#Discovery greatest tank battles full#
#Discovery greatest tank battles series#

The series was subsequently picked up in the United States by the Military Channel, where it premiered on 5 January 2011.

Greatest Tank Battles is a military documentary series currently airing on History Television and National Geographic Channel in Canada, where it premiered on 4 January 2010.

'Not that I am a pessimist by nature, but I have a hunch I will be a very old man one day and the Ram will still be rusting peacefully in a field in England,' he said. Miller thinks the Ram in the video is a good candidate for a complete mechanical restoration, with the Ontario Regiment Museum as a possible home.

The Rams in Canada were scrapped shortly after the war ended and the army restocked with American Sherman tanks. About a dozen were left on army ranges as hard targets, likely including the one in the video. The British used Rams into the 1950s, after which most were sent to scrap yards and melted down for steel. And certainly the Ram is an important part of our industrial capacity during the war, and our inventiveness.'Īfter the war, the Kangaroos were disbanded and their vehicles given to the British and Dutch armies. 'Once all of the veterans are gone, it's really only these artifacts that remain as our only tangible or hard link to the past and these events, both tragic and important. I spent a long time trying to find information on these fellows because there's not a lot written about them in our history books,' he said. 'He never forgot his service and he told me the story of the Kangaroos. His father was wounded in January 1945 and unable to return to frontline duties. His father said little about the war, which inspired his son's research. Miller has previously written about his father's service for CBC, including how he stayed with a dying friend on the battlefield. drove a modified Ram tank in combat operations during the Second World War as part of the Kangaroos. That's likely how the Ram tank in the video ended up in an English field.īill Miller Sr. About 1,500 were sent to England and used extensively for training and target practice. Sherman tank as the main cruiser tank for the liberation of France. But by then, the Americans had joined the conflict and were building a mighty war machine. Production started at Montreal Locomotive Works in 1941 and continued to the summer of 1943.

#Discovery greatest tank battles full#

Target practiceĬanada built a turret that could target a full circle. It was fixed in the one spot and it could go up and down, but if you wanted to turn the gun, you had to turn the whole tank around,' Miller said. 'Canada decided to build a tank based on the M3, but the M3 had one major flaw: it didn't have a main gun that could swivel around.

Most of the M3 tanks they did build went to the British in North Africa. The Americans were not in the war at that time and weren't building tanks in big numbers. In 1941, Canada decided to design and build a new tank based on an American vehicle. Britain was desperate for vehicles after the 1940 disaster at Dunkirk, where they managed to evacuate most of their troops from France, but left much of the machinery behind.Ĭanada first built Valentine tanks. The Rams date to Canada's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939.Ĭanada did not have proper tanks, and certainly nothing to take on the Germans. It's the only hull of that type that still survives,' he said of the tank in the video. 'It has a lower running gear that is very similar to a Sherman, the suspension of a Sherman, and it has a little auxiliary turret for a machine gun on the front. He explains how they can narrow this particular tank down to a mid-production version, of which only 100 were built. He said the rare Ram tank spotted in England could likely be completely restored. has been researching the history of Kangaroos for 25 years.