Curator Q&A #5: Tank Shells | The Tank Museum

well hello again David Willie again to answer some questions and catch up on a few little issues and at the very beginning I just want to say thank you so much to all the various people have been supporting us I just picked one of the names out we've got so many people that thanks for buying things I just picked out the name here Michael galosh who's out I believe in Germany thanks so much for the stuff you've been buying from our shop and I know you're one of the people that came to one of our Tiger days and we hope you see you at better times at the Museum again but thanks very much for that I also just wanted to catch up with people a lot of you have asked about how's David Fletcher is he okay where is ease cetera cetera now unfortunately we don't think David we did have a think about this one but where he is his internet connection his computer and various other things we don't think it's gonna work to be able to try and do live broadcasts or not live but you know recording films with him but I I'm in regular contact with him and this is what he just wanted to say - I'll read out for everybody thanks to everyone who's inquired I'm quite well at the moment even if I'm imprisoned in the flat I'm still being well looked after and allowed out early in the morning to go for a walk in the woods for the rest of the time I'm writing about armored vehicles of course for various magazines both here and in the USA not that I shall be unduly sorry when this business is over and so he's warm goes to all of you David Fletcher and so DFS okay and fingers crossed won't be too long before we can all start to be back in a museum and doing our usual things now I just a couple of things I forgot the other time when I did a question and also I had it hanging behind you number of people asked about what that coat I was wearing when it's a bit nippy around here I think I was sitting out here actually right by the compost heap as well that's always last time yeah this is what they call a Canadian Army Mac in a war and it's a big thick heavy canvas cow wool lined and this particular one it said Dominion garment company no 18:52 is my size 44 45 and they're lovely great big very very warm things and I know some of you interested in those not the same bit similar but not the same as the American army jeep cope or Mackinac that was done in the war years which is a blanket collar there was something like this the Canadians had in the war years as well this one's just a post-war one so if you're a bit of a coke person like I am or you like this sort of stuff that's one of those ooh nice and warm thick winter coat ones that I'll drop behind me so forgive me I forgot to mention it last time I had it hanging behind me in fact actually I did mention it because this see these these things that sometimes happen I'm just gonna check now yeah what we sometimes do is of course i sat there it's a camera altered loads of people's questions did everything only at the very end when I checked the battery had gone on one of these microphones and which all the fun and games of doing that you know it was quite irritating I did actually mention all about that coat various other things which I've now completely forgotten about anyway right on to some of those questions people of ours so one of them was a number of people not an individual number of people have asked what that bulge in the middle of a tank barrel what does that do now that bulge is something they call some countries call it a bore evacuator some fume extractor and I've done my here we go again the acne fume extractor demonstrator model coming out here the idea is what normally happens is when a round goes in the breech of a gun and oh by the way if you're interesting what this is just see his our demo round 17-pounder armor-piercing capped ballistic cap this one black to white bands means it's armor-piercing red means there's explosive in it this you'll be pleased to see this is actually an inflatable 17 pounder round from our shop so you can get these from our shop rather nice things and we've also got there's a tiger round there as well they do them so if you fancy one of those so back to my demonstration the idea is obviously the round goes in the breech of the gun the brass case here contains the propellant which is basically explosive once-ler is ignited when it burns it creates a huge amount of gas which expands rapidly in the space and that's what shoots the round out the other end of the barrel until death downrange towards the target now all in modern ammunition some people asking about two-part stuff and everything sometimes this this brass case is replaced by a bag of explosive so it doesn't actually have or it has a stub piece of brass and then the recipes on the top there and again the rounds in the in the chamber as well so what if we can imagine this is the tank barrel what happens he says if I get the thing out it seems to be stuck so what happens is there's my cigar tube which the pretend ground Brown goes in the barrel breech is closed so it's plugged so when that is ignited and that top piece fires down the barrel to go out the index thing down there all those hot gases that have expanded so Matt rapidly are forcing the round down the barrel as it works down towards before it exits now the problem is those gases when they actually form there's a lot of toxicity in those gases as well as the fact there's smoke and things I'll just catch a breath on