On the road to Panzerschreck: Waiouru Army Museum

One of the great things about heading down to Panzerschreck (the Flames of War Doubles Tournament) in Palmerston North is that you have to go past the Waiouru Army Museum. For the last few years we have timed the trip "poorly" and arrived too late in the day to really check it out. However we have managed to look at the hardware outside and this time there were a few new additions.

Always nice to stand in front of a big tank - helps to put the size/scale of the Centurion into context.... its freaking huge!

In the 70's the NZ Army adopted a variant of the US MERDC camo pattern. It looks really cool and at some point I am going to paint up a Queen Alexandra’s Mounted Rifles company and use a Tour Of Duty list to have some games.

One of the new tanks on display was the Scorpion. The Scorpion replaced the Centurion tank (in the NZ Army) and is much smaller, with less armour and firepower. I'm not sure what the camo scheme is? It looks like a really faded MERDC pattern but I'd love the know the real answer...

 

I took this photo purely because we have been talking about rust effects around the office a lot this year. I thought this was a great example of how rust streaks appear... if only I had the patience to do it to all my tanks!

Next year (assuming I get a leave pass to go to Panzerschreck) we are going to make sure we hit the road a little earlier so that we can actually make it further inside the Museum than just the gift shop... although my son did love the LAV Infantry Fighting Vehicle jigsaw puzzle ("Tank daddy!").