Round seven of Name That Vehicle, (Texas especially)

Originally posted by sapper740
O.K., hang on a sec. You're telling me that a 1960's vintage British turret on a 1950's vintage Russian hull with 1940's vintage German markings is kosher!?! Exactly which country had this vehicle, as shown in the picture? The National Socialist Royal Union of Bolshevik Imperialist Europe? I guess the King's English and American English have drifted farther apart than I thought. I used to know what the word "authenticity" meant.

Russia.

Its a T55, and apart from the turret, exists as such under the "camo" sheet steel.

I know, I've driven it and its dreadful; the fake and real access apertures are 2ft apart and mis-aligned by about a 18" sideways necessitating a 45º bodily slant to get in; fine for flexible young things but somewhat difficult for creaky 1.9178016m old farts.

Once in of course then head out is preferable, but head out is still inside the outer sheet body, and the "Tiger" vision (I use the word, vision, loosely) slot is some 2½ feet in front; "limited" doesn't exactly do it justice.

However, it gets worse.

Necessarily the turret area is void of all original fittings and is just a cavernous, thick, armoured steel, sound box with a 37 litre V12 diesel, some exhaust leaks and several slack couplings directly behind.

Together with the above and the brutally agricultural nature of Russian tanks, the experience is truly frightening, 15mins is hell, half an hour is purgatory.

The exterior presentation, as we have seen is excellent, accurate paint, fake zimmerit (P38 here, Bondo there) and the markings do depict a real Tiger turret number 134 commanded by SS-Unterschaftführer Willi Fey of s.SS.Pz.Abt.102; and of a couple years back, he was still with us.

Now, stop thinking of little scrubbing brushes and/or upsidedown Christmas trees for ground connections and consider what connects any _vehicle_ to the ground. Then, as Richard rightly says, do some ferreting about on the so-called Sd.Kfz.222

Oh dear, bed time again, in fact its Monday morning already. Must dash.

R.