etc so what you don't want to happen is when you open the bridge after that rounds being fired when you open the bridge you don't want all those gases coming back into the turret now early days there were things like what they called Sirocco fans put on the roof of the turret that would actually suck out the air and take it outside so if the fumes are in there but with the bigger rounds post-war when we're looking at you know 105 especially then 120 you're looking at a lot of fumes and a lot of gases at set four they could go in and again with much more health and safety conscious so they've got to find ways of let's not let the guys in the cab in the turret actually get to breathe in all those fumes and that's where this the bore evacuator or fume extractor comes in this bulge that's down the barrel barrel because as that round is going down that barrel what we have to think about what's going on is underneath here this is a sealed chamber that little tin box or tube that's going around the actual barrel and the idea behind it is as the round passes that particular bulge there's holes if we look underneath this holes are drilled into the barrel and those gases that are forcing the round down the barrel expands through the holes and go into this chamber which is like a capturing chamber that therefore fills as well with some of that pressurized gas the round continues and as it exits if it would exit this one seems to like staying in there my cigar tube anyway let's just imagine the rounds come out the end and it's disappeared down there now as soon as that round exits all those hot gases have a chance of expanding outside okay so the pressure that's been built up to force around out is now dissipating because it's actually got can go out into the general atmosphere so we've still got in our chamber here that high pressure gas that's gone in there through those holes so momentarily and we're talking about microseconds now as soon as all this gas is expanding out the front here this pressured gas forces its way back through holes and the front holes in that chamber that have drilled right the way through to the barrel to the inner part of the barrel they're angled to face forward and so this pressurized gas here now vent through these holes and pushes air all the gases rather all the way down the barrel forcing what smoke and other fumes remain to go out that way so again when you watch a tank gunfire quite often you'll see that recall and then the rounds left and then there's this little almost afterthought of a puff that comes out momentarily later at the end and that's that pressurized gas that's actually being pushed down to be in there and hopefully that's the a more scientifically well obviously works is that that is in sucking out any residual fumes going out that way rather so that when they open the breach at the other end rather those fumes go back inside the terrace at all that's a whole idea of a bore evacuator fume extractors it's sometimes call that bulge all the way down the barrel now of course if you don't have people in the turret you don't have to worry about doing this so if you look at the latest a martyred t14 the Russian tank it hasn't got a bore evacuator on that barrel at all because they're not so worried about those fumes coming back in the cab and there are other ways you can get rid of the fumes some have got this idea you have pressurized air he's squeezed in to the breach end and that is actually then once a guns fired pressurized they have put in to blast any fumes going the other way but I hope that answers that question with our our acne little device there now what about the other questions and thank you very much those of a couple of people who actually offered to translate that Greek writing that was inside that tankers helmet Mike our great intern who's now back out as Greece hello Mike thanks very much for he's done that for us so that was a but thanks very much for the offer there and one of the I can only describe it as perhaps less cheery subjects that somebody's brought up which is this idea about what happens when people are killed or wounded in tanks and you know let's just all hope you had your breakfast and everything but but it's worth a mention because this idea you know we talked about these subjects I know there was somebody sort of put it's a bit of criticism as well which is here we are we guess about helmets we guess about all these other things as if it's just you know our toys are fun our collecting we should never and I'd like to think if you come to the Tank Museum you you don't ever disassociate the subject area as in our enthusiasm for the machinery the uniforms the kits and everything else with what it is actually used for and that end result on an awful lot of young people live out to fighting wars over time especially in tanks and well I mention that because you know one of the questions was what what happens about people inside bodies in it or people inside tanks that have been killed or you know somebody the question was someone he surely has got to go along and clear all this up sometimes and that took me back because I remember we had a chap called Ron Huggins who was a volunteer when I first came to the Tank Museum he'd been there for quite some times and Ron and Harry Wed they used to drive around in our Sherman all the time at demonstrations - wonderful gentleman but Ron used to come along to the Tank Museum a half terms etc lay out a table of some of his kit and