Are you accustomed to swearing at "idiots" who prevent you from making a maneuver on the road? Imagine, but it turns out that you are still in luck. After all, you have not come across people who took it into their head to ride a tank! We have selected 8 stories related to theft or purchase of military vehicles. We sincerely wish our readers to avoid meeting on the road with any of the heroes of this material.
By concepts
Many people know how former citizens of the Soviet Union settled conflicts in the early 90s. Disassembly - the most popular way of resolving a dispute at that time - was not surprising at that time. However, unusual specimens came across here as well. So, in 1992, veterans of Afghanistan came to settle the conflict with the Chechens … in a tank stolen from the factory! The winners were detained by the police, the armored vehicle was confiscated - but the residents of Nizhny Tagil, the city where the curiosity occurred, still remember this story.
Cannon: indispensable for the store
What is the best ride for shopping? Of course, on the tank! This is exactly what British citizen Stephen Ellison decided, who bought a 1974 reconnaissance Saber for this purpose. The 4.2 liter engine, 30mm automatic cannon and tracks are what you need for easy shopping! The toy, bought from a military depot in Lincolnshire, cost car mechanic Stephen £ 14,000, not including insurance, rubber track pads to keep the roads safe, and daily gas bills. But Alisson is sure: the effect that he produces on those around him, sitting in a tank, is worth it!
Salary is a bad joke
Someone uses a tank for a shopping trip, while a heavy equipment tester at the Ural Military Plant has found a different use for it. With the help of an armored car, he decided to fight the non-payment of wages! The man stole a tank from the landfill in protest - but the chiefs did not appreciate this gesture. The tester was fired from the factory and now works as a farmer. Now he cuts on a tractor!
For memory
We are used to treating museum exhibits like models. But in vain! In 2006, opposition members of the Hungarian government hijacked a Soviet T-34 tank right from the central square of Budapest. The car was installed as a monument to the 1956 uprising and was considered completely harmless. To stop the riots, the Hungarian police used tear gas - the rebels did not manage to drive even a hundred meters.
Pioneer, collect scrap metal
Soviet tanks are in demand not only in Hungary. In Poland this year, as many as four armored vehicles of the Second World War - T-34 and T-35 - were stolen. True, the Poles, unlike the Hungarians, came up with a slightly different application: they decided to hand over the tanks to scrap metal. For 80 tons of material, the attackers expected to receive 13 thousand euros - so they were not too lazy to involve several tractors and a crane: after all, the tanks were buried in the ground. However, the case collapsed: one armored car was intercepted in a trailer heading to a steel plant, and the rest were found in a private parking lot in Lublin.
Don't put it off until tomorrow …
This story will be useful to those who like to postpone important things until better times. After all, this is exactly what the workers did when they found the T-34 tank during search operations near St. Petersburg. Having decided that it is quite possible to wait with the transportation of the military vehicle to the Kirov Museum of Local Lore, the search engines "temporarily" buried the tank not far from the place where it was found. When it was time to finally make a monument out of the armored car, it became clear that the tank was not in the place where it had been left. The car, buried by the search engines, was dug up and … hijacked! I wonder what application these thieves have invented for the tank?
Power of nature
Not every action should have some meaning - you can hijack a tank just like that. It is especially easy to steal, if you first replenish yourself with alcohol. An eighteen-year-old British soldier experienced this for himself - he climbed into an armored car and drove out of the military base through the gate directly on it. Threats and orders of the guard did not have the proper action, but it was possible to stop a drunken young man in a military vehicle at an ordinary roadside ditch - in which a tank "everywhere passable" got stuck for some reason. The most striking thing about this story is that it didn't end there. The soldier ran back to the base, where, in front of the stunned guards, he captured the second armored car. Apparently not believing the seriousness of the hijacker's intentions, the guards did not stop the drunk Briton this time. He managed to get to the village, narrowly avoiding a collision with a car and a military patrol. Nature itself decided to stop this disgrace, substituting a tree for the "driver" of the tank. A soldier crashed into a plant, after which law enforcement agencies still decided to arrest the rebel.
And the last one …
What can be done while in the arms of Bacchus can be repeated and enhanced with the help of narcotic substances. In Sydney, a middle-aged man hijacked a tank - just like a British, just like that. In Australia alone, they tried to catch the attacker for an hour and a half. The man was driving drugged with drugs, and during his "walk" he managed to destroy several mobile communication towers and transformer booths. It was possible to catch the hijacker only after the suffering tank got stuck in pieces of iron reinforcement.