Greetings Tankers!

We’ve been back from the Americans in Wartime Museum open house for about a week now and have some updates for you all!

The open house was largely a success, with lots of enthusiasm and excitement coming our way about the project. It was a pleasure talking with the staff and volunteers at the event and I want to give a special shout-out to Richard Isner, Marc Sehring, and of course Alan Cors for their hospitality that weekend. We got to walk around and look at dozens of tanks including an M36, M18, M10 a pair of Shermans, a Stewart, and multiple AFV’s. Absolutely loads of fun!



It was the first even we’ve actually gone out with a booth and we didn’t know what to expect. It worked well enough and we learned a lot about our audience and supporters, as well as what you all expect from us. Everybody is so excited that we’re doing this our way, even the doubters have a “Can’t look away” attitude which is quite complimentary when you think about it!

We got to hang out with one of the few German-built Hetzers that runs and drives! A wonderful experience

ENGINEERING

I know this is where everybody likes to come immediately so let me give you the lowdown. Beckett has been working with the scale drawings and some folks around the country to get the details of the idler wheel down pat. We’re trying to get the accuracy down to even one or two millimeters. Obviously, we could design a functioning wheel and nobody would know the difference but we have the drive and capability so we’re determined to go the full mile.

And below we have one of the scale drawings we’ve been using for reference.

And speaking of measuring! October 6-7 we have a team heading out to Illinois to measure the turret of a collector who has been generous enough to let us poke around in his barn a while. We’re super thrilled to have that opportunity and will report back when we’ve got some news on that front.

Media/Marketing

So we plan on being at the “Battle for the Airfield” at the Collings Foundation in Massachusetts this coming weekend. We’re still working on arranging for a booth so no promises there but it’ll be fun to run around and talk to people there at one of the bigger reenacting events. As always our objective is to spread the good word and to learn from those who probably know something we don’t.

That’s all I have for you today!

Thanks!

-T.ankmann