Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i Military Trader

Vehicle enthusiasts often find themselves drawn to a specific type of vehicle or those types produced by a particular company. The opportunity to own an example of your favorite vehicle and renovate it is a gamble that sometimes just has to be taken. When historic vehicle owner and military enthusiast Kevin Hann, a resident of the Somerset village of Meare, near Glastonbury in England, learned of a British-built Commer 30cwt “Q2” truck was up for sale on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, he eagerly acquired it as his next project. I live in the same village as Hann and over the years we have come to know one another through our shared interest of militaria collecting and military history. That is how he came…

There are many ways collectors document and keep a record of their collection — from a simple notebook and written record, to a variety of computer-related approaches. At some time, a collector may want to sell or trade an item, so knowing the value of an item is imperative. When Scott Sutton became the caretaker of his brother’s collection he had no information on many items — especially in terms of monetary values. With my own collection, I faced a similar challenge keeping track of an ever growing number of items and their attendant values for later sale or passing on to members of the family. I found out at an early age it was important to have an easy method of documenting the collection. In 1954 Apple introduced the…

Each year in the planning stage for the annual Tankfest show hosted by the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, England (www.tankmuseum.org), invitations are sent out to “Guest” visitors asking them to take part in the event. To be fair, though, news of these surprise visitors is quickly circulated on the Internet, which adds to the anticipation leading up to the event itself. Among the Guest vehicles making an appearance at this year’s Tankfest were several restored tanks from the Weald Foundation (www.wealdfoundation.org) and the Bannister Collection. However, what most people had come to see this year was the formidable King Tiger or Tiger II, specially brought over from France for the occasion. Only 492 examples in total were ever produced during the war of which only seven intact examples…

During the 1950s, concerned about the potential devastation of the national infrastructure in the event of a nuclear war and the resulting havoc to supply systems, the U.S. military saw a need for tactical vehicles that could run on several different kinds of fuels, such as diesel, kerosene, jet fuel and gasoline. Since cargo and troop-transport vehicles are the backbone of supply, these were to be fitted with the new “multifuel” powerplants. Although the Reo Truck Company, which had originally designed and built the famous M35 2½-ton truck (G742 family of vehicles), submitted a design for a multifuel engine, the contract was awarded to Continental, which developed “Hypercycle” engines under license from M.A.N. of Germany (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg). The first production engines were the LDS-427. These engines incorporated the M.A.N. combustion…

HMMWV Snowplow In the recent past, especially in U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR), the Army had extremely limited access to snow removal equipment. The only available implements were graders, the M-9 armored combat earthmover (ACE) and the front-end loader for the small emplacement excavator (SEE). Those tools are specialized and dedicated to specific missions, and attempts to use them for snow and ice control (SNIC) proved detrimental to both the equipment and the areas requiring snow removal. The SEE was designed with snowplowing capability, but snowplows had not been available in the inventory. Also, the SEE was a scarce item and heavily employed where deployed. The High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) snowplow enables the HMMWV to rapidly transition from a transportation vehicle to a snow-removal machine. The plow employs a quick-disconnect…

In September 1944, only weeks after the Soviet Red Army had inflicted the greatest defeat of the war on the German Army during the five-week-long “Operation Bagration”, deliveries of new specialist armored vehicles were made to units in the front line. Sent by the Russian Directorate of Self-propelled Artillery, the vehicles were to be put through a series of field and familiarization trials in the combat zone, but were not to be committed to battle. The trials were concluded successfully and the vehicle crews declared the vehicles to be reliable, with good maneuverability and handling. Despite this approval, there was a delay in the new vehicles entering service due to problems in producing the BR-412B armor-piercing ammunition for the main armament. It was in November that the first service deliveries…

Military collectors are seemingly always in a search mode to add to their collections with the enduring hope to find something new and unique. That was the case with this writer when he made his weekly trip to one of Pittsburgh’s largest flea markets called Trader Jacks. Fortunately, Trader Jacks is located less than 10 minutes from my home, and I was hoping to find some new and unique military medals. Among the many dealers at the flea market visitors could find any type of “Hot Wheel” collectible, sports cards, tools, clothing, and countless other items. I always hope to find someone selling a military collectibles, which are getting harder to find in a general flea market. Many of the weekly visits yield nothing more than exercise up and down…