Koblenz, Germany

Koblenz was a great day trip, we saw so much and probally left a lot of things undiscovered. We will have to come back in the spring to explore some more. You can find a google map list I made of all the places featered in this blog at this link.

First stop was a massive military musuem. It looks smaller on the outside and we ended up running out of time so we were not able to see everything. First up was a copule of dozen tank engines. This specific engine was a twin-turbo V-12!

This musuem was a little unique as many of thier displays had section cut out so you can see the inner workings. Here we can see the camshafts, valves, pistons and the crankshaft.

When I said cut in half, I meant it. Here is an entire tank they cut in half so you can see the inside from the ground level.

You were able to see where the driver sat and where the gunner was positioned.

This is the BMW R75 that was designed specfically for the German Army. It is a two seater along with a side car that would have a mounted machine gun. The motorcycle itself was so popular it lead the American Army to request Harley Davidson to build a close replica labled as the XA, but without a side car.

Not sure whats going on with this design... some kind of motorcyle tank hybrid, designer didn't think much about protecting anyones head. Ha Ha.

Early Panzer Tanks. Fun fact, the word Panzer means armour is orginally derived from the French.

This is a German VT tank with two 105mm barrels. There was a model that was manualy loaded (VT 1-1) and a prototype out there that can self load (VT 1-2). I'm unsure which this one is.

This is the Boxer APC. This type of APC served ther Germans since 2011 to include thier operations in Afghanistan.

This is the inside and I think this version had interchangle modules that could be swamped out for personnel, ambulance, or command post modules.

Here is a video of the kids demonstraing the restraint capabilities of the APC module.

This is a VW up armored Touareg prototype that they are trying to sell to the German Army.

VW's goal is to replace thier Army's aging Mercedes G Wagon, AKA the Wolf.

This was a interesting multi-role attack helecopter but I could not figure out who made it or narrow down the era it was in service.

This thing was loaded out, it had a troop carrier compartment, missles, and machine guns.

This is obviously one of the famous German U-Boat. They were completely uncontested in WWI and destroyed anything they set thier sights on. They were able to travel across the entire Atlantic and even led an assualt on Fortress America herself sinking hundreds of boats off the coast of North Carolina.

These are a few German torpedos. I think the longer ones where used in the U-Boats, but the smaller one in the center is a more modern armament. They had plexi glass windows install as well so you could see some of the inter workings.

These are naval drones, one for above water and one for under water. They are the future of Naval warfare as proven by Ukraine. They are fighting Russia who supposedly have one of the toughest Naval Fleets in the whole world and Ukraine has completley wrecked thier Black Sea Fleet with similiar drones.

This is a Drohne Antiradar (DAR). Drone isn't mispelled, it's just the German spelling. Designed as a joint project between the USA (Texas Instruments) and Germany (Dornier) in 1980, it was orignally designed to work as a decoy to draw away enemy aircraft from more vaulabel assets. This drone was also designed to seek out enemy radars and crash into them. Theories out there state that Isreal purchased some of these and Iran got thier hands on one. Iran reversed engineered it to become the modern Shahed-136 Suicide Drone.

This is the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and was a supersonic capable Air to Air Fighter from the 1960s.

This was a surpise to me, this is called a G 91 and is was made by Fiat. Also saw service in the 1960s in not only the German Air Force, but also in Italy and Portugal.

This is the Heckler & Koch PSG1 and may look familiar if you ever played Metal Gear.

Sniper Wolf's weapon of choice.

Not sure what the top rifle is, but the bottom one is the Springfield M1903 A4. This was the US Army's Sniper Rifle of choice during the Korean War.

Gross, Russian Weapons... Ha Ha. The AK-47 was pretty cool.

A few more weapons from the USSR. Thought it was neat that they had some real still shots from wars they had been used in.

Heckler & Koch G3 A3 with the infamous drum sight. Weapon of choice for alot of Eurpean militarys and SWAT teams.

This is the Steyr AUG Bullpup Assault Rifle. Created in Austria and is their serive weapon of choice for thier military, the Budesheer.

Time was running short, so we didn't get to finish the muesuem. Had to grab lunch and run to our river cruise.

This is Stolzenfeis Castle and we sadly ran out of time that day to go visit it, so we'll have to come back one day.

Found a space needle in the distance, did some research and it is acutally a communication tower called Fernmeldeturm. It doesn't have public access, but I bet the view would be amazing on a clear day.

This is Ehrenbreitstein Fortress which is our target destination for the trip so I'll cover that in detail later.

This is the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) and it's where the Mosei joins the Rhine River. It was built in 1897 to honor Emperor William (AKA William the Great) who passed in 1899.

It destroyed in WWII by US Army artillery and later reconstructed in 1993 and is also the largest statue of a horse anywhere in the world!.

Here is the backside of the monument that over looks the Koblenz City Center.

Legend has it that this is the birth place of EDM. This specific machine fueled the artist with 24/7 Energy Beer and E-Cigarettes that served as inspiration. Ha Ha!

Finally made it to Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. There is normally a cable car (building in the back right) that takes you directly from the German Corner across the river. The cable car was closed the day we visited. I wasn't sure if it was becuase it was a Sunday or if was becuase it was past the tourist season.

The earliest written mention of the Fortress was in 1139 and began as a castle before it was heavily fortified in the 1600s. This fortress protected the Tunic of Christ hiimself for over a hundred years (1660s to 1790s). France managed to over take the fortress in 1759, but could only hold it for three years. Returning to Koblenz 30 years later, the French conquered Koblenz again but after three attepts could not capture the fortress and gave up in 1794 shifting thier tactics to starving the fortress out. It took almost five years for this strategy to work, but the fortress eventually surrended due to starvation. Even with the second conquering of the fortress, the French were forced to withdraw in 1801. This time, they decided to destroy it before departing.

This pot filled with 4,640 silver and gold coins was found in 1947 while doing construction on a house at the foot of the fortress. They date back to the failed French takeover.

This shows the age when the primary building material was wood and metal was just coming along. Pay special attention to the beds before looking at the next photo.

Here you can see the diffrence from the start of the Iron Age.

With Iron came guns, BIG GUNS. As mentioned previously, this fortress overlook looked the conjunction from two of the biggest rivers in Germany. You would not want to be a Naval vessel on the recieving side of this weapon.

Thier were several court yards within the fortress, but this was the largest area.

This was a set of dueling pistols to settle arugments amongst the Nobility. It is the second set I found with the first being from the Frankfurt Castle. Apperantly, you were not much of a host without a set of these laying around.

Okay, fast foward to the modern era. The fortress escaped being dismantled after WWI due to historical significants. This was largely due to the lobbying of American General Henry Allen, which also used it as the US Army's Head Quarters.

Here is a shot of one of amrmories the fortress has.

Here is a shot showing how far down the fortress was built into the cliff, which doens't account for the basement layers.