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My Aberdeen AFV image collection My second visit to the U.S. Army’s Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum, aka as The Tank Museum at Aberdeen, May 2008. I had the opportunity to visit the very famous Ordnance Museum and its outdoor display of many Tanks and other Armoured Fighting Vehicles, (AFVs) and artillery pieces once before, in April 2006. If you’re interested in WWI and WWII vintage tanks and guns, you owe it to yourself to visit the U.S. Army’s Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground. There are not too many places where you can see a Jagdpanther, JagdTiger, PanzerJager Elefant or the German K5 Leopold rail gun aka “Anzio Annie” in one place, or the post war era US M65 Atomic cannon! Kubinka, ( click on this link to see samples) the “Mecca of German WWII Tanks” near Moscow is one place, perhaps with the best collection of WWII German AFV’s in the world. Kubinka’s are all housed indoors, but that is a bit far to travel and very expensive. Although well worth the visit, I can attest to that from my own personal experiences, but their American equipment, of course, is not very extensive. In my April 2006, I noticed the deterioration due to time and weather on the equipment, literally dissolving to rust dust in front of my eyes. Since then, the conditions have not improved much for most AFV’s on display. However, some tanks have been carefully preserved, but the numbers are low. Anyhow, if you’re interested in AFV’s, better visit the Ordnance Museum in Aberdeen, Maryland soon, as it will be moving to Fort Lee, Virginia. At Fort Lee, several Army Museums will be combined into one, and will provide indoor display facilities to these veterans of history and technical developments. The exact moving date is not exactly clear, but could start later this year. Most, although not all of the equipment will be moved to Fort Lee. Some equipment will be moved and displayed at the Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Eventually, the Patton Museum too, will be moving its AFV inventory to Fort Benning, Georgia. While my time was limited again, just like the first time, I still managed to take photos of all the equipment displayed outdoors. In some ways, I was a bit luckier than in 2006, as there were additional equipment moved from other areas of the base to museum’s grounds. However, I also noticed some of the equipment that were displayed in 2006, were missing. To identify all the 152 items displayed outdoors, was a real challenge.
The Museum provides a 3 page too often over photocopied “Tank and Artillery Park Map” but it is far from being accurate as to what is exactly displayed. Their e-mailed excel spread sheet is not any better either. It is really too bad, in fact, shameful, that an up-to-date list that is fairly accurate is not available for reference or even from a historical perspective. Thus, I took it upon myself to prepare as accurate a list as possible within my limited knowledge. My effort entailed a lot of internet searches to as to what is what, and thanks Dave Jones from Arizona with the Japanese ones. To have your own poster above just download (for free) a .pdf 5.02MB file here. Enjoy the photos on my web page. A comprehensive CD featuring 1090+ original high quality photographs with the above .pdf layout and all the 152 items listed on the layout is available in .jpg 1800x1200@180 ppi format for only $35.00 US or Canadian funds which includes shipping to most parts of the world. Order yours today!
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