"Fort Lee/Aberdeen tanks" Topic

I would like to ask the group if anyone has up to date opinions and information on the armour collection that is being/been transferred from APG to fort Lee (Virginia??). Is the collection accessible? Is it all there? etc..
any information appreciated.
I have visited the collection a few times when it was at Aberdeen, rotting away in a field.
thank you

martin

Last I heard is that it was in storage (in multiple places) and inaccessible. The museum plan fell through (budget mess) so the collection is in limbo.

About 2/3 of the collection of AFVs were moved to FT Lee and are now in storage. They can not be seen…

SFC Retired

What a sad and absolutely disgusting situation. Even some of the poorest nations on earth have armor museums or collections. I wouldn't be surprised if next we hear that they sold it all for scrap "due to budgetary constraints". Think I'm kidding? The geniuses at APG melted down the only existing Big Bertha piece along with many other rare pieces at the very end of WWII when the war was basically over and there was absolutely no need for scrap iron. SAD, VERY SAD

The same had occurred with the collection from the Patton Museum. The bulk was moved to Ft. Benning from Ft. Knox and last I heard was that much of the restored/renovated equipment was sitting outside in storage until a museum is built.

The Patton Museum is no more?

Ed M

For people that have seen Fury and would like to go see some of these historic armored vehicles, has the US done a very good job of preserving our armored history?

No, not at all, I mean, it's a national scandal how bad it is. Until recently, until five or six years ago there were two significant collections. There was the Patton collection down at Fort Knox down at the armor school and there was the Ordnance Museum over at Aberdeen Proving Ground (Maryland.) With BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure), the base realignment program, they basically took both collections and just threw them away. There were plans to move the Aberdeen collection down to Fort Lee. It was in fact moved down there but the Army has no money, so the tanks are basically sitting out in an open field rusting away. The same thing happened with the Patton museum collection, that was sent over to Fort Benning and its basically sitting in the motor pool, with nothing to show and just rusting away.

The situation before BRAC was not very good, it's embarrassing how bad the situation was at Aberdeen, although the last curator over there really started to make some efforts to restore some vehicles. The Patton Museum always had a small volunteer staff that did a very good job at restoring vehicles, so when the tanks were still at the Patton Museum they still had some runners and the small staff there did a very good job trying to keep things going on a real shoestring budget. But after BRAC hit, it's just a national scandal. They have thrown away our history, everything is just sitting and rusting.

link

Very sad and it is not just armored vehicles. USS Olympia, Dewey's flagship at Manila Bay during the Spanish American War is sinking in Philadelphia's harbor for lack of funds for maintenance. The governments suggestion was to sink it offshore as a dive site/artificial reef. The SS United States, one of the greatest trans atlantic liners, is sitting in Philadelphia also and will probably end up in the breakers yard. Dozens of Civil War sites could use some TLC and get none. The list goes on and on.

Not good news at all then. Thank you for the information though.

martin

I made it to Aberdeen just before they started shipping stuff out in earnest (a couple items had already been moved). It was great to see it but the condition of the vehicles was horrible. Sitting out in a field to rust away basically.

BRAC was mentioned but the real killer was the sequester, when you have to prioritize military spending preserving historical vehicles deservedly goes to the bottom of the list.

At least funding for the F-35 budget overruns are safe – thank god!!! #sarasm

"It was in fact moved down there but the Army has no money," Funniest thing I've read today.

Perhaps the Russians will buy the U.S. Army armored vehicles and add them to their Great Patriot War Museum collection.

@Patrick R: if you want to see the actual Sherman and Tiger from the film Fury, come to the Bovington museum tankmuseum.org in the UK.

They run a number of their tanks during school holidays, and hold a Tank Fest when they run the Tiger and many more once a year.

You can also ride on a tracked support vehicle around their purpose-built arena.

> "It was in fact moved down there but the Army has no money," Funniest thing I've read today.

Government 101, the money to MOVE the vehicles was in one account while the money to do something with them was in another. Byzantine rules (thank politics) meant that the one had to be spent while the other could not.

I would suspect that they used reserve transportation units that needed to run some long haul missions. Probably in an annual training status, even if it was in a drill status the money would come from training funds and serve a good dual purpose.
Otherwise it would have come as part of the base clouser/realingment plan, and money would have been set aside for the transfer of equipment. In that case it would have been a civilian carrier.

They spent BIG bucks (BRAC Funds) to haul the AFV's to Ft Lee and FT Benning. They had to take Anzio Annie apart to haul her by rail. :)

SFC Retired

Aren't there any Congressmen or Senators who served and consider these pieces of history worth saving? It is sad.

Who here voted for a congressman who voted for sequestration?

Methinks you get what you asked for.

The last Congress (113) saw only 84 representatives out of 435 with any military experience and in the Senate 19 out of 100. For the 114th the House continues to decline, to 81, but a bump up in the Senate to 21. Overall numbers are in low or below 20 percent. This is in sharp contrast to the mid/late 70s when 4 out of 5 had military experience. Of course the all volunteer Army didn't start until 73 so in part explains the large numbers with military experience.