Replica tank not allowed in Lincoln

[Moonraker]

Tank cannot appear at home town Remembrance Day parade over safety fears

article

 

"Lincoln City Council said it could not guarantee the safety of of shoppers and sightseers congregating in the area if the tank had joined the parade because of the size of the vehicle and its lack of  maneuverability. "

 

Moonraker

[Gareth Davies]

Tanks and pedestrians don't mix.  Council asks for changes to plan, TV company refuses in order to generate publicity.  

[Terry_Reeves]

That's how I read the article as well. The crucial bit about the film company pulling out has also been left until the end, a good old journalistic trick to keep the "controversial" bit up front to attract the readers attention.

 

TR

[Moonraker]

The Daily Express article.

 

With the usual array of inane comments appended.

 

Moonraker

[IPT]

My condolences to the family.

[Andy Wade]

Stick it on a low-loader then, you numpties.

Oops, sorry, did I type that out loud?

[tanks3]

What the article doesn't say however Gareth is the Lincolnshire Constabulary were asking £20,000 to police the event.  This was a major factor, as I understand it, in the television company not proceeding further.

 

Tanks3

[Moonraker]

4 hours ago, Gareth Davies said:

Tanks and pedestrians don't mix.

As always, I defer to gallant members who have far more experience of matters military than I, but was the risk posed by the tank more than from, say, carnival floats, pedestrian parades or major cycle races? (I  winced at the antics of a very small proportion of spectators when the Tour of Britain passed through a small Oxfordshire village  in September.)

1 hour ago, tanks3 said:

What the article doesn't say however Gareth is the Lincolnshire Constabulary were asking £20,000 to police the event.  This was a major factor, as I understand it, in the television company not proceeding further.

 

Tanks3

Was the £20k just because the tank was to be present? As I understand it from the articles, the original idea was for it to be attached to the Remembrance Day parade which, presumably, is going ahead. "

 

Simon Colburn of City of Lincoln Council said it proposed changes to the tank driving plan but that North One TV decided not to proceed. "

 

As has already been suggested, I suspect there's some spin to this story.

 

Moonraker

[depaor01]

3 hours ago, IPT said:

My condolences to the family.

That made me laugh. Totally inappropriate. Love it.

Dave

[Sidearm]

I have some knowledge of this. There is a Plan B, but I'm sworn to secrecy at the moment.

 

[tanks3]

15 hours ago, Sidearm said:

I have some knowledge of this. There is a Plan B, but I'm sworn to secrecy at the moment.

 

 

Now you really have got us all wondering.  Hope you can share your secret very soon!!

 

Tanks3

[Bernard_Lewis]

17 hours ago, Sidearm said:

I have some knowledge of this. There is a Plan B, but I'm sworn to secrecy at the moment.

 

Tank to advance down the High Street, swinging left at Costa Coffee while under cover from a smoke shell barrage? 😉

 

Bernard 

[squirrel]

Obviously on it's way to capture the station then...

[Guest]

   "TV presenter Guy Martin had planned to drive down Lincoln High Street on November 11 as part of a documentary to commemorate the first use of tanks in modern war."

 

A serious question- borne out of just pure cussed curiosity:

    What sort of driving licence do you need to drive a tank like this on a public highway?

 

(As for insurance............  well, there's a whole Royal Variety Performance of gags in that- "Is it business use, Sir?", etc,etc,etc)

 

    

[Gareth Davies]

Cat H.

 

[Stoppage Drill]

Strikes me that unpadded tracks, as shown in the photos of Martin's replica, have the potential to do a lot of damage to road surfaces and kerbs, particularly where the vehicle has to slew.

[paulgranger]

I don't think the tank should take part for all sorts of reasons, particularly that its absence/banning has now taken over from the remembrance parade as the story.

[MartH]

Is said tank a facsimile or reproduction made to look like a Mark IV?

[IPT]

It's impressive that, by using modern materials, Martin has apparently managed to make his replica a couple of tons heavier than a Mark I.

 

(1.5 long tons, if you're going to be like that)

 

[Guest]

On 11/6/2017 at 04:36, Gareth Davies said:

Cat H.

 

 

   GD- Thank you for enlightening me. As regards moving tanks around and the damage they do to mettalled roads, how were the 1918 fund-raising tanks moved around?  We had Julian,I think, and I suspect it arrived by rail- a local rail depot is sometime used for uploading/offloading heavy stuff on/off the rails (eg reconditioned steam engines).

[IPT]

They usually arrived by train, and then often made their own way to their final resting place under their own power.

 

I don't know anything about Edwardian roads. Possibly they were improved by the experience?

[Magnumbellum]

Apart from theTV company's arrogant disdain for perfectly justifiable health and safety requirements, there is no doubt about the serious damage caused to ordinary roads by using them for tanks.  I recall seeing in September 1984 a civilian area in the Fulda Gap in West Germany that NATO had commandeered for use in rehearsing a Cold War battle involving tanks, ruining the surface of local roads, as well as churning fields into mud in very wet weather.

