Museum Photos

By Neville Lord

• Finding indications as to exactly where fittings such as tools and small arms were positioned. Even if the tools are missing, just seeing the holes where the brackets went can be very helpful.
• Getting close-up photos of small detail such as the mechanism on a turret hatch, the rifling inside a muzzle break or manufacturers casting numbers.
• Seeing how parts were built and worked e.g., materials used, welded or screwed in place, hinged or fixed.
• Obtaining an indication as to the actual thickness of panels and fittings.
• Getting a better feel as to how the crew would have worked.
  Seeing the effect of battle damage and general use.
• Hints as to how vehicles weather. Photos from re-enactment days can be particularly helpful as they are taken using modern colour film.
• Seeing just what variation there was between different batches of the same vehicle.
  

In order to get the most information out of a museum photo or if you are lucky enough from a visit to a military
museum, it pays to understand what the photo represents and how museum collections are assembled.

A photo of vehicle in a museum or a privately owned collection depicts it at the time the photo was taken, and thus the photo will show many changes that have been made since it was first issued to troops. Often this will reflect 50, 60 or even 80 years of wear and tear, field modifications by troops, repairs and restoration by museum staff. Even museum photos of modern armor, will reflect changes made over say 20 or 30 year service life.

Given battle worthy military vehicles are expensive and valuable items, its understandable that armies provide
museums with vehicles they no longer want and can not sell to friendly nations. This means museum specimens tend to be worn out vehicles that have seen many years of repairs and upgrades. Thus, particularly for post-war vehicles, museum photos are more likely to be a reflection of how the vehicle looked at the end of its service life, rather than when it entered service. Hence having a good understanding of when changes were made is helpful when using photos as a reference source.

Another common source of museum vehicles is captured equipment. Most WWII Panzers fall into this category, as does much modern Soviet armor. In the case of the Soviet-made equipment, it is often display as it was captured from say Iraq or Egypt.

The other main source of "WWII" equipment is from countries, which used the vehicles post war. In the case of say StuG IIIs, these vehicles were made during the war, in some cases such as the Kettenkraftrad (used for civilian purposes), Sherman, T-34, SdKfz 251 and Hetzer many surviving vehicles were made or rebuilt post war often with noticeable changes. A lot of these post-war Panzers have been "restored" to depict a WWII specimen, some more accurately than others.

Another sources of museum vehicles (particularly WWI and WWII) are abandoned and often destroyed vehicles recovered many years later. These are often recovered from lakes or earthworks and tend to be in poor condition and need to be extensively restored using new (i.e. non-genuine) parts. One benefit of these vehicles is that they are recovered as they were used in the war and thus photos of them prior to restoration provide excellent references material for both modellers and those restoring them. A lot of these vehicles are very carefully restored.

The last source of museum vehicles is those vehicles built as reproductions. The “German” Tigers in "Saving Private Ryan" with their Russian tank chassis are an excellent example of the risks of using these as reference.

Regardless of their source, it is inevitable that many of the older vehicles will have deteriorated over time, especially when stored outdoors. While current museum practices place a high emphasis on historical accuracy, this has not always been the case and many vehicles have suffered as a result.

Other problems facing museum staff are the lack of spare parts for vehicles long out of production, lack of reference material available at the time restoration work was done and errors in reference material (e.g. inaccurate colour plates in books). Another common attribute of museum vehicles is that they have been repaired using parts cannibalised from several vehicles and thus may not be representative of any particular production run.

When using photos taken in museums, I have found the following points helpful:

• Try to find out something about the specific vehicle's history and where it came from e.g. was it captured, has it been rebuilt, etc.
• Be cautious of paint schemes and markings, especially those on older vehicles, which have been repainted.
• Be careful about tyres, as these in particular wear out quickly and are easy to replace with modern tyres.
• Look for tell tale signs of restoration work, e.g. lack of rust, modern electrical fittings, US style anti-skid plates on German armor.
• Try to confirm any unusual detail you find in a museum photos with wartime photos or photos from other museum vehicles.
  

Remember that there was variation between individual vehicles that came out of a factory, hence two photos (say a museum and a factory photo) may both be correct even though they show differences.

In summary photos of military vehicles from museums and private collections are an excellent source of information for modellers, but should be used in conjunction with other references, since they have a number of limitations.

I hope you find photo references, such as those on AMPS NZ web site helpful in your modeling and other research.

Cheers

Neville Lord