British Wheels and Tracks in View

Matilda IIs, North Africa.

Matilda II.

Matilda II, North Africa.

Matilda IIs, North Africa.

Matilda II, North Africa.

A reactivated Vickers Medium Mk II serving with the Royal Tank Regiment in 1940.

Two Vickers Medium Mk II tanks and a Morris reconnaissance car during maneuvers on Salisbury Plain in 1939.

Vickers Medium Mark I tanks on maneuver somewhere in England, in 1930.

The staple of the British armored force in the interwar period, the Vickers Medium Mk I. This vehicle serves with the Royal Tank Regiment in Essex, in 1939.

Another British technical innovation served the artillery in a fully motorized British Army, this Light Dragon tractor tows a 3.7in howitzer of the Royal Horse Artillery in 1938. Developed from the Vickers 6-ton, 12 Dragon and Light Dragons served from 1928, but wheeled vehicles such as the Morris Quad and AEC Matador trucks became the standard British artillery tractors ahead of the looming war.

A38 Valiant infantry tank.

Universal Carrier 2-pdr.

June 19, 1944: The remains of a Universal Carrier blown up by a mine in Tilly-sur-Seulles.

Infantry and carriers of 59th Division advancing during fighting around Caen, 11 July 1944.

Carrier, Fontane-Etoupefour, July 1944.

Carrier (T251469).

Carriers, North Africa.

Staghound I armored car, Netherlands.

Stuart light tanks.

A member of the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars mans the turret-mounted .30-inch machine gun on one of the regiment's new Stuart tanks, 28 August 1941.

Sherman ARV I towing a Sherman medium tank, Normandy, June/July 1944.

Staff officers examine a newly-arrived Sherman tank sitting on a Scammell Pioneer tank transporter, 15 September 1942.

Instead of its end, the desert war was just the beginning for the SAS. Here a jeep manned by Sgt. A Schofield and Trooper O Jeavons of 1 SAS operates near Geilenkirchen in Germany. The SAS were involved at this time in clearing snipers in the 43rd Wessex Division area, Nov. 18, 1944. The jeep is armed with three Vickers ‘K’ guns, and fitted with armored glass shields in place of a windscreen.

SAS troopers cleaning weapons behind the lines in the desert.

SAS desert jeeps. On board is the Greek Sacred Squadron; men who fought on after their country was overrun, and were recruited by David Stirling. So impressed were the SAS with what the Long Range Desert Group had done with their vehicles, the SAS soon procured their own bespoke jeeps.

David Stirling, left, and Jock Lewes rest in the shade cast by a truck of the Long Range Desert Group, planning an operation in the desert behind the lines.

A close-up of a heavily armed patrol of ‘L’ Detachment SAS in their Jeeps, just back from a three month patrol. The crews of the jeeps are all wearing ‘Arab-style’ headdress, as copied from the Long Range Desert Group, Jan. 18, 1943.

2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, Sidi Bishr, Nov. 1942.

A 1924 Rolls-Royce Armoured Car with modified turret, in the Bardia area of the Western Desert, 1940.

British armored car, Palestine, 1938.

Armored car and Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost cars at Lydda Railway station, Palestine, circa 1938.

Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost cars with armored car at Lydda Railway station, Palestine, circa 1938.

Crews of No. 3 Armoured Car Company pose in comic mode during a brew-up, 1939. Dark blue overalls over Service Dress with sweaters are worn along with mixed webbing Patterns 1908 and 1925 and Goggles, Motor Transport.

Bofors gun portee.

Chevrolet WB of 3 RHA (Royal Horse Artillery) 2-pdr. Portee and crew at range practice. In action as many of the crew as possible worked on the ground, as a direct hit would often dismount the gun, which would be thrown backwards, killing or injuring the men on the vehicle.

Portee, truck-mounted anti-tank guns, used as highly mobile, hard-hitting artillery units, speed over the desert and attack the enemy from all sorts of unexpected quarters. A mobile anti-tank unit of the Eighth Army in action, somewhere in the desert, Libya, on July 26, 1942.

June 30, 1944: A Morris light reconnaissance car and other vehicles passing through Bretteville.

Morris CS8 Commercial trucks, Greece, 1941.

Guy Quad-Ants fording a river.

Morris C8 Quad artillery tractor.

Sherman flail mine clearing tanks.

A Medium Mk III serving as a command tank during exercises in 1931. One such vehicle was the personal tank for Percy Hobart.

Matilda tanks burning, France, May 1940.

Matilda infantry tank, Derna Flats, North Africa.


German Artillery in View

21cm howitzer, France, 1940.