 

Beyond that, it is questionable whether a war machine has any place at all on a Remembrance Day parade. Remembrance began in 1919 with the theme Never Again and No More War in many people's minds.  True Remembrance necessarily involves repentance and reconciliation. Parading a tank would be tantamount to glorifying war and eager preparation for another one.

 

 

[Moonraker]

12 hours ago, IPT said:

I don't know anything about Edwardian roads. Possibly they were improved by the experience?

Surely some mistake? Edward VII ruled from 1901 to 1910 (and Edward VIII briefly in 1936), before tanks were invented, though "continuous" and "caterpillar" tracks were in existence long before then.

 

See here.

 

And the Hornsby caterpillar tractor was being tested at Aldershot and Larkhill in 1910.

 

In the early 20th century, local councils in Wiltshire several times expressed concern about the damage to roads from conventional military traffic. The matter was raised in Hansard in 1901, only four years after the War Office started buying up much of Salisbury Plain.

 

Long after the demolition of Chisledon Camp in 1972, south of Swindon, a sign on a road leading from the site of the camp to the main road prohibited "track-laying vehicles".

 

Moonraker

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Magnumbellum said:

Remembrance began in 1919 with the theme Never Again and No More War in many people's minds.  True Remembrance necessarily involves repentance and reconciliation. Parading a tank would be tantamount to glorifying war and eager preparation for another one.

 

Are you sure of this? My understanding (which might be misinformed) was that veterans used the early remembrance as a reunion and a bit of a knees up. 90% of course survived the war in some shape.  In the mid 1920s when the Church allegedly sharp-elbowed its way into proceedings and hijacked the event, veterans were allegedly bent out of shape. I think departed member GAC had a large rant about this some time ago on one of the endless debates about Haig. Happy to be corrected. 

 

In in my experience of the modern Army Remembrance Parades were always followed by huge social gatherings in the various Messes for rather long liquid lunches. Aside from the actual short Church service, solemnity was never a part of it. The Army and Navy Club and the Cavalry and Guards Club will be choc a bloc this weekend as members use the Remebrance at the Cenotaph as a way of a reunion. My personal experience is that the RBL and other oversized gauntlet, mis-sharpen beret, bad drill and flag carrying organisations have a rather different interpretations of Remembrance Day to the Army. Something I have never quite understood. 

 

Separately; On on tanks and tracks, even if they have rubber pads they tend to come flying off at times. Having been born into and grown up in a Cavalry regiment with Chieftans and Challegers, as children It was drummed into us to stay well clear of tanks on the move less we get hit by flying rubber the size of a small brick. Hohne, Sennelager, Paderborn, Fallingbostel - all the camps had roads of large cobbles which seem to be far more resistant to tracks than Tarmac roads. 

Edited 8 November , 2017 by Guest

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, QGE said:

Are you sure of this? My understanding (which might be misinformed) was that veterans used the early remembrance as a reunion and a bit of a knees up. 90% of course survived the war in some shape.  In the mid 1920s when the Church allegedly sharp-elbowed its way into proceedings and hijacked the event, veterans were allegedly bent out of shape. I think departed member GAC had a large rant about this some time ago on one of the endless debates about Haig. Happy to be corrected. 

 

 

     Exactly so. There were a number of veterans organizations before RBL emerged as  the market leader. And not all of them apolitical. Locally to me, there was trouble on Wanstead Flats with large numbers of aggrieved ex-servicemen from one of the other early organisations. How the British Legion came to the fore and our modern rituals emerged is an intriguing theme-especially how ex-servicemen were de-militarised and de-politicized- No Freikorps here.

     The two small things that make me wonder whether the ritual has overtaken the purpose locally are 1) The local war memorial is badly eroded-and has been since it was built of the wrong type of stone- so "We will remember them" seems a bit hollow when the folk are stood in front of a patently incomplete memorial. And the local war memorial committee in 1921-1922 asked for permission to use the royal coat of arms on the war memorial- which was turned down by the Home Office (in a file on 100 years closure)  So the attendance of various Royals does seem even more manipulative- The Kings wants you when the going gets tough-and doesn't want to know afterwards.

    What intrigues me most is how we have ended up with our current "stock" of History and Remembrance of the Great War. And just how much time and effort was put into it by the powers-that-be in the years after the war to fix a system of remembrance that suited them. Interesting always that the 2 leading memorialists of the Great War- IWM and CWGC  work to  foundation documents set up by the leading politicians of the day- Lloyd George, Churchill and Co still manipulate the way we remember.

    Nothing more poignant in my childhood than a group of elderly family members, all men, all served, standing round a barrel of Bass in a back room of a terraced house in Devonport as the host raised the first frothy ,cloudy glass of the stuff and proposed the good old navy formula "Absent Friends"  No bad marching, no bad music - and certainly no bl****dy replica tanks needed.