"Bovington Tank Museum" Topic

I've (finally) been to Bovvy, completing the set of Bovvy, Kubinka and Aberdeen (or maybe getting 3/4 of the way there without Samur?), and added 270 photos from my trip to my website, some of which will hopefully be of interest to someone out there, for painting or modelling.

Gallery of Bovvy's tank collection

All the thumbnails (in the album on my website) expand into a larger picture, and the larger pictures also are clickable for fullscreen versions.

Pictures from the other museums are also on the same part of my site.

Hope they are of use and interest to someone!

Yes I was fortunate to live very close to Bovvy in God's County so was a regular visitor. A great museum. I can claim to have also visited Saumur and Puckapunyal (home of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps).

All excellent establishments. But I prefer Pucka simply because its still a functioning military unit, albeit 1 x WO and 1 x CPL, but they still use it as a training facility. (I was chatting to the WO outside the door when a squad of Diggers was brought to a halt and their SGT came up to the WO curator and asked permission to take them in to view the WarPact AFV's as they were doing the Junior Int Course….better than a death by Powerpoint!)

If you do go to Saumur, be sure and find time for a little wine tasting, and also to visit the Cadre Noir at the Cavalry School, the equine display team.

I'll be taking 30 cadets there in a few weeks, for a bit of preparatory research and familiarisation with the hardware, prior to our Normandy battlefield tour in August. As you say, it beats Death By Powerpoint! :)

Back there again in July for Battlegroup South. :D

You need to visit Latrun (or Yad La-Shiryon) in Israel for the full set. link
Great place. Very hot though. Hit 50C when I was there so don't do what I did and lean on the PzIV. You could fry eggs on it.

Don't forget Parola, in Finland. I don't know if you can do it now, but in the late seventies you could climb into some of the tanks. The Russian armoured train was a lot more spacious!

link

always a pleasure to look at photos of tanks !

Thanks

Phil

I got to go for only an hour while on our honeymoon in Wales. I'll hopefully get back before I'm too feeble.

Bovington is an impressive museum. Visited once and put on a game which we at least enjoyed though I don't think it drew a lot of interest – smaller scales don't as a rule.

I had only about an hour to look round and wished I'd had more.

interesting set of pics with captions..did go there may years ago

Great place, dunno if I'll ever make Kubinka, but I did manage to see Aberdeen.

Out of curiosity, which period/campaign is the Panther's camo from?

It's apparently one of those weird 'whatever was left in the paint shop' schemes from 1945. I personally think it's a crying shame that they didn't paint it in a more typical dark yellow/red-brown/olive green scheme (it used to be painted in a three-colour 'Ambush' scheme).

Edited to add:

Here's the official explanation: link

That seems fair enough, but it still seems a shame to me that it doesn't look more representative of the typical Panther.

What a horrible paint job on the Panther-seems they would change that.

Have a look at the linked explanation. The Panther in question is actually one that was built by the REME from a half-built example found in a factory at the end of the war. The camo scheme is apparently representative of tanks being produced so late in the war (though I agree, it's horrible).

The JagdTiger pain scheme is also rather odd – grey with a spattering of yellow paint brush marks on all over it.

The stuff I see in 15mm is a lot more carefully done in general :-)

I think a lot of the very, very late war tanks went out in their red oxide primer. I guess the panther scheme is attempting to represent that, given that the tank was half built at the end f the war? Interestingly, the red oxide was often mistaken for a return to German grey in post war camouflage guides that relied upon black and while photographs (there is an errata to this effect By Bruce Culver to the later editions of Panzer Colors)

Madaxeman, I guess tanks were not very carefully painted – especially at the end of the war – and its museum, they are trying to represent how these tanks would actually have looked ;)

I remember that the Tamiya Jagdtiger also recommended that paint-scheme. God knows what the evidence is for it.

A lot of the tanks at Bovington were painted decades ago by bored squaddies or whoever restored it, seemingly with minimal research and simply with what (gloss) paint they had to hand at the time. They're now going through a concerted programme of re-painting with schemes and colours as accurate as they can get them.

I remember that the Tamiya Jagdtiger also recommended that paint-scheme. God knows what the evidence is for it.

