tanks were rounded. This was intended to aid turning, though in practice they tended to sink into the ground.

Note the MG mounting in the rear of the tank, in the rear hatch. This did not appear until the Mark V. Before that there was a small door, but no specific mounting. The Marks I-IV had a crew of 8, with 2 serving as gearsman to help steer the tank. The Mark V didn't need the 2 gearsmen to steer, but still had a crew of 8. I assume that these 2 crewmen were freed up to man weapons, allowing more MG's to be fired simultaneously. Thus the permanent mounting in the rear. (The photo of the female photographer was taken through the rear hatch.)

This kills me. These are rare pieces of armour so what do they do? They weld them shut, paint them, then put them outside to be exposed to the elements! They should at least be stored inside and have the hatches open so people can look inside.

Yes, it really is a shame to see this done to them.
But if a monument was the only mechanism for producing the restoration funds then its better than seeing them rust away or scrapped.

Many post WWI monuments around the world were scrapped during WWII. In the US hundreds of German cannons were lost this way (they were melted down and 'sent back').

It's also a wonder they weren't sold (or allowed to dissapear) to some private collector years ago.

So all in all it's a success story.

These two are being restored now. They used to be monuments in Kharkov and now being restored at rail road depot in Lugansk. They will not be used as outside monuments, AFAIK, but are being restored to full working order. I have seen blogs with ton of pics on those, even some British buttons found inside…

It's good they are being restored, but I agree sticking them outside probably isn't the best idea. What colour did they paint them Russian Armour green!? Is that anything like the original British paint?

I have a german photo book with photos of wehrmacht troops admiring said behemoths ,spine and cover pages are missing but the book dates to the war,perchance my daughter will teach me how to scan photos so i can share.