MG 151: post-WWII use

The guns arming WWII warplanes were usually of limited general interest, just a component of the overall aircraft and leaving service with the planes they were installed in. Germany’s MG 151 on the other hand, had an extremely long and varied career after WWII, being used in any number of roles in the air, on the ground, and even on the sea; all around the world for many decades.

(MG 151 being serviced on a Luftwaffe fighter during WWII.)

(French MG 151 crew on a “Pirate”, or up-gunned H-34 Choctaw, during the Algerian War.) (photo via tenes.info website)

(Image from a 1980s South African VHS video promoting Vektor’s helicopter mount of the MG 151.)

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M24 Chaffee during the Vietnam War

The American M24 Chaffee light tank of WWII saw postwar combat in southeast Asia for a quarter-century starting in 1950, first with the French army, then the South Vietnamese army, and finally the South Vietnamese air force. 

(A French army M24 Chaffee in combat during the Indochina War.)

(A M24 Chaffee of the ARVN (South Vietnamese army) attacking Gia Long Palace during the 1963 coup.)

(With a PanAm Boeing 707 in the background, a M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese air force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon. Even as the Vietnam War was being fought, the airport’s civilian side continued to handle commercial aviation. These air force tanks would be the last WWII Chaffees in Vietnam.)

why there is a WWII vehicle at Chernobyl

The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was one of the worst man-made catastrophes ever, and the worst event in the history of the Soviet Union other than the 1941 German invasion during WWII.

Quite improbably, a vehicle of that war played a very minor role in the 1986 event.

(ISU-152s of the Soviet army during WWII.)

(A German road sign points east towards Chernobyl during the “Barbarossa” operation in 1941.)

(Liquidators (cleanup workers) with a ISU-152 at the disaster in 1986.)

(ISU-152 in Pripyat, Ukraine during 2018, with the New Safe Containment (NSC) structure of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the background.)

WWII gear in Afghan use: Part III – tanks and artillery

Long isolated and neutral, Afghanistan before 1973 used an amazing assortment of WWII-era tanks, artillery, and fighting vehicles. In many cases, they remained in Royal Afghan Army use long after they had faded elsewhere in the world.

(An Afghan FT-17 tank, built by Renault in the 1910s. The AK-47 in the soldier’s hand dates this photo to the 1980s.)