Sherman tank, unexpected random Wednesday find

[gecko NZ]

was visiting a customer in an industrial area in my town and when i drove out saw this (it was parked outside a engineering company, i did see them welding on it) I didn't think anything of it until the front sprocket gear caught my eye and made my brain strain for a few seconds before a few more pieces fell into place and i came to the conclusion i was looking at a sherman tank, well whats left of one.

 

i wasnt expecting to see something like this, being that i live in New Zealand, we were given Sherman tanks during WWII, my grandfather drove them, there just not that common here like in the states, the last one i saw was in our war museum.

 

anyway the tank buffs here might be able to say what numbers come after the "Sherman M......"

[gecko NZ]

this is what caught my eye

[gecko NZ]

the Front

[gecko NZ]

the right side looking from the front

[gecko NZ]

the left side looking from the front, the road wheels are in pretty bad shape, looks like they havent had rubber on some of them for some time.

[gecko NZ]

the back, looks like is sporting a huge radiator

[gecko NZ]

the inside at the front, looking to the back, i do have another picture from this view showing the back of the final driver unit

[DutchInfid3l]

One of the companies that are featured on the History Channel show called Ax Men here in the States, which is about logging crews in the Pacific Northwest, their Yarder (brings the logs to the landing to be loaded onto trucks) looks very similar to this one, as it too has a Sherman tank chassis and is red as well.

[gecko NZ]

my mate said there was one on the program swamp loggers, i kind of vaguely remember it in yellow, i think this one is used to move logs up/down hilly terrain

[Jack's Son]

Still in service!.............Human ingenuity (good stuff).

[Bugme]

What a humiliating end to a true war horse. Of course the upside is that it isn't in a scrap pile somewhere.

[Jack's Son]

What a humiliating end to a true war horse. Of course the upside is that it isn't in a scrap pile somewhere.

"S",

Kinda gets me to thinking where I'll be at 65+......... :w00t:

[dmar836]

Saw one near Springfield, Mo. once. It looked like the hull was shaved and the driver sat in the back over the motor - it looked like some kind of custom farm tractor. A buddy told me a company used to make farm machinery like these back in the late 40s-50s and that they actually never were Sherman tanks. I was a bit disappointed. You can't deny the sharing of chassis parts though.

I about broke my neck as well!

Dave

KC

[Sabrejet]

Fascinating! Pretty much impossible to accurately ID the donor vehicle though because with Shermans it's often down to the engine deck/power plant details which are, alas, virtually indistinguishable here.

 

Sabrejet :think:

[ChrisNZ]

Hey Gecko, where in NZ did you see this?

[General Apathy]

was visiting a customer in an industrial area in my town and when i drove out saw this (it was parked outside a engineering company, i did see them welding on it) I didn't think anything of it until the front sprocket gear caught my eye and made my brain strain for a few seconds before a few more pieces fell into place and i came to the conclusion i was looking at a sherman tank, well whats left of one.

 

i wasnt expecting to see something like this, being that i live in New Zealand, we were given Sherman tanks during WWII, my grandfather drove them, there just not that common here like in the states, the last one i saw was in our war museum.

 

anyway the tank buffs here might be able to say what numbers come after the "Sherman M......"

 

 

Hi Gecko, coat of o.d. paint good as new :w00t: along with some fairytale story of being one of Major Hobart's funnies and it's good to go on squeezepay

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart's_Funnies

 

Thanks for the photo's good to see what's still out there being used. :thumbsup:

 

lewis

[1944]

Amazing stuff there thanks for sharing the pictures with us :thumbsup: at least its still working and moving after all those years

But its a shame that the Turet and Main Gun has being Destroyed like that a true piece of U.S Military History!

[dmar836]

1944, I'm not positive these were ever full tanks so there might not have been a turret or hull. Not that it wasn't done, but I believe these were converted from surplus parts into farm implements with the same calliope suspension.

Who knows? Maybe there was a tank there originally. I do know there were those who used M4 transaxles for tractors, etc.

 

Dave

[gecko NZ]

Hey Gecko, where in NZ did you see this?

 

about 60km north of wellington (the north island) if you copy this (-40.906235,175.000775) into google maps it will show you exactly

[gecko NZ]

1944, I'm not positive these were ever full tanks so there might not have been a turret or hull. Not that it wasn't done, but I believe these were converted from surplus parts into farm implements with the same calliope suspension.

Who knows? Maybe there was a tank there originally. I do know there were those who used M4 transaxles for tractors, etc.

 

Dave

 

i have read that but i was at another place over the road from this today and they had also been working on it as well, he said its a pretty worn out sherman hull, and there quite common in our logging industry, most log haulers in New Zealand are sitting on sherman hulls, i guess they dont normally come down from the bush much for people like me to see lol

 

its got a Detroit Diesel in it and its just had the big boom on the front fixed or replaced, i do remember now seeing the boom off of it before Christmas sitting where it is now, it was a mangled crumpled mess (i think it got overloaded)

[gecko NZ]

What a humiliating end to a true war horse. Of course the upside is that it isn't in a scrap pile somewhere.

 

the sad thing is i bet it would be worth more as scrap than as a working unit, :crying: i would like to think if i saw something like this going to the scrap yard i could save it by paying the scrap price but the truth is i still couldnt afford it, i just got about $800nzd for a car body full of scrap steel. 1.7MT :w00t:

[willysmb44]

One of the companies that are featured on the History Channel show called Ax Men here in the States, which is about logging crews in the Pacific Northwest, their Yarder (brings the logs to the landing to be loaded onto trucks) looks very similar to this one, as it too has a Sherman tank chassis and is red as well.

I saw that very vehicle for sale a few years ago, on a back road near Olympia, WA, with a “for sale” sign on it. I regret not walking up to see how much they were asking, but I couldn’t have paid to move the thing at that time, let alone how much they were likely asking for it. Up until a few years ago, there were several of these Sherman hulls with logging booms on top of them all over the area. Then they started disappearing, hopefully not to scrap yards. I caught one being moved on a large trailer to a logging site near the coast last year and another still rusting away in a equipment yard near my home. There’s a totally rebuilt hull nearby with a new logging boom attached to the top, looks like the hull just rolled out of the factory. If any of you subscribe to “Military Machines International” magazine, you’ve seen my photos last year of these vehicles in that magazine.

[1944]

1944, I'm not positive these were ever full tanks so there might not have been a turret or hull. Not that it wasn't done, but I believe these were converted from surplus parts into farm implements with the same calliope suspension.

Who knows? Maybe there was a tank there originally. I do know there were those who used M4 transaxles for tractors, etc.

 

Dave

 

Dave

To be honest it would be a shame to destroy a piece of history like that... but im not to sure either but id say you are probaly more than right

Maybe it was never used as a Full Sherman Tank probaly just manafactured just for the Farms implements just like you said. who knows,

 

Tomás.

[mccauslandpara1944]

:thumbsup: wow!