Barn Find!

YouTube

Many are the hours I spend looking for, finding, and watching cool videos on YouTube. With all of the crap that is on the internet in these modern times, YouTube still has some good stuff.

The Australian Armour & Artillery Museum has a number of really great videos on YouTube. They restore and display some of the most iconic vehicles of the World Wars. The Grant tank being one of them. If you chase that link under the opening photo you can watch an hour and a half long video of the restoration of a Grant tank.

While working on that vehicle they had teams looking for parts to restore it, amazingly enough, they found another Grant tank.

A barn find!

Their Workshop Wednesday videos are awesome, I learn something every time I watch one.  Here's a taste of those videos ...

Great stuff.

I spend a lot of time on their page, if you like armor and artillery, you should too.

Enjoy!

I Had No Ideer ...¹

(Source)

Whilst casting about for something to write about (still not in a fiction-writing mood, pretty long dry spell) I stumbled upon this website. (Go ahead chase the link, it has pictures of one of juvat's favorite things, wrecked tanks.)

As the title suggests, I was unaware of this place until recently. If I had known of it, I might have ventured out to visit it during my sojourn in Deutschland, but I didn't. So I didn't.

Anyhoo, how I stumbled upon the place is something of an interesting story, at least it provides some insight into how I get ideas for blog posts, those which aren't of a fictional bent at any rate.

I was looking at the old homestead in the Bundesrepublik² via Google Maps and my eyes strayed over the Hürtgenwald region. On my eye's way from Waldfeucht (where I spent seven plus years) to the Hürtgenwald I noted something odd, the annotation "Panzerwracks (M41 Walker Bulldog Panzer, M47 Patton Panzer)."

What? Tank wrecks? Why are American tank wrecks of a non-WWII nature there, near Aachen? Well, turns out it's a Bundeswehr³ training area, which, if you had chased that link above, is not a place to wander about when the Germans are shooting at things. Apparently it's only used during the week (Monday - Friday) as the German Army is very much a nine-to-five gig these days.

CORRECTION: At any rate, I wandered through the photos and realized that the two types of tanks there (I only saw two types) were both used in the movie Battle of the Bulge, which though very entertaining, was rather ahistorical. The M41 was NOT in the film. The Shermans were portrayed by M24 Chaffees.

The M41 Walker Bulldog (shown below) was used as a stand in for the M4 Sherman (also depicted below, in the same photo, which to me is kinda cool. The Sherman is in the background for those who don't know.)

M-41 Walker Bulldog
(Source)

Now the M-47 Patton (shown below) was used in the film as a stand in for the mighty Tiger II (which is shown after the Patton).

M-47 Patton
(Source)

While it's obvious to me that the Patton and the Tiger look nothing alike, movie goers in the '60s weren't quite as discerning as to one versus the other. No doubt some of the ETO vets in the audience knew the difference. No doubt quite a number didn't. Huh? What?

While it was common in the ETO for every enemy tank to be called a "Tiger" and every cannon an "88," in truth those two things weren't all that common. So many vets could have gone through the whole war without ever having seen a Tiger. But hey, when you film a movie in Spain, and they offer to let you repaint and use their tanks in that film, you do it. Besides which, 1965 was well before the days of CGI⁴.

Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B "Tiger II"
(Source)

Now in that film, every German tank was a "Tiger," as I mentioned above, the Tiger was a rare beast, most of the German tanks used during the Ardennes offensive in December of '44 were Panzer IVs or Panzer Vs (the Panther). Tigers were rare and didn't get very far. They were slow and used a crap ton of fuel, which the Germans didn't have a lot of. They were relying on capturing American fuel dumps to fuel their advance. One of which they drove right by, not knowing it was there.

Here's a clip from that movie, I have to say it had some big names in it. Having been in the area where the signpost is (Malmedy 17 km and Ambleve 16 km) the terrain in that area looks nothing like what's in the film. Just a caveat, after all, it was filmed in Spain. I haven't been to Spain, but I have been in the Ardennes, many times.

Still, as I mentioned above, it was a very entertaining film. Knowing what I know now it's not quite as entertaining as it was when I was 12. (Yes, Virginia, I was 12 in 1965 when I first saw the movie. I know, I know, I'm old ...)

While I'm showing clips, here's another, of the main topic of the post -

Interesting stuff, perhaps only to me.