talk to everybody he loved talking about you know what he did in the war and everything and Ron saw a lot of action he was out in the bf in France 1940 he fought with the 10th Azhar's at happy he fought across North Africa he was there when von Toma was captured he was it fights in Italy and like so many of these he becomes a regimental sergeant major like so many of these guys afterwards well that sense of caring for the men he took that on into civilian society and he went into Social Work and he looked after people you know putting people back on straight narrow etc in those post-war years as his later career now Ron with a lovely guy and I remember one time he told this story and I remember he got a bit worked up and he was telling it and I think it's written up and I'm not sure it might be in the Gideon which is the 10th Azar's Journal but a lot of his accounts he actually did write down and they were published but I remember he told us this story and he said he was out in the this was when they were in North Africa fighting and there was a convention between the British and Commonwealth troops and the Germans when they were fighting there that you buried your opposition's dead you know at the end of any engagement and I can't remember how this this actually the communication occurred but what happened is Ron's unit 10th Azar's they come across some of their own knocked out tank from an earlier engagement and the bodies are still inside and they're in a real state and they got a message and this is what I can't remember how it worked out to the Germans saying listen this isn't on in this sort of chivalry that the way the war was being fought between the British and they the Germans are out there and the message came back from the Germans apologizing saying look we we would have done that but the circumstances at the time whether it was engagement or something they just didn't have the time to do it but they actually apologized for that and Ron remembers this and being quite quite affected by it that he then his CEO actually asked for volunteers to go and actually remove the bodies from these tank wrecks and Ron being sergeant thought he had to volunteer and he came out with the line I remember when he was talking to us getting quite emotionally as you can understand sort of involved in this and he said he did one of these tanks had been one of his best mates tanks and he said he could only identify he's best made in that tank because he recognized a guy's wristwatch which was on this burned bit of a of an arm sort of thing and and I say that because I don't want to put you all off your breakfast and everything else I don't want to sound like we're always to going to do it down on these things but I think that's one of those other areas where you know take all this in play the games do whatever you like that way but please don't ever disassociate it from the real end result of some of these things and to specifically answer and again I hope I'm not going overboard here but this was a quote that also I came across this the other day not specific to tanks but some poor sods got to do this so remember when all that battles over this was a sergeant Donald Hegel an American Army soldier who was from the graves registration union and this is what he writes sure there were lots of bodies we never identified you know what a direct hit by a shell does to a guy or a mine or a solid hit with a grenade even sometimes all we have is a leg or a hunk of arm the ones that stink the worst of the guys who've got internal wounds and are dead about three weeks with the blood staying inside and rotting and when you move the body the blood comes out the nose and mouth then some of them bloat up in the Sun they bloat up so big that they just bust the buttons and then they get blue and the skin peels they don't all get blue some of them get black but they all stunk there's only one stink and that's it you never get used to it either as long as you live you get used to it and after a while the sting gets in your clothes and you can taste it in your mouth you know well I think I think maybe if every civilian in the world could smell the stink then maybe we wouldn't have any more Wars so that's from someone who was there and who was doing it so one of those ones I just you know think we always just need to keep that and bear that one in mind that there's a cost to these things and how they work and we're on hog get Huggins by the way one of the other stories he told us which is people have asked about improvisation everything with crews and how they went to do things to improve their lot one thing Ron did was he was conscious not just with dead bodies but wounded soldiers how do you get them out of the tank and he got his el-ad the like a detachment team to actually make art so what they just looked like his enormous boot hooks that used to be used to pulling on leather boots etc they would just make basically metal new shapes fairly large with a t-bar across the top and these he used to actually put under the arms of wounded soldiers or in worst case a dead body and so they could pull them out the hatches again if somebody's wounded all their unconscious and they're slumped you know this idea if you can't grip their uniform or whatever all those straps as we talked about in the tank uniforms that idea being to pull them out and Ron got our own workshop guys to mock up a couple of those which used to pull on the table and talk about so you know he made him