War & Peace 2009 Wrap Up

The 2009 War & Peace Show has wrapped up in the UK. Photos of this year's event are already up on the official site and no doubt thousands of images are being loaded on photobucket, smugmug, and flicker accounts as well as more than a few videos on YouTube. The photo albums on the offical site are very well done, but the gallery that caught my eye was the one with the aerial photos taken from a helicopter during the event. The aerial images give a true idea of the size of the event for those who have never to been. The event is a great place to see an amazing collection of hundreds of vintage vehicles - armour at the show included universal carriers, M3/M5 Halftracks, M3 & M5 Staurt Light Tanks, M8, a M18, a M24 Light Tank, a number of M4 Sherman variants including a BARV, a Comet, a Centurion and Centurion ARV, a Valentine Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious tank, a T-34-85, a T-55, a T-72, a BMP-2, a Staghound, Ferrets, a FV 433 SP and all manner of breds of FV 432s.  Not being there and only having the photos and videos to go by I am sure I missed a few notable AFVs.

On the repo side, note should be given to the FV432 based Panzer III that made it's first appearance at the 2009 show. Other notable reproductions that appeared in past Beltring shows and were present this year were Mick Hodgkinson's T-55 Tiger, Jon Phillip's old FV432 StuG III and one of the extended hull FV432 StuG IIIs that Steve Lamonby's crew at Plus Film Services built for Band of Brothers. There was also a interesting Vietnam Gun Truck, it's a bit off the radar screen but its amazing to see how many people in Europe are involved in Vietnam War reenacting.