Hello everyone,

during the last two years, I collected a bunch of interesting and/or rare pictures from various sources (usually Yuri Pasholok blog, the LJ pages I am following and several other places) for the purpose of Armored Warfare articles. Since I didn’t get to use most of them, I might as well share them with you along with a short commentary.

This is a Firefly used during the 1976 coup in Argentina (photo from Buenos Aires), during which a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti overthrew Isabel Perón, the president of Argentina and the wife of late Juan Perón.

The Fireflies got to Argentina between 1946 and 1947 when Argentina (relatively reasonably) argued that developing its own tank (known as Nahuel) further is pretty pointless when there was war surplus everywhere and available for low, low price. According to some sources, Argentina bought approximately 400 Shermans of which 250 were Fireflies from Belgium. They served until 1974 – a large part was converted to the Repotenciado variant (with 105mm cannon), the rest were likely phased out and scrapped.