NEW THIS WEEK – MONDAY 30 MARCH 2009

Hello to you all

Welcome once again to Miliblog. It’s a very exciting week so far for us here at Miliblog, for our website developers have worked their magic once again and given us what many of you have requested ! Now, when you click on any photo shown in the random selection that loads 20 photos at a time on each page, it now clicks through and brings up the photo in ful screen, but the clever part is that if you click on it again….it zooms in and you get the extra detail !  Great for those building scale models or rebuilding an old military vehicle.

Some of our photos are nice crisp digital ones with lots of sharp details, but many are upto 30+ years old and have been scanned in from sometimes blurey originals. Myself it adds to the atmosphere of these old 1970′s & 1980′s photos !

Anyway, must get back to work but not before a couple of photos from this weeks additions. A nice Bedford MWD breakdown truck, from the 1970′s and the a Danish Dodge Weapons Carrier – anyone out there know if this was a true military conversion or a civilian one ?

Meanwhile have a great week and get ready for Easter and all those chocolate eggs ! Not too many or you won’t get behind your jeep steering wheel !

Cheerio !

Simon

Bedford MWD 15cwt GS (MEH 224)

Dodge WC-52 Weapons Carrier Conversion (DR68985)(Dansk)

Opel Senator (BRIXMIS 1)

Alvis Stalwart Amphibious Truck (24 EK 26)

AEC Mercury 4x2 Tractor (68 AN 91)

Faun L1212 6x6 Tractor (KN-27-50)(Netherlands Army)

2 x Humber 1 Ton GS

Ford F30 30cwt LAA Tractor (JUO 51)

Ford F30 30cwt LAA Tractor (JUO 53)

Ford F30 30cwt LAA Tractor (JUO 54)

Heard a great story yesterday ! We have a good friend who owns a 1939 Austin 8hp Open Tourer. Although it’s ex-army, he insists of keeping it in a post-war civilian colour of bright red with loads of chrome – don’t worry guys, I’m working on him to paint it army green and get markings on it !!!  He took the car to a show last year and an old chap came over and they chatted. His story was that he’d been an army driver for an officer for the whole of the war, driving him all over the country in an Austin 8hp, like my friend’s car. At the end of the war, he was demobbed and told to drive the car back to a certain barracks and then that was the end of his army life. On arrival at the barracks, he was told to park the car next to a whole row of other Austin cars, hand in the vehicle paperwork in the office, collect his rail-pass and clear off. Now this chap knew this car inside out and had treated it like his baby, so he was sad to part company. He signed off the vehicle, collected his rail-pass but as he came outside the place was deserted. He waited a few minutes, jumped in his old pet and drove off and back home. The car remained in his family for over 20 years until it just rotted away !!!  

Another busy week with lots more photographs added. This week I have concentrated on getting some more US World War 2 vehicles on. We now have over 75 US medium weight GMC 352 and 353 CCKW 2.5 ton truck and after a number of emails we have over 20 pictures of the good old Duck, the GMC 353 DUKW 6×6 Cargo, to give its proper name ! Included are some of the Duck in post-war British Army colours, useful to those of you who are modelmakers and have bought the Italeri 1/35 scale model kit of the Duck in the RASC version. Finally, I’ve added others to most other categories, including some more Jeep photos. The one below I think just captures the 1940′s re-enactment feel, with US Army, civilians and a British Royal Navy Wren. There are over 1700 photographs now on the blog so I hope you find lots to have a look at whatever your interest is !

Below are samples of what you can find

Bye for now and to our friends in The Netherlands ……. Een goede dag verder !  

SIMON 

GMC 353 CCKW 6x6 Cargo (BT-49-NY)(Netherlands)

GMC 353 DUKW 6x6 Cargo (72 YP 65)

Willys MB-Ford GPW Jeep

NEW THIS WEEK – MONDAY, 2 MARCH 2009

Hello there again & welcome back.

So what do we have for you this week ? Well we’re getting lots of visitors from all over the world, from Argentina, Japan, Australia and all over Europe, so I thought I would add something different to welcome you. Just added are a selection of home-grown military vehicles from Switzerland and also The Netherlands. Below are a couple of examples.

