The UK's Tankfest 2018 - Some pictures & link to gallery

[adt70hk]

Hi all

Apologies for not being around much recently but have been lurking.

Anyway, so I took the family (even my wife!!) to my first Tankfest at Bovington on Saturday and had a great day out.  In the queue for 9:30 and left just before 6!!

Lots of steel on view in the arena and they have also sorted out their Conservation Hall so you could actually get close up to some of the rarer/unique exhibits.

Most of the vehicles on display were obviously Bovington exhibits or British Army vehicles but there were also some from Bovington's equivalents in Holland, Belgium, some belonging to private owners and in the case of France the only running Char B1 bis in the world, which had been shipped over for the event from Saumur.

They had apparently reduced the number of tickets on sale following feedback from last year - so there were only 9,000 available for Saturday.  4,000 had apparently turned up for the Friday preview day.

The one minor downside was the temperature.  It was very hot (at least for us Limeys) - 29 degrees in the arena - and Junior really, really struggles in the heat so he ended up spending quite a bit of time in the Conservation Hall watching the World of Tanks battles (they're the main sponsor) and also having a go.  My wife deserves a medal for putting up with it all, as it really is not her thing and she spent half her time watching WoT!!

Below are a few taster pics but I have also done a Full Flickr Album - HERE!! of all the ones I took.  As you will see it wasn't always easy to get a clear shot and photography isn't my strong point - that is very much the domain of SWMBO.

Enjoy!!

ATB

Andrew

PS if you want the original of any of them for any reason just PM me to let me know.

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A very full running order

The only running Char B1 in the world...




The oldest running exhibit at early 1920s...




Leopard 2 - damn it is quick for such a big beast!!




British Army, right up to date...

Sdkfz 7 (private owner I believe) pulling Bovington's 88

Early Cold War Russian Beast.....




Only one of two US T14 tanks made during WW2!

[Leon]

WOW....Thanks for sharing the great pics Andrew!
Looks like you had a great day.

[wbill76]

Kudos to your wife as well, thanks for sharing the pics!

[Tobi]

Very cool. I will have a look into Flickr soon.

Officially the Leopard 2A6 can go 70km/h cross country speed, but crews told me 90km/h are easily possible.

Due to the smoothness of the suspension, it had the nickname "Cadillac" in the German Army during the nineties. Dunno if this is still true today.

[adt70hk]

Jul 3, 2018 8:33:56 GMT -5 Leon said:

WOW....Thanks for sharing the great pics Andrew!
Looks like you had a great day.

Leon

Absolutely problem at all.  I can't offer much in the way of modelling advice but I will give back where I can.  And it was a great day.  In one respect though it was a slight shame that the running order was so full because it meant I never got a chance to go around the museum itself.

Jul 3, 2018 15:38:30 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Kudos to your wife as well, thanks for sharing the pics!

Bill

You're more than welcome!  I'll pass on the kudos to my wife - although I don't think she will be going again!  Hope you're well and still enjoying the classroom.

Jul 4, 2018 0:37:10 GMT -5 Tobi said:

Very cool. I will have a look into Flickr soon.

Officially the Leopard 2A6 can go 70km/h cross country speed, but crews told me 90km/h are easily possible.

Due to the smoothness of the suspension, it had the nickname "Cadillac" in the German Army during the nineties. Dunno if this is still true today.

Tobi

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and the info.  As I said above, if you see anything on Flickr you'd really like the original of just send me a PM and we'll sort something out.

ATB to you all.

Andrew

[wbill76]

Jul 4, 2018 7:29:05 GMT -5 adt70hk said:

Jul 3, 2018 15:38:30 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Kudos to your wife as well, thanks for sharing the pics!

Bill

You're more than welcome!  I'll pass on the kudos to my wife - although I don't think she will be going again!  Hope you're well and still enjoying the classroom.

Now that we are on summer break, things have slowed down and the batteries are slowly recharging! We had some very positive test results that showed improvement on our campus over the previous year, so that showed that all the hard work paid off in the one area that matters the most in the eyes of the district and state scoring. The state of Texas this year has started giving individual schools and districts a 'letter' grade in an effort to make it easier for parents to understand how each school is doing relatively speaking. Our campus got a 'B' grade overall for the year just finished so can't complain about that.

[Tojo72]

Thats a bucket list item for me which I'll probably never do.Thanks for the pics.

[afvfan]

Great pics, Andrew. This is another bucket list item if I ever make it over there.

[adt70hk]

Jul 5, 2018 8:15:23 GMT -5 Tojo72 said:

Thats a bucket list item for me which I'll probably never do.Thanks for the pics.

Anthony - no problem at all, it's one of the few ways I can give back to the community on here.

Jul 6, 2018 23:25:16 GMT -5 afvfan said:

Great pics, Andrew. This is another bucket list item if I ever make it over there.

Bob

Thanks!  It was getting very hot towards the end the day, so it's good hear my commitment to the cause has been well received. 

Don't forget the bubble belching frog either!  And whilst you in MK centre visiting the frog, Bletchley park is only a couple of miles away!!

ATB

Andrew