Text removed as information is no longer current
 

Text removed as information is no longer current

Awesome Tanks
 

Yes Stuart!

The usual suspects from The Cold War Collection (Nick, Dave, Nicki, Robin, myself and several fellows not on MLU), and as you saw, Mike.

The Windsor Carrier and 6-Pdr showed well, until something clapped out on it. I was driving the Cadillac Gage V100, and Nick summoned me to give them a tow out of difficulty.

The morning show was BV206, Scorpion, V-100, Windsor, Stuart, Grizzly, and T34/85. The Lynx may have played; don't remember because I was probably manoeuvering in the pit. The Saracen was pulled the week before due to 'tummy troubles'.

The Stuart didn't come out to play after lunch. The Lynx had a oil light come on just before it was to make its run. A CWM M113 ARV was warmed up and waiting, so it did the run instead.

I mounted my dash cam on the V100, but MLU won't load *.avi format.

"From The Swords and Ploughshares Museum

Windsor Carrier with 6 Pounder Anti-Tank Gun"

Did Ploughshares buy Stewart Hall's Windsor that originally came from the museum in Indiana and had been running about Ontario as recently as last year?

Any pics to say one way or the other?

'Rinky Dink'
 

I pity anyone from the public who actually spends money to attend these CWM events as they can best be summed up as 'Rinky Dink'. Thank goodness there were running vehicles from other private collections besides the CWM as the vehicles owned and cared for in the name of this country always appear to be 'a work in progress' with mechanical problems being the hallmark of this 'event'.

Timings were listed as being from 1000 until 1600, I showed up at 1000 and as could be expected there was only a M577 parked outside for the public to look at. The scale modellers had a nice big display but they were buried down in Lebreton Gallery.

There were only two shows, one at 1100 and the other at 1430 with what looked like 100 in attendance in the morning and perhaps 200 in the afternoon. Lots of dead time between shows and the small display road tucked away in the back of the CWM does not really do justice to the might of these vehicles. For a city that has a population of 900K including 10K in the military, the numbers were low. Although I am sure in the minds of the CWM this was a huge success.

This follows what is now the standard pattern for the CWM, take an idea that has excellent potential and through lack of any motivation or vision to improve stick with a format that screams lacklustre. Of course there is no mechanism in place by the CWM to objectively assess what they do, so consequently there is no reason to change.

Like I said earlier, thankfully there were vehicles from other collections at this event as at least there was something to look at - and they ran. With all of the people in the region who own and restore MVs, an event like this would have been an excellent venue to showcase their preservation work. Unfortunately they never get asked. It would have also given the paying public more to look at between shows then a solidary stripped down M577.

I have no idea how busy the scale modellers were in Lebreton Gallery, but I would have thought that having them in the CWM foyer may have provided them with more traffic.

Having a few vehicles and a display from DND may also have been interesting, but again I suspect that they were not asked. I also cannot understand why the open park in front of the CWM, the same one used for Bluesfest, is not used as the focal point for this event as it has lots of space for vehicles included a nice figure eight track.

An event like this has the potential to be something that people will look forward to annually as a showcase for not only the CWM's vehicles, but those of other collectors. It also is a great opportunity for the public to gain insight into other classic hobbies, like the scale modellers, and to expose people to pastimes that do not involve computers or smartphones. From what I observed today this is an event that screams out for a qualified event organizer and a team that knows what they are doing, but there appears to be no interest in developing this into an event that both the CWM and Ottawa can be proud of.

A big thank you to The Cold War Historic Vehicle Society and the Swords and Ploughshares Museum for keeping this event afloat.