One of history’s weirder quirks is that sometimes the things we view as quintessential representations of a certain time period turn out to be pretty much unheard of by the people that lived in it. Like how the iconic World War 2 ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ morale poster that now adorns half the kitchens of anglophile Gen Xers was barely actually used during the war.
Since its introduction in World of Tanks, the FV4005 Stage 2 quickly became one of the most popular in the game, mainly thanks to it being a tank with a ridiculously large gun that often sets up one-shot-kills. As a result, it’s seen by many players as an iconic representation of 1950s tank design in an era defined by post-WW2 geopolitical tension, the Korean War, and an escalating arms race among global superpowers.
But while the FV4005 might be incredibly popular among both military and gaming enthusiasts today, in the real world, the tank never actually saw active service. It was never even intended to. Rather, the tank was a mere prototype, whipped up in response to the Soviet army producing ever larger and ever more armoured heavy tanks.
Really, the FV4005 was just the British Army spitballing, wondering ‘what happens if we make a tank, but with a really bloody big gun on it?’ The result was the largest gun ever fitted to a tank, but – quelle surprise – it ended up being far too powerful, far too inaccurate and was ultimately ruled too much of a danger to the crew operating the vehicle.
Despite the tank’s enduring popularity, no physical model ever entered the battlefield. But in a bizarre twist of events, thanks to the efforts of a team of extremely passionate engineers at the Tank Museum in Dorset, UK, crowds at this year’s TANKFEST – an annual celebration of armoured fighting vehicles at the Tank Museum – were treated to a fully operational FV4005 on show, being driven around the museum’s arena.
I managed to spend some time with the museum and World of Tanks teams at the event to find out why, and how on earth, this all happened.
A Weird And Wonderful Piece Of History
While the FV4005 Stage 2 was never seen in the field, there were physical prototypes that were worked on. One of the two surviving turrets from the project was acquired by the Tank Museum back in 1970, though sadly without the original hull. In 2007, the museum mounted this turret onto the best fitting hull they could find – a Mark 12 Centurian – and for the better part of two decades, it sat on display bemusing visitors, at points even being used as part of the kids' playground, slowly falling into disrepair.
That was until Tank Museum engineer and popular YouTuber Mr Hewes (real name Joe Hewes) took an interest: “I like restoring the vehicles that most restorers wouldn’t bother with – the weird and the wonderful,” he explained, speaking at a TANKFEST press panel, “The game has made that tank so incredibly popular, I thought we had such a great opportunity to build one. My original plan was to just copy it, but we got our heads together and the museum and World of Tanks teams said ‘well… here’s the real turret, it’s pretty much half of the original…’ and that’s how it all started. Now, only 18 months later, we’re here driving it around for real.”
But those 18 months were anything but easy. Historically, accurate tank restoration certainly isn’t cheap, let alone attempting to rebuild a whole tank from one heavily corroded turret. As the Tank Museum is a registered charity, the team somehow needed to find the money to fund the restoration.
Thankfully, the museum’s supporters and tank enthusiasts came to the rescue, raising £20,000 to help fund the project. The figure was matched by World of Tanks developer Wargaming, sponsoring the restoration. World of Tanks military relations head Richard Cutland said “I’ll have to put my hands up and admit it was something I’d never heard of. I thought ‘the FV4005? What on Earth is that?’ I remember coming down to the museum as a young lad and the turret being in the playground, kids climbing and jumping all over it.
“But when I joined World of Tanks, I saw how obsessed players were with this tank. The love of it is because it’s so unusual. I mean the turret is ridiculous. I always say, if you asked a five-year-old to draw a tank, the FV4005 is the picture you’d probably end up with. So, when the museum reached out and asked if we’d be willing to help out financially and to raise awareness of the project, it was a no-brainer. In terms of the community response, it was ridiculous. I can’t speak to the exact figure, but in a matter of weeks the museum had raised their side of the money from supporters, and the reaction so far from our community has been fantastic as well.”
A Race Against Time To Get The Tank Restored
Once the funding was in place, the tank itself had to actually be rebuilt. Mr Hughes has gained hundreds of thousands of views documenting the restoration on his channel, but both the museum and World of Tanks were keen to have the official unveiling be at TANKFEST in July.
The timing would be incredibly tight, especially as the team were recreating something that had never actually been seen on the battlefield. Thankfully, the museum’s archive happened to have colour footage of the original prototype FV4005 Stage 2 driving and firing, as well as near-perfect photos and blueprints of almost all the components that were missing.
“If we counted every single moment on it, it was probably about four and a half months of work. Realistically, it took around six months, as we had to wait for parts and there were other projects we’d already started that we had to finish,” explained Mr Hughes, “But thankfully, the FV4005 has a Centurion chassis, so it’s a good, straightforward tank that we could get most of the parts for. I actually had a fair lot of the parts in stock myself. Combined with the blueprints from the museum for the things that were missing, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it went from impossible to suddenly quite doable. If it was any other tank, I think we’d struggle to turn a full-scale restoration around on such a small time scale.”
The timing was fortuitous too, as the turret was in such disrepair that it may not have been salvageable if the team had waited much longer. “When Joe approached the museum about the project, they saw that given another two or three years, the turret would have been completely passed any stage of repair,” explains Cutland, “We were at the stage where you could almost put your finger through it, it was that bad.”
But thanks to the efforts of its crack team of engineers, including Mr Hughes, instead of a derelict turret full of holes, the museum now has a fully operational FV4005 Stage 2, adorned with the names of the supporters that helped fund the restoration. And the project appears to have been an unmitigated success – the reaction at TANKFEST from both World of Tanks fans and non-gaming enthusiasts has been extremely positive. The Tank Museum team say that this year’s event was the fastest selling ever, in no small part because of the draw from the FV4005 restoration project.
As gamers, it can sometimes feel like our hobby is belittled when compared to other pastimes, and that the things that pique our interests lie outside what the public might find interesting. But for the FV4005, the overwhelming adoration of an inconspicuous piece of pop culture – driven almost exclusively by one singular, relatively obscure gaming franchise – has led to the restoration and preservation of a small piece of history. Now that’s pretty cool.
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Like Follow FollowedWorld of Tanks
MMO Systems OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 75/100 Critics Rec: 63% Released April 12, 2011 ESRB T For Teen due to Mild Violence Developer(s) Wargaming Publisher(s) Wargaming Engine havok Multiplayer Online MultiplayerWHERE TO PLAY
DIGITALWorld of Tanks is a free-to-play military MMO from Wargaming, in which tank-based combat is the primary focus. Piloting one of hundreds of vehicles, you take on other players across a range of modes.
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