Tankfest 2022: British Army demonstrates tanks and armored vehicles at Tank Museum Bovington.

On June 24-26, the British Army’s Tank Museum located at Bovington Camp – a heaven on Earth for people interested in battle tanks and all kinds of armored vehicles from World War 1 up to now – organised its annual ‘’Tankfest’’, a formidable festival during which the Tank Museum, some private collectors and the British Army demonstrate a wide range of main battle tanks and armored vehicles.
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A CVR(T) Scorpion passes by a Chinese Type 59 and a U.S. M60 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The Tank Museum in itself is a wonderful and exceptionally didactic place where history and technology are brilliantly combined to show and explain the design and use of battle tanks and of an amazing range of armored vehicles of all kinds of British and foreign origins. State-of-the-art museum techniques highlight the use of these vehicles, many of them either unique or very rare nowadays.

Army Recognition attended the event with a particular interest in the dynamic demonstrations performed by the British Army with a selection of vehicles: Challenger 2 MBT, Foxhound and Mastiff armored vehicles (as given to the Ukrainian army, with associate training), Supacat, Challenger bridge layer tank, Warrior IFV and CVR-Ts (both models to be replaced by vehicles of the future Ajax family if the British Government finally decides in forthcoming November to go ahead with this highly disputed programme or scrap it, leading to the unavoidable modernization of the Warriors), and more.

Among the numerous other vehicles put into action in the arena were a unique German WW2 Panzer III captured in 1942 by the British 8th Army in North Africa, a privately-owned Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go tank of the early 1930s, a series of Sherman tanks having served in the British and U.S. armies, ranging from the early M4 until the Israeli M50 and M51 Super Sherman, German World War 2 light armored and soft-skin vehicles, U.S. and British armored reconnaissance vehicles of World War 2, an impressive selection of Cold War-era tanks, ranging from an early T-72 tank, Centurion, Chieftain and Challenger tanks, U.S. M60, Swiss Panzer 61, German Leopard 1A2, and many other vehicles.

The pictures published here are only a sample of all that was demonstrated last June. The Tank Museum is definitely the place to be each year during Tankfest!

One or more videos will be broadcasted on Army Recognition’s Defense Web TV (Youtube).

Tank Mk.II of World War 1. This is one of the early British tanks that opened the era of the battle tanks in 1916 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Pz.Kpfw. V Panther, the "ancestor" of the KF51 Panther that Rheinmetall unveiled last June at Eurosatory 2022 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

This unique Pz.Kpfw III of the Afrikakorps was captured in 1942 by the British Army in North Africa (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Privately owned Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go of the early 1930s (Picture source: Army Recognition)

After World War II, Czechoslovakia continued to produce the German Hanomag Sd.Kfz 251 Ausf. D under the designation OT-810, with entirely steel tracks and an air-cooled engine replacing the original gasoline one (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Superb copy of an Auto Union/Horch Sd.Kfz 222 reconnaissance car, and an OT-810 (Sd.Kfz 251 Ausf.D) (Picture source: Army Recognition)

M3A1 Stuart (Honey) Light Tank in North Africa campaign livery (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The last surviving Vickers-Armstrong Valentine Mk.III with its skirt to be raised to turn the tank into an amphibious vehicle. This model served only for training, as the Allies had the Sherman DD (Duplex Drive) on D-Day (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Daimler armoured car (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Dodge WC-51 with a re-enactor firing a .50 MG during a mock battle (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Ford M8 Greyhound reconnaissance car, initially intended to be a tank destroyer but considered too light to engage German tanks (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Pacific Car and Foundry M26 Dragon Wagon, the tractor for the tank transport semi-trailer. Its gasoline engine is a Waukesha 6 cylinders (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Cadillac M18 Hellcat tank destroyer (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The actual "hero" of the movie "Fury", starring Brad Pitt (Picture source: Army Recognition)

T-34/85 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Motorized with two coupled Cadillac V8 gasoline engines, the M24 Chaffe was the successor of the M5A1 Stuart light tank. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

From let to right: Israeli M51 and M50 Super Shermans, and a British Sherman of World War 2 motorized with a Chrysler "multibank" engine combining five 6-cylinder in-line gasoline engines (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The British Centurion became famous in Israeli hands during the war in the Middle East (Picture source: Army Recognition)

French AMX-13-75 armed with a 75mm gun. The elevation was implemented by pivoting the upper part of the turret (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Chinese Type 59 and U.S. M60 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

French Panhard AML-60 (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The BV-206 and its successors, armored or not, originate in the Word War 2 Studebaker M29 Weasel which was a single-tracked amphibious vehicle, not an articulated one (Picture source: Army Recognition)

In the British Army's demos, Supacat plays a nice role! (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The Foxhound is one of the vehicle types recently delivered by the UK to the Ukrainian army. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The Mastiff MRAP is one of the vehicle types recently delivered by the UK to the Ukrainian army (Picture source: Army Recognition)

If the British Government decides to scrap the Ajax programme in November, the Warrior will see its career extended (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Challenger bridge layer (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Challenger 2 MBT (Picture source: Army Recognition)