[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mavg4UqSlso[/video]
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTNfYwk9p4s[/video]
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9CRuTzxjWQ[/video]
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB0A9EwEeWg[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBqD7ZRwOtU[/video]
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD13Z8DlS4A[/video]

When I was little my mum used to nip around in a VW beetle, vividly remember we came round a corner of a narrow lane in Pembrokeshire to be confronted by are end of a huge German tank slap bang in the road.

My great uncle was apparently one of the first British soldiers to come up against one of these in Italy in 1944. He and his mates ran back to report on the Germans having some sort of “battleship with tracks” up ahead, got arrested for leaving their post then promptly released when loads of other people started reporting more or less the same thing. He said from a hole in the ground it seemed impossibly big and sure to be certain death if they stayed where they were.

Local lad had a similar encounter with lesser tanks,

http://www.lancs-fusiliers.co.uk/feature/jefferson/Frankjeffersonvc.htm

The local story is that he was pissed up and sleeping it off when the tanks turned up, pissed or not still a brave man

Germans were better at this because the 88mm sounds like an instrument of precision and deadliness where as a 17 pounder sounds like a lump of mutton. Obvious innit.

Yeah, except the 17lb’er was the 3″/76.2mm anti-tank gun, with the emphasis on the ‘anti-tank’, retro-fitted into the Sherman to become the Firefly, the only British tank capable of taking on Panther and Tiger tanks at normal combat distance, German tank and anti-tank crews were ordered to attack Fireflies before engaging with any other armour.
Sucked to be a German tank crew with Fireflies around!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly

alway having to be different, bloody swedes 🙂

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tJ91ZtX6L0[/video]

Used to live near Barnbow Leeds in the late 70’s mid 80’s, as a nipper would ride bikes down the side road, and watch the Chieftans/Challengers getting final tests, over huge concrete ramps and ditches.
Best bit was watching the huge tank low loaders,leaving the factory,tanks loaded under tarps,and squeezing down Austhorpe rd

with respect to Atlaz’s grandfather, in 1944, we didn’t have the internet, newspapers didn’t, or very rarely had pictures in them, soldiers were young and hadn’t spent several years touring all the facilities available to military commanders of the day. With this in mind, it is totally feasible that they had never seen, or considered the existence of tanks.

With this in mind, it is totally feasible that they had never seen, or considered the existence of tanks.

No it isn’t.