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Have You Ever Gone For A Walk And Found A Tank?


Brig
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I found a Stuart at Dix back in December 2009. It was out by KD range we were using I think.

 

Rumor has it there are a bunch of old artillery gun carriages back along an old firing line at Ft Knox. Worked ROTC LTC one back in 2012 and the E7 I worked with said he hunts back there sometimes and saw them. I bet the FA museum would love to get them.

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Brig - I was all over that area between my tour at SOI and two tours with 8th Marines (2/4 & 3/8). Thought I knew every inch of the terrain. Never saw that. Congrats.

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Never found a tank, but found a WWII German artillery position just west of Baumholder. Figured out what it was because the ground was littered with rusted shell containers. There was a motorcycle frame there, but I wasn't sure if that was wartime vintage or something more recent.

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Several people, mostly kids have been killed near Ft Bragg over the years.

Some poking about in obvious areas to be avoided.

Others in long forgotten ranges that were planted over and forgotten years ago.

The area we set off the explosive had been a machinegun/small arms range for years and years.

People had walked over it, mowed it, whatever.

One stray bullet and a chance angle struck something long buried and it exploded.

Recently a fool cutting into a found Civil war projectile blew himself up.

 

I know this stuff is just toys in the attic to enthisiasts. If you ever saw the results of an accidental or intentional incident, you might feel differently.

I encountered undamaged hulks in a few places on Ft Bragg in the 60s, but I had sense enough to leave the earth undisturbed.

I also used those target ranges for various ordnance. Lots of Shermans, APCs and other stuff reduced to bits over the years. We mostly used live rounds. Finding one practice hull means one was used once.

Leave an ID in one shoe. Usually that much will be left.

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Here is one of the artillery carriages at Knox.

 

That's a caisson, probably for 75mm ammunition. Different than the carriage for the gun itself.

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HVYGUNNER0331

While an instructor at Range 314, Camp Pendleton, we had a Sherman turret that lay by the side of the road headed to a range off to the left of the main firing line. I always wanted to go back and try to salvage it, but a tank turret was beyond my abilities to handle.

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Weather was finely good enough to get back out there today. Took pics of a bunch of stuff, will post them here throughout the day. First, some undecipherable wreckage. It was in the vicinity of the crushed Jeep, so perhaps another one or part of it?

100_8175.JPG

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When I swept some of the pine straw off, I found the large, metal disk where it lies. No idea what it's for.

 

100_8177.JPG

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This Sherman as we got in the Marshall plan back in 1954 was on the field in 1979, the vegetation has now grown up but it's still there......

 

post-154935-0-57910500-1421357019.jpg

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Yep, a few. Actually it was a ride not a walk 5 years ago. Suddenly we passed this strange place at the border of the local training area. .Where to start? Let the pics speek for themselves.

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You inspired me Brig, I took a walk across the old Railroad tracks in back of my house, went through the tree's and on the other side I found this. Who'd of thought? :)

ghosts.jpg

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