And Tanks

"You're welcome!"




So I went here.  Open house at the Tank Farm in Nokesville Virginia.  Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles.

It's spread out over a few acres.  See all them for a previous year?  Looked like that on Saturday.  Those tanks don't live in that field, they moved themselves to those spots

See?  They all run.  This tank moved to that spot.

That's an M1917, a French design we built under license.  100 years ago.  Those orange scribbles are where black tip .30-06 armor piecing hit it and didn't go through.  It was peppered with those test shots.

They had a couple T-34s, A Valentine, some sweet Universal Carriers.  And you know the 'armor' on them, and other armored trucks/half-tracks, is supposed to be rifle proof, but it's only a quarter inch thick.  And I've shot at steel gong targets with a rifle and rounds sailed right through the metal....  Then I thought "You know, T-Bolt, you are shooting at mild steel gongs, and the steel in these vehicle might be a different alloy."  Yeah.

There was a Hetzer.  Taller than I thought it would be.

They had 4 Shermans, but my favorite was this one, the 1942 cast version.  M4A1.

 
The other Shermans were all welded.  One was an Israeli Sherman.  That tank started out in our inventory, went to the French post war, then the Israelis.  Got a diesel somewhere along the line (and it was pretty quiet when running, I was surprised by this, too.) and a different, longer gun.

My favorite?  A Dodge staff car.  Pre Powerwagon Dodge.

I don't know why.  Seems like it'd be a nice daily driver.

Oh, the smell of the place.  Army canvas and oil and rubber and whatnot.  Vinyl?  Very distinctive.  Almost like the smell of a 1973 VW Beetle.  You know what I am talking about.

Here are some C-Rats for ya.

Couple of newer things.  The tank the kids were allowed to crawl on was a T-72.