Coming soon is a selection of Canadian WW2 vehicles which have been left out so far, along with a selection of 1950′s Scammell Explorers British Army Breakdown Trucks.

DAF YA 328 3Ton Artillery Tractor (KL-42-94)

Henschel HS22HA-CH 7ton Engineers (M 64530)

So keep visiting as new stuff is arriving each day !

Bye for now !

Simon

NEW THIS WEEK – MONDAY, 23RD FEBRUARY 2009

Hi there

Work’s been pretty busy this week so the poor old scanner has been having a rest. Good news is that a couple of patches arrived from the US this week, the US 14 Corps & the US 23 Corps, which now completes the set of wartime US Corps patches. Also this week a number of British cloth shoulder titles have been added to the military badge section.

Also we’ve popped on a dozen or so Morris C4 & C8 15cwt lorries – see below. I wonder where the people on the photo area now ? If it’s you then please email us and tell us if you still have the truck.

Noticed from the website stats that FAT’s (Field Artillery Tractors) are a common search, so have addded half a dozen of these to the WW2 Gun Tractors section. Also added a couple of Humber Snipe Heavy Utilities as well.

Anyway back to sorting out some more photographs to share with you fellow enthusiasts from all over the world.

Cheers !

Simon

Morris C8 15cwt GS (DDL 859)

Hi there

A warm welcome to you all, especially to those visiting us for the first time, where I hope you find something of interest. Last week saw new visitors from Japan, Argentina, India and Germany.

The world of the military vehicle enthusiast is so varied and can cover a multitude of different sizes, nationalities and or course age periods. In the MV scene in the 1970′s and early 1980′s, WW2 vehicles of Britain, USA and Canada were the most popular and 1950′s age vehicles, especially British were often parked away from the main crowd at any show. I’m glad to say this has changed significantly since ! Ok, enough woffle, down to telling you all the new stuff this week !

We had an email from Chris Jones who wanted us to show more 1980′s British artic tractors and as a result  a whole load of Scammell Crusaders, Ford Iveco 3828 and Leyland Mastiff Tractors now feature. To find them just follow the ‘How To’ tab and look under the British, 1980′s in service, and artics. I always find it fascinating not only to study the vehicle in our collection of photographs, but also what load it’s carrying or what’s going on in the background. Some of the fashions in the photos also cause some raised eyebrows! For example, look at the photo below of the Leyland Mastiff with artic trailer and its load.

Now we’ve just received an email from George Rowley in Walsall who wants to know if we have any old Bedford RL 3 Tonners coming up. Well specially for you George, today we’ve popped on a dozen or so for your delight. I hope this brings back happy memories of your time in Germany. 

Leyland Mastiff 4×2 Tractor (74 AN 16)

Bedford RL 3Ton 4x4 Cargo (19 FG 62)

There’s new stuff being added each day here and there. Along with the Bedford RL’s, a few more Austin K9 1Ton Wireless Trucks of the same period have just gone on this evening.

So back to the scanner……

Cheerio,

Simon

NEW THIS WEEK – MONDAY FEBRUARY 9TH, 2009

Hi there

New to the website this week are the US Infantry Division patches from 1st to 104th of WW2, and a number of US Army Air Force patches, including the 8th & 9th which flew out of East Anglia. This means we now have over 1200 photographs so far of vehicles, badges and original service photos. Don’t forget, to see all these many different photographs, follow the ‘How To Use’ tab for full instructions.

From the statistics, I see a number of you have been looking for AEC Matador gun tractors, so we have so far this week added another 15 to the gallary of British, WW2 Preserved, gun tractors category. Still lots to scan and add to the galleries so please pop back and visit again. In fact from the stats I see that many of you visit during a lunchtime break, which is an excellent idea to unwind from the stresses and straines of office life. An example of one of the Matadors is below, just click on it to supersize !

Also a big welcome to those who have visited the site from all over the world, with this week in particular visitors from the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Russia and Australia.

AEC 0853 Matador Gun Tractor (WNT 232 Y)