This I hope will be of interest to anyone that loves Tanks, especially ones being restored. This is very relevant as we organized a tour on Saturday and saw the Panther Tank featured in Episode 2 being restored. The information below was provided by the well known Military Author Michael Green.
"Welcome to the world where military geeks, genius mechanics and eccentric millionaires are living the dream with blowtorches, industrial lathes and hi-tech electronics, restoring four notable battle tanks from WWII. Each episode follows one tank's story: the rebuild, the innovations that made each machine great, and the engineering flaws that proved fatal. Unique serial numbers lead us to re-trace each tank's forged-in-war history: discovering where it was made, the battles it fought and the often tragic end of its fighting career.
Episode 1: The Comet Tuesday, February 6 at 8 PM Dave Arnold and his crew at the Isle of Wight Military History Museum are set for a real challenge. They’ve rescued a rare 1945 COMET Tank from an Army firing range. It’s been shot to hell and they only have 4 months to get it ready and running for the crowds at Tank Fest 2006.
We’ll see tons of action in the shop as they tear it apart; overhaul the engine; strip, sandblast, paint and put it back together again. Along the way, we’ll find clues in the form of serial numbers and markings that retrace the war-time mission of tank and crew behind enemy lines; from the crossing of the Rhine to confrontation with the deadly Panzerfaust, and the final race for Berlin.
We’ll meet modern tank commanders, and designers of the high-tech tanks of the future. They’ll show us –with live action and firepower- just how far the technology has come since the innovations built into this COMET.
Finally, we’ll go behind the scenes to see what collecting and restoring tanks is all about. The stakes are high as Dave and his crew struggle to get their COMET ready for judgement-day. It’s no easy crowd at Tank Fest. The experts will be out to scrutinize the work for historic accuracy and attention to detail; a ruthless preamble before getting down to what they all love best –to blast around in TANKS.
It’s just bit more extreme than your average car-show.
Episode 2: The Panther Tuesday, February 13 at 8 PM
Jacques Littlefield is a nice guy with a whole lot of tanks. In fact, with over 300 military vehicles, he has the largest private tank collection in the world.
Jacques’ team is currently working on the jewel of his collection, the extremely rare and coveted PANTHER. This one has been rescued from the bottom of a river in Poland and it has been –literally- blown to pieces. The damage and the mechanical complexity make this the toughest and most expensive job Jacques’ crew have ever done.
But the damage also contains clues that lead us back to the scene to reveal what really happened to tank and crew on their final day of battle.
Along the way, we’ll hook up with Jacques’ buddy in England, Kevin Wheatcroft, who happens to have the second biggest collection in the world; and who also happens be restoring two Panthers of his own. Their friendly rivalry is off-set by the need to co-operate in sharing the very precise and very expensive parts they have to manufacture to get the job done. No one wants to cut corners. These Panthers have to look like they did the day they rolled off the assembly line.
In each case their work reveals incredible innovations that have inspired modern tank-designs of today –which we show in explosive action-packed detail. Finally, we discover that as advanced as it was, the Panther had an Achilles Heel – if it ever broke down, it was a nightmare to fix. In the gruelling context of war, the mighty Panther was too sophisticated for its own good.
Episode 3: The Sherman Tuesday, February 20 8 pm
The American M4 Sherman is the best known, most widely used tank of the Second World War. It is also the most controversial. Was it the all-American tank that won the war or a completely under-designed death trap?
We go to the Isle of Wight Military History Museum, where Dave Arnold and his crew are about to try something no one else has ever done before. They are going to chop two destroyed Shermans in half to piece together one good one.
We’ll see all the heavy equipment in action but once the tank goes into the massive rotating welding jig, with 20 tones of steel suspended in the air, the job becomes scarier than either Dave or his crew had ever imagined.
If they can pull it off it will be a testament to the most revolutionary aspect of the Sherman’s design – American-style production engineering allowed for production on a massive scale. It will show just why the Sherman, despite its flaws, remains one of the most important tanks ever made; and one of the many reasons why the Allies won the War.
