Tank Museum

[Mitch J 0]

If any of you would like a tour of this private museum let me know.

http://www.mvccnews.net/archives/2007/0224...littlefield.htm

[Rick S. 0]

Mitch,

That's a very impressive private museum. It appears to be on par with the Patton Museum at Ft. Knox, KY. The US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD, is probably the best in the US, but is not privately owned or financed.

Allot of folks may not realise how expensive it is to maintain something like that, not to mention putting it together and making the pieces run. I'm very impressed, and would love to see it one day. I don't know when that would be, but I'm interested. May I ask the approximate location?

I was a Electro-Optical Ordnance (Firecontrol) Technician in the US Marine Corps, and have worked for General Dynamics Land Systems (M1 Tanks, Stryker LAVs) for more than ten years. I thought my firearms collection was expensive to keep. WOW!

Nice one.

Semper Fi,

Rick S.

[LoboMike 0]

Shows what you can do when you inherit a couple hundred million. very impressive collection and saving these piece from scrap and for posterity.

Owner and his crew appeared in a Discovery Channel episode of "Tank Overhaul".

Mike

[Jim Peden 0]

Too bad tanks are now obsolete if you don't have air superiority. Today a UAV can take out any tank, with one lone SF operator on the ground manning the designator. Target recognition software can now even eliminate the need for a separate designator. This museum is a wonderful collection of a bygone era. I'd love to see it sometime.

[Matt K. 0]

Almost had a tank museum at the Detroit Arsenal when they shut the plant down. The coolest exhibit was going to be an actual assembly line with partially completed tanks on it.

Rick,

Are you at GDLS in Sterling Heights? If so, you are right down the road from me.

[Mike-in-CA 0]

Hey Mitch,

That is a fantastic collection and very cool !!! When the tour comes around, I'm on board! Maybe I missed it but I didn't see a location anywhere? What will it take to visit that amazing place?

Please keep us informed.

Thanks, Mike

[Rick S. 0]

Matt,

I'm afraid I'm on the field service side of the business, which currently puts me in the People's Republic of Washington, in the vicinity of Ft. Lewis. I'm currently providing combat support to the Stryker Brigades rotating in and out of the sandbox. Our engineering and logistical support is located at the Sterling Heights Complex, right down the road from from you, though. US Army Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) is still headquartered nearby, coincidentally, even though the tank plants in the area have been closed for awhile.

To Jim's observations (Oorah firecontrol!), I partly agree. Armored vehicles have never been safe places to be, by nature. (There are some that have said aircraft carriers were obsolete in the nuclear age, but no one had the guts to nuke one.) However, the same technologies that are used to destroy weapons (targets!), are also used to counter and destroy weapons (targets?). Ground combined arms tactics, in use since WWII, include air, armor, artillery, and men with bayonets and bad attitudes. Remove any single component, and it all falls down. The battlefield really is a dangerous place.

Technology has improved to the point where an armored vehicle can be destroyed by an Explosively Formed Penetrator - Improvised Explosive Device (EFP-IED), delivered by an untrained suicidal terrorist. The trained vehicle crew gets another vehicle, and the "destroyed" vehicle is rebuilt to like new condition, IN THEATER, and returns to the fight. Crew and vehicle survivability is engineered in. The cost of the rebuild is far less than a new one. Of course, the human cost, while great, is ultimately less and less so, for the good guys.

Find an "enemy combatant" who thinks tanks are obsolete.

I agree that you won't see any US armored vehicles being scavanged from an old battlefield, anymore. If any modern US vehicles, aircraft, or vessels wind up in a private museum, it will be because the US Government gave it away for posterity. Same goes for the huge cemetaries left around the world after the world wars. The vast majority of our veterans will "succumb to obsolescence", instead of combat wounds.

In spite of everything, museums and collectors will still have plenty of examples of our enemies implements of war. (Priced a Mauser, Arisaka, or semiauto Kalashnikov, lately?) Thank God I am a US Marine! I can enjoy the right to keep and bear arms, while I grow old, and die in my sleep.

Sorry for the rant. (BTW: Where is that museum?)

Happy holidays to all.

Semper Fi,

Rick S.

[LoboMike 0]

I don't have first hand knowledge, but Google search reports the collection is in Portola Valley, California.

HTH

[Jim Peden 0]

My caveat in the previous post was "air superiority", indeed, when we control the airspace, our armored forces can make anyone who doesn't pee in their pants. As far as IED survival is concerned, I'd much rather be cruising the boulevard in an M-1 than an up-armored Hummer, ay'yup.

It's interesting to note that they aren't making any new Abrams at this time - just rebuilding them to like-new condition. They are remarkable in their general survivability, the core components are hard to break.

Personally, I wouldn't be caught dead in a tank ( pun intended ) but my (Navy) hat's off to those guys who man them. And Rick's right about the vulnerability of the surface Navy today - 2 ragheads in a bum boat almost sank the USS Cole.

Too bad the liberals sank Reagan's plan for SDI (Star Wars). Would be nice to be able to toast a missile shortly after liftoff. .. but that opportunity has, unfortunately, passed. Chalk one up for the liberals... the terrorists' best friend.