Military Open Day at the MOTAT, Auckland NZ

[Tronhard]

MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology) has a strong military component, and along with several other museums and enactment groups, held a live military show.
There were many static displays of military vehicles and weapons, plus fly-byes from the NZ Warbirds military aircraft group, culminating in demonstrations of firepower and combat re-enactment. There were many enthusiastic visitors – from old veterans to children. The following are photos from the event with minimal PP: some cropping and minimal sharpening for the most part. Equipment used were two Canon 60Ds, one with a 28-300L, and the other with a EF-S15-85mm lens.


Static Displays:

The FV101 Scorpion is a British armoured reconnaissance vehicle/ light tank. It was introduced into service with the British Army in 1973 and served until 1994. More than 3,000 were produced and used as a reconnaissance vehicle or a light tank. It holds the Guinness world record for the fastest production tank; recorded doing 82.23 km/h (51.10 mph). It was, or is in use in 22 different countries.


The Scorpion configured as an armoured assault vehicle




Fly-Overs:

A NZ Tiger Moth does a pass over the field. Most NZ-trained pilots learned the basics of flying an aircraft on one of these, after WWII many were adapted as the early crop-dusting aircraft.



US P40-Tomahawk Fighter

The name given to the P40 by UK and NZ air forces. These aircraft were used extensively in the Pacific as interceptors and ground attack aircraft. The shark teeth on the cowl were made famous by the famous Flying Tigers, who flew officially as mercenaries for the Chang Kai-Shek government in China against Japanese forces before the US entered the war:



A US Half-track vehicle in Free French divisional markings, armed with 4x.50 calibre machine guns, was used for anti-aircraft fire and for ground fire support:



A Wehrmacht enactor cleans his MP 40 machine pistol:

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice series Trev, considering that the images have minimal PP

[Tronhard]

Very nice series Trev, considering that the images have minimal PP

Thanks Binnur. Like many people I take photographs for many reasons. In this case my interest in militeria. On these occasions I am not aiming for photographic perfection, I am just grateful if I can get the images without a whole bunch of people standing around - I like the exhibits to stand on their own..

They had a lot of re-enactments going on, in the case of the following image there was a NZ Army Battalion HQ circa 1943, with all the gear of the period. It was great to see the reaction of young people who are used to hi-tech command and control with computers and video screens everywhere...

Note the existence of the critical tea mug. The British Army may run out of fuel and ammunition, but it must never run out of tea! A unique requirement for British tanks and armoured vehicles is that they must have a means of boiling water for tea, even if the tank is in environmental sealed mode..


They also did firepower demonstrations, displaying and firing weapons dating back over 150 years, which inevitably came with issues when using such old weapons. The problems they had were more with the ammunition, which had to be specially made for many weapons and caused issues in rapid-fire demos. In the image below a young re-enactor flinches as a round blows back in the chamber of his US 1903 Springfield rifle, spitting hot gasses and fragments in his face. He was OK in the end though.



A group demonstration showed the efficiency of the British Lee Enfield rifle. This bolt-action rifle was the fastest such weapon to load and fire. The professional British Army trained intensively in the use of the weapon and put up such a rate of accurate fire that German units were convinced they were being fired on by machine gun units.



Lastly a 2lb cannon used in the New Zealand wars around 1860 was fired with a suitably impressive bang. It was fired using a delayed burn down fuse so that everyone could stand well clear!

[JBW]

You refer to rapid fire from British riflemen. It has become known as 'the mad minute'.

A quote from wikipedia:
The Mad Minute is best known as a bolt-rifle speed shooting event, which was derived from a pre-World War I rapid-fire exercise used by British Army riflemen, using the Lee–Enfield service rifle. The exercise (Practice number 22, Rapid Fire, ‘The Musketry Regulations, Part I, 1909) required the rifleman to fire 15 rounds at a “Second Class Figure” target at 300 yards. The practice was described as; “Lying. Rifle to be loaded and 4 rounds in the magazine before the target appears. Loading to be from the pouch or bandolier by 5 rounds afterwards. One minute allowed”. The practise was only one exercise from the annual classification shoot which was used to grade a soldier as a marksman, first-class or second-class shot, depending on the scores he had achieved.

The “Second Class Figure Target” was 4 feet square (approximately 1.2 x 1.2 meter), with 24” (inner) and 36” (magpie) circles. The aiming mark was a 12” x 12” silhouette figure that represented the outline of the head of a man aiming a rifle from a trench. Points were scored by a hit anywhere on the target. Although a 12” target is often mentioned in connection with the Mad Minute practise, this seems to have been an error originating in Ian Hogg’s book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Weaponry’. No other source mentions a 12" target.

Given enough riflemen the effect was devastating. And equal to a machine-gun(s).

[rpcrowe]

Very nice series Trev... The only reenactments frequently held in Southern California are those of the American Civil War.

You have done a great job in portraying this reenactment.

IMO, there are several problems with shooting reenactments. IMO the problems are somewhat akin to shooting zoo animals and trying to achieve a realistically "wild" looking image...

The problems are:

1. Keeping modern visitors out of the frame, unless you want to document the interaction of the reenactors with the visiting public

2. Keeping other evidences of the modern world out or your images. The older the era being reenacted, the harder/more important this is. The U.S. Civil War took place between 1861 and 1865. Images including modern stuff like cars, airplanes flying overhead, modern buildings, modern overhead utility lines, etc., can ruin the authenticity of the image...

3. Although most reenactments are quite strict about the regalia of the participants, there are some things which spoil the authenticity. In our Civil War reenactments, some of these are: participants wearing modern glasses especially sunglasses and participants who are simply too fat to be realistic soldiers of the time. Although there were some very fat senior officers, especially on the Union side, the average Billy Yank or Johnny Reb (especially the Confederate enlisted man) was very lean and mean. Additionally, with the aim of being "politically correct" many of our reenactments have female reenactors serving as combat soldiers. The pat answer to that problem is: "there were females masquerading as male soldiers. YES MAYBE, but I have a collection of thousands upon thousands of Civil War photos, both digital and hard copy books and I have NEVER seen one obviously female acting as a soldier in any of these images.

Brian... Thanks for the information. I knew about the "Mad Minute" of the British Army but, didn't now the specifics.