Our history takes us to the D-Day landing at Normandy to show how in the face of the powerful German defenses, shear numbers of Sherman tanks helped to win the day. And we’ll see how technical innovations introduced with the Sherman are still used today. However, D-Day would prove to be a brutal test of fire against newer heavy German tanks. The Sherman was no match and its bad reputation was sealed.
In the end, we’ll pay tribute to the success of the open design of the Sherman with the massively up-graded Super Sherman that continued to be a match for modern arms until the end of the 1960’s; making the Sherman the most widely used and longest serving tank in the world.
Episode 4: The Hellcat Tuesday, February 27 8 pm
We go to the Tank Workshop in Tooele, Utah where a crew of dedicated restorers race to finish a very special project. Their boss, Karl Smith, has gathered the largest private collection of World War II vehicles in the United States, and he’s throwing a VE-Day party with a big surprise.
The crew has discovered that one of the M-18 HELLCAT Tank Destroyers in the collection is the same machine that a local veteran served in during the Second World War. They have two weeks to tear it apart, install a new engine, and get it running so they can take one very surprised veteran for the ride of his life.
We’ll see the equipment in action and meet Karl’s eclectic crew:
His in-house historian, Geoff Panos, is a former Special Forces op and playwright with a livelong passion for military history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things “tanks”.
Randy “HOLLYWOOD” Killen, is a special effects modeller for Hollywood films who has worked on everything from “Blade Runner” to “Star Wars”. For fun, Randy fabricates all the new and replacement parts for Karl’s tanks.
Roger Condron is the mechanic who just about knows how to fix anything – with or without the manual.
And then there’s the Tank:
The HELLCAT is one of those machines that soldiers either loved of hated. It was the fastest tank of the war with a blistering top speed of 50mph. The gun was tough and accurate. It shot two different kinds of ammo – one that was able to penetrate the formidable enemy armour. But to make the Hellcat so fast, US engineers had sacrificed protection. The M-18’s armour was barely thick enough to stop common rifle fire. And in wintertime it was like fighting inside a refrigerator. But in this episode we’ll see how four Hellcats turned the tide in the Battle of the Bulge.
Hope you enjoy the series.
Mike
Sierra Toy Soldier
"Welcome to the world where military geeks, genius mechanics and eccentric millionaires are living the dream with blowtorches, industrial lathes and hi-tech electronics, restoring four notable battle tanks from WWII. Each episode follows one tank's story: the rebuild, the innovations that made each machine great, and the engineering flaws that proved fatal. Unique serial numbers lead us to re-trace each tank's forged-in-war history: discovering where it was made, the battles it fought and the often tragic end of its fighting career.
Episode 1: The Comet Tuesday, February 6 at 8 PM Dave Arnold and his crew at the Isle of Wight Military History Museum are set for a real challenge. They’ve rescued a rare 1945 COMET Tank from an Army firing range. It’s been shot to hell and they only have 4 months to get it ready and running for the crowds at Tank Fest 2006.
We’ll see tons of action in the shop as they tear it apart; overhaul the engine; strip, sandblast, paint and put it back together again. Along the way, we’ll find clues in the form of serial numbers and markings that retrace the war-time mission of tank and crew behind enemy lines; from the crossing of the Rhine to confrontation with the deadly Panzerfaust, and the final race for Berlin.
We’ll meet modern tank commanders, and designers of the high-tech tanks of the future. They’ll show us –with live action and firepower- just how far the technology has come since the innovations built into this COMET.
Finally, we’ll go behind the scenes to see what collecting and restoring tanks is all about. The stakes are high as Dave and his crew struggle to get their COMET ready for judgement-day. It’s no easy crowd at Tank Fest. The experts will be out to scrutinize the work for historic accuracy and attention to detail; a ruthless preamble before getting down to what they all love best –to blast around in TANKS.
It’s just bit more extreme than your average car-show.
Episode 2: The Panther Tuesday, February 13 at 8 PM
Jacques Littlefield is a nice guy with a whole lot of tanks. In fact, with over 300 military vehicles, he has the largest private tank collection in the world.
