Tad bit late, but now's better than next year...
TIGER DAY! 2015, was last Monday and Tuesday 4th & 5th May.


Bacon and sandwich breakfast was at 8:30 and the tours start at 10:00.

http://www.precision-panzer.moonfruit.com/#/tiger-131/4554102274
the visitors are split into different groups to be circulated around the museum, and shown the externals and internal hardware for each tank.

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/megashorts/7481059738/


If you've seen this monster in action, and stayed to the end of the day, you would have seen the driver happy. He would have a big grin right across his face and have felt like he's just driven a Ferrari. he's have had one finger on the gear stock and be relaxed pulling the drive leavers with the other hand. Everything will be calm and the only thoughts might be, "I havn't broken the tank! please I haven't broken the tank!"


Then if you'd watched the T34 driver will not be happy, he will be cross... he will be nackered! and dripping in a weeks worth of sweat, and at some point he will have had to ask the loader to help change gear... quite a lot of T34 crews had a Hammer in stock to assist in the dreaded task of changing gear...


Tiger has had an interesting history... ill talk more about it later.

At the moment, Wargaming and The Tank Museum at Bovington are working together by putting all World of Tanks Premium tank purchases towards the restorations. this donation will then be announced during tank fest 2015 (28-29 of June).

Purchasing a premium tank will not simply donate money to restoring some of the great and iconic weapons of the world wars, but gain yourself a nice new tank and garage slot too!(which is usualy what happens...)

The prioritised tanks for servising include a Comet I (A34), M4A3E8 easy 8 sherman used in (my favorite movie) Fury still with the dirt and grime accumulated over the months of filming, and their German Jagd Kanonen, which is a magnificent beast of an SPG. all of these have, do and will get looked after but the museum needs a little help. all 3 run and have been put through their paces on multiple ocasions like tiger day.

They have also said that with enough funding they hope to get a few out of the garage for tank fest 2015!

After searching for the t35 they moved out of Kubinka in late 2013, miraculously, under its own power....


<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RAEaSeVQNes" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


I found this....


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hs-X49OEVFQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


and it works......


The only surviving t35 Soviet heavy tank was restored! and I love this, the only 5 turret tank that made it to production isn't just sitting in a dusty museum (yes I know they look after the displays and they are kept clean, but it wasn't moving like the Tiger 131 in Bovington, in the Tank Museum.


Speaking of which! Tank fest is coming up soon! and... well, every man without a man-bag should want to go... (self explanatory I hope)
(anyway back on topic ill come back to that some time soon)




The T-35 was developed by the OKMO design bureau of the Bolshevik Factory, which began work on a heavy tank in 1930. Two teams developed separate designs. The team headed by German engineer Grotte worked on the 100-ton four-turreted TG-5 tank, armed with a 107 mm naval gun, this didn't get off the drawing table...


multiple t35 prototypes were made and the experience of each model was put towards making the next better in any area of performance. Originally, the main turret was equipped with a 76.2mm gun KT obr.1927/32 adapted from the regimental field-gun.


The main and the two small machine gun turrets of the Т-35 and Т-28 had a high level of standardization. Main-weapon sighting utilized the telescopic breech-sight TOP obr.1930 and the periscope breech-sight PT-1 обр.1932.


In 1938, a conical turret with a maximum thickness of 25mm (at the front) for strengthening the armoured defence of the tank was introduced; the thickness of the frontal armoured plates was also increased, to 70mm. The battle weight of the machine grew to 54 tons, from 42.5...


Service
The T-35 served with the 5th Separate Heavy Tank Brigade in Moscow, primarily for parade duties, from 1935 until 1940. In June 1940, the question was raised as to whether to withdraw the T-35s from frontline service, with the option to either convert them to heavy self-propelled artillery (the prototype SU-14), or to assign them to the various military academies.


One tank survives and is preserved in running condition at the Kubinka Tank Museum near Moscow. It survived World War 2 because it was one of four T-35 machines that were used at training facilities in the Soviet era.