"My trip to the Royal Tank museum" Topic

It's an excellent museum, very impressive. Here is a Centurion cut in half:
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You are not allowed to enter Soviet tanks because they are an asbestos hazmat danger. The KV-1 is really impressive and the T-34/76 is smaller than I envisioned and the turret looks as if shells could easily bounce off because of the angles and rounded mantlet. My first impression of the JagdTiger was "what a waste of material and steel but it is impressive". All of the vehicles are in excellent condition. Unfortunately, there was no activity outside the day I was there.

Centurian cut in half:
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They have a British Challenger on display that you can go inside. I was able to spend about 10 minutes in the TC position buttoned up. I really got the impression of the confinement and it seemed impossible to turn around and observe in your rear 90-degree arc. When buttoned up the TC view to the front is only through a magnified periscope/gunsight. This must have made it hard to observe when bumping around.

The view through the cupola vision ports was pretty good but I'm sure WWII was not as clear. My knees were in my gunners (my wife) back. The Challenger has controls for the TC to fully engage a target with main or coax on his own of line up for the gunner.

The docent described the Challenger kill at 5.1k as he had talked to the gunner that made the shot. The story is the TC thought he detected a hull down target and directed the gunner to lase it. He got no return on the first try but on the second try, he got a reading of 5.1k. The TC told him to make the calculations and shoot. I think it was a T-62 that was hit on the first shot.

Wolfhag

It is one of my favorite museums. When I lived in the UK, I used to go there regularly. It's also a great venue for the wargames show put on there every July. The highlight of all my visits was the time, my son and I were invited by the museum manager to stay behind and get a private tour of the Tiger 1. We were permitted to go inside of the tank. I sat in the loader's seat.

The only tank one could go inside when I last visited was the Pz-III, which, even with the innards removed, was a very small space.

Awesome thanks!!

Mr Jones, technically the Tiger 1 was not open to the public to climb on but the museum manager let my son and I remain after the museum closed and climb inside the Tiger 1 as a favor for helping some other patrons on the museum.

I was stunned by how cramped the loader's space is and how much upper body strength the loader would need to hoist the rounds out of the holders and push them into the chamber.

Such a great museum. I feel I'm long overdue for a visit.

My 40th Birthday present from my wife was a behind the scenes day at Bovington. I sat in a Matilda I and a Pz. III inside the museum and had a ride in a T34, a late build M4 and Challenger I. Also a go at driving an FV434. A big hi-light of the day for me was a talk by David Fletcher and the chance for a chat afterwards.

Would love to see it !

It's on my bucket list!