Com-Central.net

Given the impressive tank hunting going on currently on this forum (Dontos, Doug_Kibbey, Joe_D, etc.) I was hoping to add to it, but had a disappointing day. However, it can be as important to report a negative result as a positive one.

I was trying to track down this Churchill:



www.bbc.co.uk/threecou...tank.shtml
www.project-x.org.uk/c...ltank.html
www.trevalan.com/Milip...hill7.html
www.thelensflare.com/g...y_5218.php

The excuse was that my daughter had been invited to a birthday party not so far away from the garden centre mentioned (in Coventry). Anyway, to cut a long story short I telephoned ahead once I was at the party only to be told it had gone, 'sold to France, we believe'. If anyone knows any more about where it ended up I'd love to hear it (particularly as I'm currently working on a new edition of Preserved Tanks in France). AFAIK there are few, if any, Churchills reported in France as being in running order, like this one.

Timing, everything is timing,

I am hoping the same doesn't happen to me in regards to that "Smooth Bore" M60 located somewhere on Fort Hood. I have nightmares some young officer may consider scrapping or making a hard target out of her since there is no shortage of M60's at Hood. I missed finding that tank when I was there in 2006 .

Yes, I'm sure we've all turned up somewhere to find out we've missed the boat and a tank we were after has already gone. Good luck with that M60, we'll all be interested in the results if you catch her.

At long last, after a labour of love, I've finished the Third Edition of Preserved Tanks in France. It's on sale now, here:

stores.lulu.com/armourarchive

The original edition (1994) was 72 pages, the second edition (2001) was 96 pages, and this one has grown to 154. I have put in much more coverage of vehicles where I can, particularly around Normandy, including vehicle histories, plus GPS locations and serial numbers (based on a trip I made in 2007). For members of this forum I have made a version available at half price (this covers little more than the cost of production):

www.lulu.com/content/p...d)/6958488

That link includes a preview of the whole book (so it'll take a minute or two to appear) so you can see what's in it - and read the book for free if you want!

I am in the process of also putting the complete contents up online at PreservedTanks.com anyway so it's available to refer to (with links to other sites featuring each tank, including to Pierre-Oliver's site where possible). That will take a few weeks to finish; so far I have put up the following:

Churchill at Fontaine-la-Mallet:
www.preservedtanks.com...p;Select=4

Falaise Museum:
www.preservedtanks.com...p;Select=4

The poignant tale of Sherman 'Massaouah' at Ecouche (I will put up the 'Keren' page soon):
www.preservedtanks.com...p;Select=4



The tanks around France have a special fascination for me, and I'm sure there is nowhere else in the world where you can so many tanks in situ from when they were destroyed in battle. The more I learn about the individual crews and units involved the more interested I become. I am already planning a fourth edition, though it will be even more ambitious so it may take some time to come to fruition. One aspect I want to cover in more detail are the tanks of the French 2DB (2nd armoured division) which form a line of memorials - marked by the tanks themselves where they died - from Normandy to the German border. Massaouah is one of these. I'm hoping to create a narrative about how this unit fought its way, and how each tank played it part, fighting and dying, along this route.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about PTIF just post them here. If you do buy a discount copy, a mini-review/feedback would be appreciated.

Meanwhile I'll post links for the other tanks here as I put them online.

Centaurs, at Pegasus Bridge and Hermanville:

www.preservedtanks.com...4&Max=6012

To support enthusiasts who have Preserved Tanks In France and use it when visiting Normandy I have put together a free Point of Interest (POI) file to use in a car satnav - more details here:

www.preservedtanks.com/Files.aspx

If anyone reading this uses the file please give me some feedback on how useful it was. I tested it while there and it seems potentially very useful - navigating direct to a particular tank, or giving an alert when you happen to drive within a mile of a tank (which otherwise you might not have known about and missed).

This is an idea I am planning to pursue much further - I think it's a first for preserved tanks - and will support through the website. Eventually it should be possible for the site to automatically create a POI file for any area or tank type you are interested in, but for now it's manual. If anyone is interested in creating a POI file for their area/region/state then I would be happy to give advice, and host the files for others to download.

Eventually anyone should be able to use a POI file for their area and painlessly visit any known tank locations.

Now that's brilliant,

There have been many times I would be traveling the highways and recognize a town where I thought an AFV (other than M60) was displayed. I wouldn't stop since I didn't have the register with me or any maps to show it's location.

