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


Brig
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teufelhunde.ret

Here's the, I assume, Jeep I referred to earlier...

They've done a remarkable job over the decades cleaning that area up... in the late 60s you could not move 50 meters w/o stumbling over some rotting piece of junk...

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Another...

 

M38A1 Jeep Circa 1953-1964....looks like most of the jeep pictures are that type, shame, not much left of the old girl.

 

The other one is a Dodge M-37....I recongize the battery box under the passenger seat. Shame too, I have one of these restored.

 

If you can scavenge the wire connectors (Female-Female and plastic) those are always good for most 50's military vehicles...and are always lost.

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Hey Brig, if you'll take a wire brush to the frame where I've got it circled in your picture, you should be able to the the serial number of the M37. Mine was missing that data plates. It would just be interesting to know around what S/N's some of the USMC trucks were.

post-83679-0-14014700-1421387567.jpg

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Hey Brig, if you'll take a wire brush to the frame where I've got it circled in your picture, you should be able to the the serial number of the M37. Mine was missing that data plates. It would just be interesting to know around what S/N's some of the USMC trucks were.

It's now on my to-do list

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Lars/ Proud Kraut:

 

I believe what you must have found were the vehicles from the former 1st Armored Museum located at Baumholder.

 

That half track with the 105mm mount is painted the same as the one seen in the photo at the bottom of this page, courtesy of our member Nebelwerfer.

 

http://usfm-deimberg.de/allgemeines-zum-truppen%C3%BCbungsplatzes-baumholder/ehemaliges-old-ironsides-museum/half-tracks-und-scout-car/

 

Does anyone know what happened to these vehicles? It is a little disconcerting to see the crudely spray painted lot numbers on the front of them. It would be nice to think they were either recovered to the US or distributed to European museums.

 

If I recall correctly, the Flag and the yellow star would have been used in North Africa around the time of Operation Torch.

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Looks like I answered my own question...

 

The 1st Armored "Old Ironsides" Museum was moved to Ft. Bliss starting in 2009.

 

http://www.army.mil/article/27090/

 

Youtube video of the load out:

 

 

One article said 23 "tanks" were transferred... hopefully everything came over.

 

http://www.elpasotimes.com/communities/ci_18193844

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Those vehicles that were not sent to Fort Bliss were sent to the Panzer Kaserne in Kaiserslautern or the depot in Germersheim. Several were earmarked for the Muna Museum near Ansbach. I was assigned to the 1st AD museum till its closure at Baumholder and subsequent relocation.

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Those vehicles that were not sent to Fort Bliss were sent to the Panzer Kaserne in Kaiserslautern or the depot in Germersheim. Several were earmarked for the Muna Museum near Ansbach. I was assigned to the 1st AD museum till its closure at Baumholder and subsequent relocation.

 

Thanks for the added information. I will have to look into these other museums. I was stationed at Baumholder in the 1980's when if was under the 8th ID.

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Hulks in actual impact areas are usually so full of holes-including tanks that identification can be difficult.

Dumbest thing you can do is to go digging about in one of these areas.

I used to ride a dirt bike around Ft Bragg and came on some of these ranges and got up close to have a look.

The ground was absolutely covered in bits and pieces of vehicles, shrapnel and a LOT of unexploded stuff.

I never ventured back there.

We were firing MGs one day when something detonated about 20 feet in front of us-a long buried something got hit and went off.

Do not go back there, do not dig anywhere.

Your life has to mean something to you.

if you want to do something, report the thing and perhaps somebody will come out and retrieve it for something.

Or they might come out and retrieve what is left of you.

Get serious these are not playgrounds.

 

The above is quoted for truth.

I talked with the EOD folks at Aberdeen when I was there, they had plenty of stories of soldiers in ancient impact zones looking for 'cool stuff' like that and having to ID the remains from a twisted dog tag and a couple of teeth and nothing else.

One my people, knowing I collected stuff like that (I would drive my 1944 Willys onto the post and leave it in my designated parking space in front of my orderly room from time to time), walked into my office with a rusty bazooka round once. Now, it probably was a practice round but I wasn't gonna risk anything. I called EOD, which promptly took it and blew it up elsewhere.

I thanked the soldier for thinking of my interests and then sternly told him never to touch something like that ever again because his life meant more to me than any collectible ever could. I think that statement made the most impact of all the things I ever said to anyone while I was in uniform. I heard that quote from others for a while after that around my company area...

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That's a very late '44 high bustle turret with a 76mm gun, not a 105. Either way, a very nice part for any tank owner.

 

I watched an M100 trailer get pulled from the weeds at Hathcock Range at MCAS Miramar. One of the Lance Criminals tried to sell it to me for $1,000.

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...

 

post-22-0-80034800-1421367113.jpg

 

Interesting that they took out the entire recoil mechanism and breech, but left the gun tube in place. And another interesting bit...

 

post-22-0-97740300-1421367052.jpg

 

See that spalling to the right of the ammo-loading hatch? That's a near miss from something that was big enough to break off the lifting ring you can still see the stumps of. And those dings above there are from machine gun fire, presumably on a range, either before or after they cut all the brackets off the inside walls. Except for this:

 

post-22-0-05760800-1421367099.jpg

 

Where was that bracket located? I'm betting right below the hole for the TC's cupola, if so, that was the bracket for the TC's fold-down seat.

 

$%28KGrHqR,%21iQE7DUNlNEwBPGWl%29%28i2g~

 

Kind of a shame that's all that's left of it.

 

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