beamjockey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beamjockey) wrote2012-08-09 06:36 pm
beamjockey) wrote2012-08-09 06:36 pm
Wehrmacht on the Interstate
Coming home from Musecon Sunday night on Interstate 88, I was startled to find a large tractor-trailer in front of me, burdened with two sinister brown shapes.
It dawned on me that not only did I recognize those shapes-- a World War II German Army halftrack and a tank destroyer-- but that I had met them before.
Here I am, in 2008, standing in front of the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. It belongs to the Illinois re-enactment group known as the 2nd Panzer Division, which operates a number of German military vehicles.
Behind the Hetzer is the SdKfz (Sonderkraftfahrzeug but nobody spells it out) 251/1 halftrack. Actually this started life as a postwar model-- the Czech army continued to produce and operate this design as the OT 810-- but it has been modified to resemble its German ancestor.
I was surprised that both heavy vehicles (17 tons for the Hezer, 8 tons for the 251) are carried on a single transporter. I suppose their owner was bringing them home from some re-enactment outing.
It dawned on me that not only did I recognize those shapes-- a World War II German Army halftrack and a tank destroyer-- but that I had met them before.
Here I am, in 2008, standing in front of the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. It belongs to the Illinois re-enactment group known as the 2nd Panzer Division, which operates a number of German military vehicles.
Behind the Hetzer is the SdKfz (Sonderkraftfahrzeug but nobody spells it out) 251/1 halftrack. Actually this started life as a postwar model-- the Czech army continued to produce and operate this design as the OT 810-- but it has been modified to resemble its German ancestor.
I was surprised that both heavy vehicles (17 tons for the Hezer, 8 tons for the 251) are carried on a single transporter. I suppose their owner was bringing them home from some re-enactment outing.
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Not long after the M1 Abrams was put into service, I was on US 60 on the west side of Frankfort, Kentucky. We have a major National Guard base there. Of course, Fort Knox is not all that far to the west of Frankfort, accessible from US 60. I looked out the front window of the little store I was in, and there went a deuce and a half, an M1 and another deuce and a half. And they were bookin'! (I could be wrong about the trucks; I was staring at the tank! ;-)
Don't know anything about the circumstances. Though you'd think if they were traveling between the Guard base and Fort Knox they'd have used a carrier for the over sixty mile trip.