begin and right moving on this let's go to a different direction number of people have talked about what's the history of the Tank Museum why did it go it get going etc if you go on our website there is actually a link there to a brief history of the museum but just as a quick outline the tank museums based at Bovington Bovington is where they came in the first world water train it's in Dorset southwest of England well away from most well fairly big conurbations there was a train line down to that way so they could bring the tanks on railways which is where you transported trains tanks and still do quite often that idea of then offloading them they drive to what was they just before the First World War was a try area for the territorial solder the militia that sort of like the weekend soldiers initially Bovington was used to train infantry but then because of its location well away from the public eye there's not many people living in the area so secrecy was important but they also looked at the terrain because it was really open heathland and if you took up a loss of that it wasn't particularly good for food production for the war if it etc so all of these things came together so bobbington in 1916 1916 he's chosen as the place to do most of the training they've already been in busily they go off to Elva do nothing Norfolk where the first tank crews leaved going that and attacking the Somme but later in sixteen that's where Bovington comes to the fore and that ends up becoming the main Center for training tank crews most of those tank crews are trained at Bovington would actually go out to France and meet your tank straight from the factory or other methods of getting them out there by ship and by train you didn't actually take your own tanks with you as it were the ones that bobbington we ended up being used mainly for training now Buffington expands i've mentioned in a previous talk later in 1918 Bovington is doubling in size ready to train all these crews ready for plan 1919 and it's going to become an even bigger can be was big in the first world war we took up first of all it used to fire where the main camp is and it went down to Lulworth and took some land there as well so that it could use its guns 6-pounder guns etc and after the first world war bobbington is where all those towns that were still serviceable came back or weren't scrapped and immediately came back to bobbington and that was also a place where yes they carried on training with some of them but huge numbers of them there's photographs the fields of these things lined up were then being slowly scrapped and i think i mentioned somewhere else that you know i think it's as early as in 1932 they're still scrapping First World War tanks because there's so many of these things they come back that way now the story is and this story was published in tank magazine which was a journal for the Royal cat tank corps in the later 20s it said in 1923 Roger Kipling on a visit to bobbington saw these tanks being chopped up etc and said shouldn't you keep some of those they were an amazing war you know not war winning but an amazing contribution the Britain made to the first world war and I think already there was probably the idea of a teaching collection anyway that was down there for the NCOs and everybody else to say this is what we did or this is why we've learned it better or this is what we don't do anymore and anyway the story goes it's Kipling suggestions that starts in 23 the idea of the museum or a collection I was probably a better way of putting it being put together now I've actually asked number of Kipling scholars look to all the correspondence etc we've got no evidence at all that Kipling actually was there at Bovington we do know Kipling has an excuse to come down to this neck of the woods because Thomas Hardy the authors nearby T Lawrence living up the road at clouds Hill etc there's a whole load of people around here that Kipling does correspond with all knows so there is a good excuse him to be in this neck of the woods but we've never found absolute proof that it was Kipling visiting that says this what interests me though is the fact this was published in the tank journal as mentioning where Joel Kipling being the instigator before Kipling is even dead you'd have thought someone else would have written in quite quick saying like on this is torture Kipling doesn't say that was a case or something on you know so you've got a gut feeling that it's probably a true stories just we've got no other evidence apart from this publication to say that to really back it up but anyway the story really is that about 30 key vehicles are placed within a wooden compound or fence and these are the beginning of the collection and what happens is is it's a vehicle goes out of service or something experimental it comes to the end there is a tendency it ends up into this collection and again there's a lovely film that was done just at the end of the Second World War called men of armor where you can see inside what was our world war 2 hall that was being used all these half of it for the museum collection our a/c soldiers talking about their you operations in World War 2 so he comes down talks to an old World War one veteran and you can see some of the collection all around this lovely lovely little bit of film got a young Jos Ackland acting as a young soldier as well in it so you know that idea that it's really a teaching collection for the soldiers is the first thing only I