Re: State of military vehicle collections?

dumbstruck <dumbstruc@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: WW2 aircraft museums and even flying displays are amazingly accessible
: in the developed world,
:
Well, I guess the US isn't part of the "developed world",
since most any museum in the US has the damned displays cordoned
off. Contrast that to Europe were most of the collections are
NOT cordorned off. No damn smiley, either.
:
: but this seems to contrast with major tank
: museums and such as far as I can tell. Maybe someone can correct my
: bleak impressions from personal experience and sites like
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tank_museums
:
In Auburn, Indiana, the Victory Museum has been mostly
recreated. Orignially, this museum was located in Belgium.
Problem is, compared to the car museum that is located in
the same museum, the vehicles are poorly displayed, lighting
is generally poor, and like many aircraft museums, there
are too many vehicles in the space provided (and, yes,
plenty of damned barricades).

In Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, you will find the US
Army Corps of Engineers museum, with a very nicely maintained
outside collection (mind the towed grader, it is leaking
light machine oil from the blade controls) and a more limited,
but still worthwhile collection indoors.

In Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, you won't find tanks, but they
have a very impressive collection of artillery, including
an "Atomic Annie". Scattered about is additional vehicles
from more recent times.

In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, there is the 45th (?) Infantry
Division museum, with some vehicles on outside exhibit. It is
worth visiting, but you probably won't consider any of their
collection "gems".

In Ft. Hood, Texas, you have an outdoor vehicle park, with
some nicely maintained equipment, including a M103 heavy tank.
It was fun to lay the 100mm Soviet AT gun on the local Burgur
King... :-) Amazingly simple traverse/elevation system, and
it still worked, which was impressive.

In Austin, Texas, you have the Texas Military Forces
museum, at Camp Mabry. A small collection of vehicles, some
of them runners. Things like the DUKW are poorly displayed,
as you can't see inside the thing.

Bruce
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I like bad!" Bruce Burden Austin, TX.
- Thuganlitha
The Power and the Prophet
Robert Don Hughes

.

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