THOUSANDS made the annual pilgrimage to Tankfest 2024 in Bovington to see some of the world's most iconic tanks in action.

Set to take place from 28-30 June, a reported 10,000 people will visit Bovington this weekend for the world's best display of historic moving armour at Tankfest 2024.

Although overcast weather hung over the festival held at the Tank Museum on Friday, fans appeared in droves to watch re-enactments in the Kuwait arena and also speak to those in the living history encampment. 

This included Tim who was making his fifth appearance at the event with Volksstrum V3 which he joked was the 'German's version of Dad's Army'. 

Tim said: "We love coming to events and interacting with people, telling them about the history of the weapons and what we're doing. 

"Volksstrum is the German equivalent of Dad's Army that you see on TV. There's two sides to a battle and if you're not going to have anybody wearing a German uniform, it's going to be a pretty short battle because there's no opposition to shoot at. 

"We're not closet Nazis we just want to say, here are people that were caught up in events that were beyond their control and they just got dragged into it."

The Kuwaut arena saw plenty of action on Friday with a 1944 World War Two battle re-enactment between German and American forces with an M4A2 Sherman seen prowling the arena.

Later in the day, a special event was held to celebrate the Centurion tank which was also joined by the FV4005.

The tank has returned to action after a £20,000 fundraising campaign by the museum and another £20,000 donated by the popular game World of Tanks. 

A WW1 Whippet replica tank named 'The Musical Box' also made its debut appearance at the festival restored by Landships CIC. 

Landships CIC director, Kevin Jepson, said: "There's only five of them in the world and in the near future it will be the only one with its wheels moving. 

"It's not finished yet but's fit for show so this is a world debut and it's the right place to do it."