imagine it was open days and you know you see these pamphlets all these things going on but this idea that it then it's only post-war that he starts a ending up turning much more towards the civilian the tourist who's coming to Dorset on holiday etc and someone else asks about Jules forty George forty was raw Tank Regiment ends up as a colonel thoughts that fights out in Korea he was the guy that really turned the collection over from just being something that was aimed very much at the soldier he tried to professionalize it much more to aim at the general public and you can see some of those early photographs you know when the it's you know the place was just heaving with with kids every summer you know climbing on everything doing all the things that way and then after George George sadly died a couple of years ago he wrote a lot he correspondent with lots and lots of soldiers and he put together a really lovely pictorial history of the Royal Tank Regiment etc and and after George and it was John Woodward who was a director who again was was that idea and the trustees at the time about trying to look you know we get a good annual average visitors etcetera but slowly over time is going down the world around us was changing so the idea about what's going to make a real difference to put the Tank Museum on the map and how are you going to raise money to be able to do things to make it not just a lovely collection as so many of these military museums are you know they've got great collections but they're not necessarily good museums they don't necessarily interact with the public very well you know it's great if you just love the stuff and you just want to see it in rows that was fantastic in those days but it wasn't going to keep a family entertained or it wasn't going to bring in the money that you need to do to sustain a good proper collection into the future so those changes started back in the 1990s and they do you know with the support of the lottery the Arts Council various other bodies as well and led to the museum today but go back and have a look at that on our website tells you a little bit more information about how the museum got going and that idea of the collection and also you know there's certain periods where just after World War two lots of captured equipment was handed over in about 1951 and that still goes on so quit lenders you know Gulf War once you know operation November it was called a lot of captured equipment from first Gulf War once I've been analyzed it was the first time we got hands-on large quantities of Soviet area care then what we did with it afterwards some of it went for gate guards some of the goodness now is what are we going to do with it now and somebody ends up at the tank museum including I have to tell this story overnight tank was actually left in the car park at the tank museum because no one knew what to do with it and let's get really really then when the eunuch cerned were wrong apparently the story goes I wasn't there at the time that they apparently said nobody did it ask you know the CI would basically said get this rusty item or for our patch ends up in the tank museum car pardon we said it we knew it was you because it's actually on the side captured by we're still painted on the side of that particular unit so anyway so another you know countless stories about how we acquire things as well out there and so that's a little bit about the the history of the actual museum I've mentioned I think most of the other ones I was just going to say that this morning and I'm sorry if I can't answer all the questions some of the questions that are coming they just not that easy for me to be able to do in the current circumstances you want either more props or I haven't even got a printer here so I can't always you know put something together that's going to illustrate what needs illustrating is a topic so some of them you know I know you've asked a couple of times some people some of them are ones I'm gonna be able to do in these circumstances but do keep asking if those things we can clear out for you or or you know an to your picture of different things and there was another one I was going to mention see if I can raise him at the moment a lot of people want to say hello to Finn the dog Finn come here come on come around here come round here come up here a minute this is Finn who's my border collie who most of the time sits there and falls asleep when I'm waffling on this I'm no doubt some of you are now but yes so this is fear no I know you wanted to meet him Thank You Finn you've done your bit so keep the questions coming thank you I repeat again those of you who are supporting us with either joining the patreon scheme buying something by you inflatable shell from the shop like I say there's plenty of other good nice items there so do have a look at that and as I say thank you so much I know some of you have spent a fair bit of money in the shop or you're finding ways to support us we really are appreciative of that so and keep it up thank you

Channel: The Tank Museum

Views: 68,742

Rating: 4.9855423 out of 5

Keywords: the tank museum, tank museum, bovington tank museum, david fletcher, david willey, military tank, david fletcher tank chats, tank chat, tank chats, tank chats david fletcher, tank museum bovington, the tank museum tank chats, q&a, tank q&a, tank shells, tiger tank, sherman

Id: DipqlbuVz84

Length: 27min 31sec (1651 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020