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

[Simon Lerenfort]

That's a great turret find, and with the barrel intact outside too. Would make a superb starting point for a memorial. Nice find!

[Brig]

 

 

 

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:

 

 

The 81mm was in the turret, we have found mortars over the years in the area, often intact and lacking a charge, so perhaps a mortar removed the ring

[Trebissky]

The 81mm was in the turret, we have found mortars over the years in the area, often intact and lacking a charge, so perhaps a mortar removed the ring

 

Not without also damaging that ammo hatch and the surrounding area. I'm thinking a .50 from fairly close. And those interior shots show where lots of brackets were cut off, but no shrapnel or spalling, so I don't know why that 81mm was in there, but it wasn't to safely detonate it.

 

[Brig]

The mortar had no explosive filler in it whatsoever, but did have a struck primer

[bummer]

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

 

Anyone know of what became of the 3rd Armored Division Museum?

[Brig]

A couple of days ago while serving as OPFOR for an exercise, I received a call over the radio telling me I had to see something. I went out to my buddy's pos, a few hundred meters down the trail where we had located the Sherman, to a site we regularly use for a weapon cache and near ambush, and lo and behold, on the other side of the berm, where we had never bothered to wander, were two tank tracks, on their sides, trees growing among them. Further back on a drop off, we encountered a few dozen 81mm mortar rounds and a strange, silver projectile that we couldn't identify as being US in origin. Rain had washed part of the hill away, revealing a ton of UXO 25-30 meters off the obstacle course. As it was too late to get an EOD team out there, we marked the site.

 

Following day, EOD arrived and started poking around. They confirmed the 81's were inert...had been fired with a propellant but never had a charge. I guess it was a common practice back in the day. He started picking them up and tossing them in a pile, which they took with them, presumably for training aids. When he came to the silver projectile he stopped and blankly stared for awhile, and finally told us he had no idea what the heck it was, but it was live and the fuse was still present. He snapped some photos and text them to his MSgt, who proceeded to spend about an hour researching it, and finally called back with an answer. It was a late 60's/early 70's Belgian made rifle propelled grenade that was heavily favored by the Israelis. So a quarter stick of C4 later, the problem was resolved. We're fairly sure more will appear when it rains, and will have to check and notify EOD as it is very close to a heavily used area.

 

The tracks were ahead of them and up on the hill before the drop off, maybe 10-15 meters off the path (how we never saw them I don't know), so I'll snap some pictures for you guys next week as they suffered no damage.

[gwb123]

Scary stuff when EOD has no idea what they are looking at. Those guys are usually pretty well versed on anything that had been fired on the local ranges.

 

I remember preparing for range firing at Schofield Barracks with the reserves. An EOD officer came out with his traveling slide show. He stumped us with one until he told us we were looking at partially buried MILLS mortar rounds. Heck, these were pre WWI I believe and still showing up on the range.

[Brig]

Well, it's likely been out there since the 60's, so can't blame em. The entire area was completely repurposed decades ago, used to have a mortar impact area, hand grenade ranges, flamethrower range, we've found mines in the past, time fuzes, etc.

[svt40]

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?

 

Drivers side floor of a WWII MB or GPW. The square hump is the well the fuel tank sat in.

 

[B229]

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.

 

Nope. It's a 105mm Howitzer turret, modified from the late production 75mm turret. You can clearly see the distinctive mantlet and the extra turret roof ventilator, plus the fact that it looks nothing like the T-23 turret used with the 76mm gun.

[B229]

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.

 

Not all of those vehicles were from the Old Ironsides Museum. They were vehicles collected from all over Germany that were used as displays at various US facilities. As we closed down installations in Germany this stuff was collected for disposition. Some stayed there, some came back here.

 

That halftrack with the 105mm howitzer is supposed to be a T-19 Howitzer Motor Carriage as used by the 1st Armored Division in North Africa. It's actually a fake that the museum cobbled together from an M3 Halftrack and a towed 105.

[MurfreesboroMemphis]

Just saw this post. We ran into a few WWII era vehicles back there when I was at SOI. There was so much stuff back in those woods. I recall someone (I guess a CI) telling us about finding an entire crate of Rifle Grenades for the M1 Garand the class before us.

 

-Will

[RedStateRanger]

Nope, but I found a WWII glider while snowmobiling in PA growing up . Apparently after WWII they were towing them back to store near where General Dynamics in Scranton is now and a tow rope broke. Its remains were in the woods behind a golf course where I grew up.

How long ago was the glider there in the woods. I've been looking for a wreck to restore.

Thanks,

RSR

[Brig]

Well, today was defense day when the students dig their fighting holes, which is always interesting to see what they unearth since the area has been extensively used since the 50's. Nothing crazy, but a few finds...tail fins of an 81mm mortar, tail fin of an illumination round, expended casing dated 1953 from an M1, belt of blanks dated 1989 and another belt dated 1978

[gwb123]

An update on the photos that Lars (Proud Kraut) posted from 2010:

 

"Trust me as far as I know none of the vehicles in those pictures went to Fort Bliss. The 1AD museum went to Fort Bliss in 2009 and like the article said did send vehicles over from baumholder but different ones as the ones from the pictures. The pictures are from 2010 and show everything that was not send to Fort Bliss and that was left behind by the 1AD. The museum had a lot of vehicles at Baumholder and only a very small part of the collection was in fact send back. Mainly the most important ones like the two German ones, M10 TD, two shermans and the two stuarts. The information about that vehicles went to Germersheim and the German Muna museum is in fact true. Actually some of the vehicles in those pictures that you shared went to the Muna museum. So everything in your pictures is still in Europe."

 

William G. Kirby, The Historic Armor Appreciaton Facebook page.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/147111312019224/posts/4338378829559097/?comment_id=4341125692617744&reply_comment_id=4341193492610964&notif_id=1628970463834057&ref=notif&notif_t=group_comment_mention