Flakpanzer Restoration

I've been checking out their various vehicles on the web and see that they still have the Sherman Firefly and Flail tanks that I saw there long ago. They also show 2 M4A1 Grizzlies which were made in Montreal. The Firefly is also on a Grizzly hull whereas virtually all Fireflies were made up on modified M4A4s or M4s.

The Grizzly Sherman is very rare as only 188 of these were produced in Canada before production was stopped because of the huge numbers being built in the US. I believe that some of these got overseas and were used by Cdn units.

Montreal Locomotive Works produced the Grizzlies as well as a large number of Cdn designed Ram tanks and ###ton SP guns armed with the 25 pdr. The Ram was a training vehicle and none were used in combat except for de-turreted Kangaroo APCs and some gunless Rams that were used by arty OPs in Europe. Its good to see that the museum has a couple of Ram variants as well as a ###ton.
 
There is also a Grizzly in the Shilo collection. Several more are in the US....at least one pair were for sale in the last year.

The majority seemed to have gone to Portugal after the war along with a lot of the ###tons. They were later importable to the US since they were technically Canadian instead of American, and the Grizzlys satisfied a portion of the American collector market, since re-importation of US made Shermans was very difficult/impossible.
 
Most of the Shermans that are on display as monuments around the country are the M4A2E8 diesels that we bought from the US following WW2. They were still being used by reserve armoured units for training up to about 1970. I learned to drive one long ago and far away.

Wartime vintage Shermans are quite rare in Canada. In addition to the ones in Borden, there is one WW2 vet in both London, ON and Sherbrooke, PQ. There are also some at the CWM in Ottawa incl a Grizzly, an M4A4 and a M4A2E8. I think the M4A4 is the same on that used to sit outside the RCAC School HQ bldg. in Borden and was later relocated to the Cartier drill hall in Ottawa.

I've seen some "working" Shermans in use on highway construction here in BC in recent years. The chassis were in use for rock drilling etc. One had the old style suspension.
 
purple said:
Most of the Shermans that are on display as monuments around the country are the M4A2E8 diesels that we bought from the US following WW2. They were still being used by reserve armoured units for training up to about 1970. I learned to drive one long ago and far away.

Wartime vintage Shermans are quite rare in Canada. In addition to the ones in Borden, there is one WW2 vet in both London, ON and Sherbrooke, PQ. There are also some at the CWM in Ottawa incl a Grizzly, an M4A4 and a M4A2E8. I think the M4A4 is the same on that used to sit outside the RCAC School HQ bldg. in Borden and was later relocated to the Cartier drill hall in Ottawa.

I've seen some "working" Shermans in use on highway construction here in BC in recent years. The chassis were in use for rock drilling etc. One had the old style suspension.
Click to expand...

There was also a Sherman at the Citadel in Quebec city. Not sure about the vintage though.
 
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