By the time the Carro Armato M15/42 ¹ came into service in 1943, the scenario it had been designed for – fast moving desert warfare in North Africa – was over, and by October that year Italy had switched sides in the war. Just as well really....
Set back behind the Tudor bulk of Southsea Castle, just east of Portsmouth harbour, the D-Day Story Museum does what it says on the label – showcases the events leading up to the Allied invasion of France on June 6 1944, codenamed Operation Overlord. There’s been a...
The ZSU-23-4 Shilka is a Soviet self-propelled anti-aircraft system. I thought the Shilka was an old piece of Cold War kit, but it turns out that, while it may be old, many countries have developed upgrade packs and are still using it. The ZSU-23-4 (Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka...
Saturday 2nd March will mark 50 years since the maiden voyage of Concorde from Toulouse, south-west France. Concorde was manufactured jointly by French firm, Aerospatiale in Toulouse and the British Aircraft Corporation in Filton (near Bristol), but it was in Toulouse that Concorde 001 took to the...
The Atlanta History Center (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) has opened Cyclorama: The Big Picture, the fully restored The Battle of Atlanta cyclorama painting. The 360° cyclorama is one of the world’s largest oil paintings, standing 49 feet (14.9m) tall, stretching longer than a football field and weighing 10,000...
I finally paid a long overdue visit to Portsmouth last month and caught up on the key ‘attractions’ on both sides of the harbour. I’m going to address the main attractions – HMS Warrior, HMS Victory, HMS M33, The Mary Rose museum, The Royal Navy Submarine Museum...
The thing with ‘icons’ is that you know what to expect when you finally see them. Sometimes the scale is unexpected – eg. “Oh, the Mt Rushmore heads are smaller than I thought!” (they were) – but the detail is exactly as anticipated. I have seen HMS...
This is a bit of a discovery for me. I went to a press function¹ last night at the London Film Museum in Covent Garden, where they have Bond in Motion, an exhibition of James Bond movie vehicles. Now normally that would not have got me particularly...
The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is opening a new permanent exhibit on 9th May 2019. It’ll be the first in America devoted to exploring the constitutional debates from the Civil War and Reconstruction. Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality will feature key...
Vilnius is using its Railway Station and the adjacent Lithuanian Railway Museum to host an ‘Independent Christmas Village’, and the city is making a statement about the hyper-consumerism that tends to take over the holiday season, encouraging a more local and authentic approach to Christmas instead. Their...
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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