Jacques’ team is currently working on the jewel of his collection, the extremely rare and coveted PANTHER. This one has been rescued from the bottom of a river in Poland and it has been –literally- blown to pieces. The damage and the mechanical complexity make this the toughest and most expensive job Jacques’ crew have ever done.
But the damage also contains clues that lead us back to the scene to reveal what really happened to tank and crew on their final day of battle.
Along the way, we’ll hook up with Jacques’ buddy in England, Kevin Wheatcroft, who happens to have the second biggest collection in the world; and who also happens be restoring two Panthers of his own. Their friendly rivalry is off-set by the need to co-operate in sharing the very precise and very expensive parts they have to manufacture to get the job done. No one wants to cut corners. These Panthers have to look like they did the day they rolled off the assembly line.
In each case their work reveals incredible innovations that have inspired modern tank-designs of today –which we show in explosive action-packed detail. Finally, we discover that as advanced as it was, the Panther had an Achilles Heel – if it ever broke down, it was a nightmare to fix. In the gruelling context of war, the mighty Panther was too sophisticated for its own good.
Episode 3: The Sherman Tuesday, February 20 8 pm
The American M4 Sherman is the best known, most widely used tank of the Second World War. It is also the most controversial. Was it the all-American tank that won the war or a completely under-designed death trap?
We go to the Isle of Wight Military History Museum, where Dave Arnold and his crew are about to try something no one else has ever done before. They are going to chop two destroyed Shermans in half to piece together one good one.
We’ll see all the heavy equipment in action but once the tank goes into the massive rotating welding jig, with 20 tones of steel suspended in the air, the job becomes scarier than either Dave or his crew had ever imagined.
If they can pull it off it will be a testament to the most revolutionary aspect of the Sherman’s design – American-style production engineering allowed for production on a massive scale. It will show just why the Sherman, despite its flaws, remains one of the most important tanks ever made; and one of the many reasons why the Allies won the War.
Our history takes us to the D-Day landing at Normandy to show how in the face of the powerful German defenses, shear numbers of Sherman tanks helped to win the day. And we’ll see how technical innovations introduced with the Sherman are still used today. However, D-Day would prove to be a brutal test of fire against newer heavy German tanks. The Sherman was no match and its bad reputation was sealed.
In the end, we’ll pay tribute to the success of the open design of the Sherman with the massively up-graded Super Sherman that continued to be a match for modern arms until the end of the 1960’s; making the Sherman the most widely used and longest serving tank in the world.
Episode 4: The Hellcat Tuesday, February 27 8 pm
We go to the Tank Workshop in Tooele, Utah where a crew of dedicated restorers race to finish a very special project. Their boss, Karl Smith, has gathered the largest private collection of World War II vehicles in the United States, and he’s throwing a VE-Day party with a big surprise.
The crew has discovered that one of the M-18 HELLCAT Tank Destroyers in the collection is the same machine that a local veteran served in during the Second World War. They have two weeks to tear it apart, install a new engine, and get it running so they can take one very surprised veteran for the ride of his life.
We’ll see the equipment in action and meet Karl’s eclectic crew:
His in-house historian, Geoff Panos, is a former Special Forces op and playwright with a livelong passion for military history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things “tanks”.
Randy “HOLLYWOOD” Killen, is a special effects modeller for Hollywood films who has worked on everything from “Blade Runner” to “Star Wars”. For fun, Randy fabricates all the new and replacement parts for Karl’s tanks.
Roger Condron is the mechanic who just about knows how to fix anything – with or without the manual.
And then there’s the Tank:
The HELLCAT is one of those machines that soldiers either loved of hated. It was the fastest tank of the war with a blistering top speed of 50mph. The gun was tough and accurate. It shot two different kinds of ammo – one that was able to penetrate the formidable enemy armour. But to make the Hellcat so fast, US engineers had sacrificed protection. The M-18’s armour was barely thick enough to stop common rifle fire. And in wintertime it was like fighting inside a refrigerator. But in this episode we’ll see how four Hellcats turned the tide in the Battle of the Bulge.
Hope you enjoy the series.
Mike
Sierra Toy Soldier
