The National Army Museum will be opening its doors to the public on Thursday (30 March) after a £23.75m redevelopment that sees the building transformed from what the Director General, Janice Murray, described to me as a gloomy warren “rather like a car park”, to a bright...
It’s not a spectacular building. In fact it’s what it always used to be – a college. But this nondescript building next to the station in Reims is historic. This is where World War II ended in Europe. This is where the Germans signed their (first) unconditional...
I’ve been trying to work out what this slightly rusty Self Propelled Gun (SPG) is, parked up at the back of the Musee de Blindes in Saumur, awaiting a little love and attention from their restoration teams. Now, thanks to TankNutDave.com, and some time I spent trawling...
These are pattern/template boots for the Swedish army. The one on the left was an approved design for a cavalry boot in the 1690s, when Sweden was still an autocracy, so the final approval comes from the king who puts his seal on it. The letters CRS...
With innovative companies like Saab, Bofors, Volvo and Scania, the Swedes have come at engineering & design from a different angle to everybody else.
I love this quirky little French 6-wheeler from 1939. It’s a Laffly V15T with 4-wheel drive, plus an extra two wheels to get it over lumps & bumps! It had a top speed of 58 kph and was used primary by the French cavalry as an artillery...
Armémuseum , the Swedish Army Museum, is a traditional capital city style museum in an impressive historic building in the centre of Stockholm, but although there’s lots of interesting exhibits & displays, I found it a little disappointing. It’s a shame, because they really have gone to some...
With over 200 armoured vehicles on permanent display, and another 680 in its inventory, the Musée des Blindés Saumur, has the largest collection of armoured vehicles in the world*. It’s been on my list of museums to visit for some time and I wasn’t disappointed. Its roots...
The Virginia Aviation Museum located on the edge of Richmond International Airport, is closing at the end of June. The museum has a collection of 38 military & civilian aircraft, some original, some reproductions, that will hopefully be relocated and preserved. They include a 1917 SPAD VII;...
BF110F-2 Werknummer 5052 is on display in the Deutsches Technikmuseum, Berlin. This aircraft served with 13./Zerstörergruppe JG5 at KemiJarvi, Finland during 1943. On January 11, it was damaged by train-mounted flak while flying a four plane mission against railway lines between Murmansk and Leningrad. Pilot Helmut Ziegenhagen...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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