50mm Leichter Granatenwerfer 36 mortar in action.

German 5cm Flugabwehrkanone 41.

50mm Leichter Granatenwerfer 36 mortar with ammunition box in action.

50mm Leichter Granatenwerfer 36 mortar with ammunition box in action.

50mm Leichter Granatenwerfer 36 mortar in action with Fallschirmjäger troops.

German 5cm Panzerabwehrkanone 38.

German 7.5cm Feldkanone 16 neuer Art.

German 7.5cm Leichtes Gebirgsgeschütz 36.

German 7.5cm Infanteriegeschütz 37.

German 7.5cm Leichtes Gebirgsgeschütz 18.

German 7.5cm Infanteriegeschütz 18.

German 7.5cm Leichtgeschütz 40.

German 7.5cm Leichtgeschütz 40 showing the sliding breech carrying the venturi. The wheels could be removed to convert the mounting into a simple tripod.

German 7.5cm Leichtgeschütz 40.

Nazi 75mm Paracannon Has No Kick". Wartime article.

German 7.5cm Panzerabwehrkanone 40.

Messerschmitt Me 323 "Gigant" with PaK 40 7.5cm anti-tank guns in the foreground.

7.5cm Pak 40 gun on the Eastern Front.

German 7.5cm Panzerabwehrkanone 97/38.

7.5 cm Pak 97/38 anti-tank gun based on a captured French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 captured by British forces in Tunisia in May 1943. The Pak 97/38 (7.5 cm Panzerabwehrkanone 97/38 and 7.5 cm Panzerjägerkanone 97/38) was a German anti-tank gun used by the Wehrmacht in World War II. The gun was a combination of the barrel from the French Canon de 75 modèle 1897 fitted with a Swiss Solothurn muzzle brake and mounted on the carriage of the German 5 cm Pak 38 and could fire captured French and Polish ammunition.

German 76.2cm Panzerabwehrkanone 36(r).

81mm Schwerer Granatenwerfer 34 mortar in action as a round is fed into the barrel.

81mm Schwerer Granatenwerfer 34 mortar in action as the mortar fires.

81mm Schwerer Granatenwerfer 34 mortar in action as a round is fed into the barrel.

81mm Schwerer Granatenwerfer 34 mortars being prepared for action, Russian Front.

Mortar crew in action, Russia.

German 8.8cm Flugabwehrkanone 18.

German 8.8cm Flugabwehrkanone 36/37.

German 8.8cm Flugabwehrkanone 41.

German 88mm anti-tank gun.

German 88mm anti-tank gun.

88mm Flak 36 bearing the four leaf clover insignia of 19. Flak-Division captured by Australian troops in North Africa on November 3, 1942.

8.8cm multi-purpose gun Flak 41 in firing position.

8.8cm multi-purpose gun Flak 41 in traveling position.

88mm Flak being fired while still on its wheels in an anti-tank role, North Africa.

88mm anti-aircraft guns. These captured examples have been set up in Egypt (note the pyramid in the background) for testing.

American soldiers examine a German 88mm gun in Belgium.

8.8cm gun, near Dulman, Germany, March 1945.

8.8cm gun, Germany.

German 8.8cm Panzerabwehrkanone 43.

Destroyed PaK 43 (L/71) anti-tank gun, south of Caen, August 1944.

8.8cm PaK 43 anti-tank gun.

German 10cm Kanone 17.

German 10cm Kanone 18.

German 10.5cm Flugabwehrkanone 38.

German 10.5cm Gebirgshaubitze 40.

One of the few 10.5 cm Le FH 42 ever built.

German 10.5cm Leichte Feldhaubitze 18.

10.5cm field gun, Russia, late 1941.

10.5cm gun, Marigny, July 1944.

German 10.5cm Leichte Feldhaubitze 18/40.

German 10.5cm Leichte Feldhaubitze 18M.

German 10.5cm Leichtgeschütz 40/1.

German 10.5cm Leichtgeschütz 42/1.

German 12.8cm Flugabwehrkanone 40.

German 15cm Kanone 18.

German 15cm Kanone 39.

German 15cm Schwere Feldhaubitze 18.

15cm gun, Russia.

German 15cm Schwere Infanteriegeschütz 33.

German 15cm Nebelwerfer 41.

A German soldier keeps an eye out for Allied airplanes next to a well camouflaged Nebelwerfer rocket launcher.

Captured Nebelwerfer rocket artillery carriage, August 1944.

German 17cm Kanone 18.

German 21cm Kanone 39(t).

German 21cm Mörser 18.