Tag: military history
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AMX-50/120 surbaissé
Type: Heavy Tank Nation: France Period: Cold War Location: Musée des Blindés, Saumur, France Cold war colossus The AMX-50 was a French attempt to build a functional modern heavy tank intended to succeed the archaic ARL 44 in the 1950s. The first of only five prototypes was visibly inspired by the German Tiger II and…
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Light Tank M5A1 Stuart (Replica)
Type: Light Tank Nation: USA Period: World War 2 Location: Dead Man‘s Corner Museum, Carentan les Marais, France All in the family The Light Tank M5 was an improved version of the M3 Stuart. It was developed from late 1941 to early 1942 to free up Continental W-670 engines which were needed for aircraft production.…
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Centurion Mk 5/2
Type: Main Battle Tank Nation: United Kingdom Period: Cold War Location: Nationaal Militair Museum, Soesterberg, Netherlands One size fits all The Centurion is widely considered one of the best tank designs of all time. Its origins date back to 1943, when the development of a heavy cruiser tank was ordered. Up to that point, the…
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Jagdpanzer 38 „Hetzer“ (Sd.Kfz. 138/2)
Type: Tank Destroyer Nation: Germany Period: World War 2 Location: Bastogne War Museum, Belgium Caught on the back foot Following their 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany’s troops were facing an ever-increasing number of enemy tanks on the Eastern Front. Craving for capable anti-tank vehicles, the Germans upgunned their Panzer IIIs, Panzer IVs…
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Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. G/H (Sd.Kfz. 161/2)
Type: Medium TankNation: GermanyPeriod: World War 2Location: Technik Museum Sinsheim, Germany Steel siblings The first batch of the early Panzerkampfwagen IV was delivered to the Wehrmacht until 1938. With approximately 8,500 units built until 1945, it became the most produced German tank of World War 2. Like its companion, the very similar Panzerkampfwagen III, its…
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Panzerkampfwagen III Ausf. L (Sd.Kfz. 141/1)
Type: Medium Tank Nation: Germany Period: World War 2 Location: The Tank Museum, Bovington, UK Anti-tank tank The Panzerkampfwagen III was one of Nazi Germany’s two primary early war medium tanks. First conceived in 1934 with a 3.7 cm anti-tank gun, it was supposed to take on enemy armour while the slightly bigger Panzerkampfwagen IV…
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M4A4 FL-10
Type: Medium Tank Nation: Egypt Period: Cold War Location: National Military Museum, Cairo, Egypt Frankentank The M4A4 FL-10 was a not too creatively named up-armed Sherman version that combined the long M4A4 hull with the FL-10 oscillating turret taken from the AMX-13 light tank. This variant was designed and built in France for the Egyptian…
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Sherman IC Hybrid Firefly
Type: Medium Tank/Cruiser TankNation: United KingdomPeriod: World War 2Location: Klein-Willebroek, Belgium Best of both worlds The “Composite hull” Sherman combined the welded hull of the standard M4 with a rounded M4A1-style cast front. Chrysler came up with this design in 1943, because a large part of the time-consuming welding work on the first generation M4…
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Grizzly I „Robin Hood“
Type: Medium Tank/Cruiser Tank Nation: Canada Period: World War 2 Location: Vrijheidsmuseum, Groesbeek, Netherlands Full metal footprint The Grizzly I cruiser tank was basically a Canadian licence-built M4A1. It is sometimes falsely referred to as the M4A5, but the Americans had actually applied this designation to the Ram II in February 1942. Apart from a…
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M4A4 Sherman „Argyle“
Type: Medium Tank Nation: USA Period: World War 2 Location: Airborne Museum Hartenstein, Oosterbeek, Netherlands From filler to killer The shortage of radial engines for the M4 and M4A1 had led to the production of both the M4A2 with an improvised twin diesel engine as well as the Ford V8-powered M4A3. For the same reason…