Here's the evidence!

In glorious shades of ….. grey.

Anyway, it has to be true because that's exactly how I painted my Tamiya Jagdtiger about 35+ years ago. And I still have it, somewhere.

Loved looking at the pictures. Excellent write ups too.

On the same note, I took some pictures of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation collection over by Stanford in Northern California last weekend.

link

Not documented at all but I tried to take some pictures of some of the plaques. It was interesting that all the vehicles in the warehouses are all drivable. I guess you can buy and restore 300+ tanks if you have the time and money :)

The tour guide said that the person doing all this died a few years back so volunteers are doing tours to pay for the upkeep. No money to restore any more tanks. The guide said there were more warehouses across the hill full of unrestored ones. I'm not sure how many years they can keep this up without proper funding, so be sure to RSVP for a tour if you are ever near the Bay area in NorCal.

Webpage for the place is mvtf.org

I remember my Airfix guide to German tanks ironically suggested that modellers depictions of German WWII camouflage were often far more carefully applied, than the actual crews managed. Units had to apply their schemes with whatever they had, if they were lucky, equipment (compressors and airbrushes) and personnel from a maintenance unit, but often crude brushes or cloth wrapped sticks. Also, if units had a person with artistic talent they could engage in quite elaborate schemes, otherwise basic schemes were used.

Not only that, how you thinned the paint had an effect. Petrol was recommended but it could be thinned with other liquids and rarely was the suggested ratio stuck to. So those lovely schemes you often see, at exhibitions, or on the table top, were rarely ever seen.

DH,

Me too! :)

I'm guessing that it's probably actually patches of dark yellow on red-lead primer or an olive green base-coat?

R Mark Davies

If you have not been to Bovvie for a while then it will be worth ensuring that you show the Cadets the Afgan FOB in the Tamiya hall.

This is an Excellent exhibition with current vehicles and a mockup of living conditions.

There is also a comments wall for those who have served in Afgan that is worth a read.

I went to Bovvy again a couple of years ago after a long break. I was surprised to find almost all the vehicles inside now, but it was a good job as it poured with rain!

I was particularly interested in the shade of Afrika Korps brown the panzer III was painted, much darker than I had imagined.

Cheers Kabrank,

Yes, I go every year for Battlegroup South and I agree that the Herrick exhibition is superb (though it can be a bit noisy, making it difficult to hear the commentary on the video exhibits).

I've actually got some regular RAF and Army guys coming with me and even though the reason for us being there is Normandy, I've set aside time for them to tell the cadets about their Herrick experiences in the Herrick exhibition, which should be great.

R Mark

Good plan.

I go several times a year but sadly am never free for the show.

Signed up as a Friend of the museum a few years ago as well.

I met a Regular who had done several tours in Afgan last time I visited. He was showing his wife around the FOB.

His comments were very illuminating

I was just firming up the booking with the Tank Museum's education officer (a thoroughly nice chap by the name of Chris Copson) and he told me that they'll be doing a 1980s-style armour/infantry attack with FV-432s and a Chieftain on the day we're there (rehearsal for the Tankfest, which is the week after). :o)

My highlight was replaying the Battle of Cambrai in the main part of the museum. We used 6mm figures, with more than 90 tank stands and hundreds of infantry stands spread across 12' x 12' of tables. The real tanks were all around, hopefully watching on with a sense of approval. To paraphrase Winnie the Pooh though, 'you never can tell with tanks…'

Robert

Photos from the game can be seen here:

link

Check out the set of photos in the 'Cambrai' section, about 1/3 the way down the page.

Robert

Robert,

Your Cambrai game was great! We did have a chat at the time – I was doing the 15mm Arnhem game in the sweat-box.

You there again this year? We're doing a large 15mm Normandy game this year (the Grimbosq Bridgehead).

I've just been to Overloon and seen the only surviving Challenger on display.

Yes, I am hoping to be there again but not to run a game sadly. I remember the Arnhem game very well. The Normandy game sounds very interesting.

Robert

I'll be at 'Bovvie' again this year, capturing images for Wargames Illustrated. Its always an excellent show and the venue is pretty unique for a wargames event too.