16-195 Garand Picture of the Day - Check Point Charlie

[Mark in Rochester]

Information

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[browningautorifle]

I had an M3A1 for a while...it was ok...

[Flying10uk]

Mark, do you you know when the picture was taken,please? Looking at the buildings I'm guessing mid 1950s, after significant rebuilding work from bomb damage. My father visited Western Germany in the mid 1950s and noticed that the germans were getting on with rebuilding work at a much quicker pace than us Brits; he noticed builders starting work at first light in the morning and working on until late into the evening which you didn't see here in the U.K..

[Mark in Rochester]

Mark, do you you know when the picture was taken,please? Looking at the buildings I'm guessing mid 1950s, after significant rebuilding work from bomb damage. My father visited Western Germany in the mid 1950s and noticed that the germans were getting on with rebuilding work at a much quicker pace than us Brits; he noticed builders starting work at first light in the morning and working on until late into the evening which you didn't see here in the U.K..

Berlin Life Photo

Date taken: 1961

Photographer: Paul Schutzer



Ten years after the end of the war, large swathes of Berlin still lay in ruins. The scene during the winter of 1956 was bleak.

[Bob Seijas]

Probably in East Berlin. The Communist side was a far cry from the Allied areas.

[fjruple]

My father and the family were stationed in Germany from 1959 to 1964. I still remember large sections of Mannheim was still bombed out. We visited Berlin after the wall went up and looking into East Berlin on the horizon in the East large sways of areas were still bombed out. A large number of the bombed out buildings close to the West Berlin side of the Wall had false fronts to make them looked rebuilt. The best contrast between West and East Berlin was at night. The West Berlin radio tower you can look out and make out the West side with its neon, flashing multicolored lights and the East with its monotone reddish street lights.

--fjruple

[Bob Seijas]

West Germany spent a truly ENORMOUS amount of money repairing the former East Germany, it was a total wreck. IMO that's why South Korea is not so eager to have the North back, it's a worse wreck than the GDR was. How often do we have to see that Socialist and state-run countries just don't work before get the message?

[Flying10uk]

Is any-one able to tell us anything about the "armoured vehicle" in the background of the first photograph, please? It doesn't exactly look like a state of the art fighting vehicle for West Berliner's to worry too much about.

[Sentryduty]

Still looking for a proper designation but it appears to be the same as this vehicle photographed in 1960, looks like a water tanker outfitted for water cannon riot control.



I can honestly say it's not a standard military pattern Soviet vehicle that I have been trained to look out for on the battle field.

---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:45 PM ----------



G5 based SK-2 at the Brandenburg Gate during the building of the Berlin Wall.

The G5 has the three axles and can be all-wheel driven (6×6), however, the front axle can be switched off (6×4).

Engine: 6-cylinder diesel engine with 120 hp
Transmission: 5-speed-change gearbox with dog-type gearbox
Allowable utility weight: 5 tons
Maximum speed on road: 80 km / h
Maximum off-road: 40 km / h
Models / structures: dump truck, crane, suitcase (including workshop case), Flatbed with tarpaulin, tanker, water cannon, several fire trucks and others. The bodies were fitted out in many cases with other companies in East Germany.
The cab was manufactured in several different versions, such as a closed cab, cab with long cab (crew cabin with fire engines), cab with soft top and a cab with fold-down windshield.

The truck G5 and H6, which were built about the same time in Werdau, exhibit some identical modules. In order to improve the properties, especially for off-road use, equipped with a more powerful engine of advanced G5/3, but this was not built in the original series.

The main customers for these trucks were the Alert police or NVA and the People's Police. Vehicles of Combat Groups of the Working Class were used as water cannon, on 13 August 1961 during the construction of the Berlin Wall.

There were not present in sufficient quantities in the GDR trucks, decommissioned NVA G5s were later in Agricultural Production Cooperatives and more used in business, for example as a fuel transporter for Minol. The G5 was used by the fire service primarily as a fire engine (TLF 15) with crew cabin.


The G5 airfield sweeping machines from the VEB special vehicle factory in Berlin have a working width of 8 metres. (1959)
Goods for army use five tons payload usually sufficient and the important off-road, this corresponded to the needs of the industry only to a small extent. The ratio of costs and benefits did not match the given economic conditions. This meant that the G5 was rarely used with the advent of alternative trucks.

[browningautorifle]

I can honestly say it's not a standard military pattern Soviet vehicle that I have been trained to look out for on the battle field.

Pretty funny...I have the old book on AFV and it's not even nearly in there. Remember, I was in when they taught all the old Cold War crap...never seen it!