Maybe I need to purchase on of those devices

I'm just starting to work though the full implications of satnavs - but I can see they have huge potential. GPS locations are now a key part of the information I gather and put on the website and - starting with the recent edition of PTIF - in my books.

I acknowledge this forum has been at the forefront of recording and publishing such locations - you included, Joe! So, if you don't have a satnav, how have you been doing it (from Google or similar?). You should definitely get one, they can be a revelation. You might like Navpix too, something I'm keen on.

I've written a bit about geotagging and Navpix at PTC:

preservedtanks.com/Geotagging.aspx

and about my use of satnavs:

preservedtanks.com/GPS.aspx

The complete Normandy section on the website has a GPS location for every single vehicle, and I will be doing it for every tank everywhere from now on:

preservedtanks.com/Loc...4&Max=6130

Trevor,

I do have a hand held GPS I use for LAT LONG locations. I turn it on when I arrive at the location and let it acquire the satellites while I take my pictures. I got it my last tour in Iraq and had it set up for MGS. Never really set it up for anything else except to get a location. I guess I need to break out the manual and see what else it can do for me. Might keep me from making a wrong turn

Understood. My routine is to use the satnav to get me close, e.g. from an address, find the exact location myself, then use the GPS's camera to take a picture, so the latlong is recorded in the picture for later download.

Do you know if yours can be loaded with a POI file?

Going a little off-topic for a moment, for anyone with a GPS I'd recommend a bit of fun trying the 'sport' of Geocaching - my family enjoy it. That's where the original Tanks for the Memories site started. It's unfortunately no longer supported, though it has partly been replaced by the Military Ground Equipment Displays category at Waymarking.com.

Some news. I upgraded the code behind PreservedTanks.com yesterday with some stuff I've been working on over the last week. There are various tweaks, but the most important enhancement is that I can now track photo's for locations as well as for tanks. That means, for example, for a tank museum there is a set of photographs taken around the museum as well as a set of photographs for each tank.

A couple of examples from my current work on Normandy:

Falaise Museum (with views inside and outside): preservedtanks.com/Loc...0&Select=4

Pegasus Bridge (including the Bridge itself and the famous Cafe Gondree): preservedtanks.com/Loc...5&Select=4

Hi Trevor

I've also been playing with the idee to create a POI file, what did hold me back was that there are more then one format to store POI's. Most used is the csv format but TomTom uses a O2V format what isn't compatible with csv, so I didn't go futher with it at that time. About 1000 entry's in the register have got coordinates with them, so it could be worth looking a bit further into it now.

Michel

I have a Navman, that just uses a csv or txt format.

Trevor,

IAW the manual, I can by using their POI Loader utility on their website. Not sure what the process would be like. As far as the format, Manual doesn't say what it uses (csv, txt, or O2V) and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what you and Michel are talking about when it comes to that stuff.

When I have a day of bad weather and extra time, I'll sit down and fiddle with my GPS to see exactly what I can do.

BTW, it's a Garmin 60CSx

My guess is that the different forms are compatible - for example, you can probably load a file in csv or txt format, then download/export it in other formats.

The basic format is very straightforward - here's my Normandy file as an example:

-0.274720 49.242500 P14N002
-0.300000 49.296361 P16N002a
-0.460000 49.123028 P18N002b
-0.469139 49.336917 P20N003
-0.618583 49.340000 P27N007
0.021110 48.649720 P29N008
-0.457750 49.335250 P32N009
0.048610 48.550000 P35N010
-0.116660 48.715550 P36N011
-0.324417 49.305806 P50N229
-0.211380 48.892500 P53N166
-0.252500 49.287194 P59N241
-0.516361 49.343306 P62N257a
0.158880 49.541110 P64N257b
;checksum=4294332

The columns are simply latitude, longitude, name (here name is the page in my book and the tank number on that page - unfortunately it's limited to 8 characters). I loaded this as a text file into my GPS, it added the checksum when downloading (but it isn't a requirement).

I imagine all POI formats are small variations on this. I would expect the POI Loader utility you mention would take in this format, and may output it slightly differently for its own needs. The only other issue is that the GPS format may vary. I believe it is always a simple number when stored in a POI file (as above, and on PTC), but may sometimes have to be input in a different format such as D M' S'', etc.