Anyhoo, hope y'all had a pleasant and relaxing holiday.

Be seeing you.

¹ An old saying of Buck's, translates to "I had no idea ..."

² Federal Republic ... of Germany. Natürlich.

³ The armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.

⁴ Computer Generated Imagery.

Batman

So, Sunday night I hear Anya running back and forth in the upstairs hallway. Rather atypical behavior on her part unless, of course, she's chasing something. But the back and forth aspect confused me, if she were chasing a mouse, the mouse would go to ground as quickly as it could, not run up and down the hallway. That's a pretty good way for a mouse to commit suicide-by-cat.

So I head aloft to see what all the fuss is about. When I get upstairs Anya is sitting there looking at me as if to say, "What took you so long?" As I'm looking at her I see movement in my peripheral vision, not on the floor mind you, but in the air. About chest height.

Hhmm, a bird in the house? How the heck did that happen? Then I see the UFO in the air in planform, 'tis not a bird but a mammal.

Yup, classic bat shape. It's also worth noting that the little buggers are like mice in their ability to squeeze through very small openings. So unless The Missus Herself had had the door open (which happens, the storm door is in need of replacement and doesn't close properly, unless one grips it and forces it closed), I figure the little fellow got confused and chased supper into the house. Probably through some wee opening which I couldn't find.

But now I have a bat in the house, a rather panicked bat as he/she had been chased by a cat. Anya the cat, to be precise.

Now Anya was never much of a hunter, that was Sasha's strong suit, but since Sasha's passing Anya has taken an interest in hunting. We saw mouse sign in the house in mid-July, Anya was paying close attention to  the nooks and crannies favored by rodents. Since my return from Sandy Eggo in August, haven't seen any rodent-sign in the domicile. I'm guessing Anya's attentions to that problem have driven the mice back outside.

Anyhoo, Anya wanted to catch the bat, as she can't fly that notion was problematic to say the least. The Missus Herself opened the window and the screen in the room where the flying mammal had last been spotted. Thirty minutes passed with no further bat sightings, until I heard a yell from downstairs.

The bat had flown down there. (Must have been a young, inexperienced bat, his/her sonar obviously hadn't spotted the open window.)

I went to the shed and got the net (which we use in the koi pond, no Virgil, not so we can eat them). By the time I returned The Missus Herself had opened more windows. Also, the bat was no longer downstairs.

So back upstairs I went and sat myself down to continue watching 1864 (it's pretty good IMHO). Moments later I felt the flutter of leathery wings pass close aboard. Freaking bat was in the man cave!

So Anya and I turned to and resumed the hunt with net and flashlight. (Truth be told, Anya was now more interested in the flashlight than the bat, yes, I did indulge her with that.) After some long moments of stalking, interspersed with Anya chasing the flashlight beam, I realized that the bat was nowhere to be found.

I rattled curtains, shone my light into nooks and crannies above ground level. Nada, nichts, nothing. So I went around closing windows, though it was chilly last night, the little bugs were being attracted to the lights in the house. Reasoning that those same little bugs probably attracted the bat's attention as well, I presumed the bat had returned to its natural habitat.

The night wore on, no leathery wings fluttered, no small flying things hovered in the peripheral vision, I assumed that the bat adventure was over. Awakened in the morning, no bat reports from The Missus Herself and Anya had not seen anything during the night worth chasing (or mentioning). So adventure over, no bats in the house.

So I guess...

Anya is, of course, the Batcat. My trusted sidekick. She was never into ground warfare, she's apparently a devotee of anti-air warfare.

Sorry Juvat...

Update!

Seems that the bat did not make his/her get-away on Monday night but spent the entire night and all of Tuesday in the house, catching 40 winks somewhere. When The Missus Herself came home in the evening, the bat decided to awaken and flutter around the downstairs. Doors and windows were flung open and the bat made a dash for freedom. Unfortunately the storm door at the front of the house hadn't been opened yet and he/she flew into the screen.

Stunned, the wee bat lay there for a moment. As I dashed to open the screen door and help him/her outside, the little bugger came to life and began fluttering about once more, sans clue, sans exit strategy. (Kinda like certain generals I know.)

But now the front storm door being open, the bat made his/her escape. We think.

We shall see...