Visit to the Isle of Wight Military History Museum

[Allan Richards]

Whilst you were all enjoying what looked like a very good open day at Armortek my wife and I were holidaying for a week on the IOW. Having seen the tank overhaul programmes on TV one of the high priority places to visit was the IOW Military History museum just inland from Cowes. I must say I was quite impressed with the engineering going on. Its more of a tank museum than general military museum, which is very much into restoration to a high standard.


This Sexton is a nicely completed example of their work


The intention is to have four restored Comet tanks, there are three here and the museum is in the process of obtaining a 4th. Quite an undertaking given the general condition of the tanks. I remember the programme on welding a new glasis plate on one of the hulls but there seems to be little progress since those programmes. Incidentally the Sherman hull cut and shut in the rotating jig on another programme has been sold.


Here are a pair of Meteor engines for the Comets, but they need a lot of work before they can be run.


There are a total of eight Churchills at the museum and the two here are restoration jobs for customers. There was also a Churchill engine being rebuilt and the job of the day in the workshop was bead blasting lots of carburettor bodies for the two engines.




The business in the yard was removing a severely damaged engine from the Saracen? armored car, also a customer job. To me it looked like the whole thing was beyond economic repair as the transmision case was also smashed. I'm not sure how much theses vehicles fetch in good condition. I think that the customer jobs take priority to bring the money in, but the amount of work needed to complete the museum owned vehicles is phenomial so I don't know when we will start to see completed Comets rolling of the line.


Allan

[Phil Woollard]

Thanks for the posting Allen I love this kind of thing, The Churchill would look good in 1/6th don't you think? cheers Phil.