by KYLE MIZOKAMI
The Military Vehicle Technology Foundation is nestled in the coastal foothills above Silicon Valley. Created by the late Jacques Littlefield, the foundation is the largest private tank collection in the world, with more than 200 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles. The collection features tanks dating from World War I to today.
The tank is unique. There is nothing like it in the civilian world, and the public’s perception of them tends to represent a weird mix of Sgt. Rock comic books, civilian bulldozers and things seen on the television news. The reality is difficult to grasp from books or TV. Tanks in media lack any sense of scale.
Up close, you can put tanks in perspective. Their sheer, imposing size is apparent, as is their complexity. The Panzer I, introduced in 1933, is only slightly larger than a Honda Civic. By contrast, the British Conqueror heavy tank, a late-World War II design meant to take on the Russian Josef Stalin-III, is a true behemoth the size of some urban apartments.
Only 11 years passed between the design of the Panzer I and the Conqueror. Armored vehicle technology advanced at breakneck speed during World War II. Tank development during the war was probably the closest any military technology has ever come to duplicating Moore’s Law, which predicts the doubling of computing power every two years. You can see this in tanks produced by the same country, a few years apart. The German Panzer V from 1944 was twice as effective as the Panzer IV from 1942, and the M-4A1 Sherman that debuted in 1943 was twice as effective as the M-3 Grant built in 1941.
You can tell a lot about a country, and the times, just by looking at tanks. The Swiss Pz-61 medium tank is assembled like a fine watch, all parts exacting in their specifications and with a superior turret finish. The Soviet T-34 model 1943, hastily made in factories moved east of the Ural mountains to escape the Nazis, is startlingly crude, the cast turret having the appearance of softened butter. Western tanks tend to have much better ergonomics and crew survivability features than Soviet ones, with the driver’s hatch for the British Comet being a very glaring exception.
The Littlefield museum has several unusual vehicles. The M-50 Ontos, pictured, was a tank destroyer in service for only a few years with the U.S. Marine Corps. It was armed with four six 106-millimeter recoilless rifles in an external configuration so bizarre that the tank lives up to its name, with means “thing” in Greek. The M-60A2, a short-lived variant of the venerable M-60 Patton medium tank, featured a unique 152-millimeter gun and missile launcher as the primary armament. Littlefield’s M-60A2 arrived at the museum after a short and difficult operational career.
Other odd vehicles that made their way to the museum include the CCVL precursor to the M-8, the Swedish IKV-73, the Australian M-113 FSV, and 2S7 “Pion” 203-millimeter self-propelled howitzer. Oh, and then there’s the Scud-B missile complete with transporter-erector-launcher, which adventurous tourists have been known to climb on and ride like Major T.J. “King” Kong in Dr. Strangelove.
Several vehicles from recent and current conflicts are on display. An American World War II-era M-36 Hellcat was brought over from the Balkans, where this type fought in Yugoslavia’s civil war in the 1990s. Both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict are represented, with up-gunned Sherman tanks and an Egyptian JS-III. But perhaps the most ubiquitous of the post-war tanks is the Soviet T-54/55. The museum has both, as well as the -AM2 “Dolly Parton” variant. This tank is a veteran of virtually every Cold War conflict, as well as many post-Cold War ones. Just this summer, Ugandan T-55s helped repel an insurgent assault on the Somali government.
Climbing into the tanks is generally forbidden, but visitors do have the opportunity to stand in a Sherman tank training turret. The space inside, per crew member, is roughly equal to the volume of a 55-gallon drum. The idea of riding in such a cramped vehicle, lurching and rocking, with all the heat, noise and smells, and the strong possibility of running into an enemy tank or Panzerfaust team, is chilling. As much as understanding the true size and power of a tank is key to understanding the tanker’s experience, getting a sense of what they went through completes it.
Related posts:
Tank, by Patrick Wright, was quite a good read, although the Guardian reviewer found it a tad unbalanced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/oct/14/historybooks1
For midwest or eastern folk there is a really nice military vehicle museum in Hubbard, Oh. (Near Youngstown in Northeast Ohio). (Just google ohio military vehicle museum). Mostly WWII stuff, tanks, trucks, guns. Amphibious vehicles, uniforms and also foreign military equipment.
You have a counting problem. The Ontos has six tubes, not four, as is clearly seen in the pic.
Brings back memories of modeling in my wasted youth.
Barrel count is fixed, thanks.
[...] War is Boring RSS Feed World Politics Review: In Afghanistan, Itching for a Fight that Never Comes by JASON REICH JALREZ VALLEY, Afghanistan — It’s a chilly summer night in the Jalrez valley, lit well by a three-quarter moon. I’m on a mission with the men of the 4/25 Artillery Battalion, part of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, based in the Wardak and Logar provinces. We are weaving [...] David AxeTanks: Reality versus Perception by KYLE MIZOKAMI The Military Vehicle Technology Foundation is nestled in the coastal foothills above Silicon Valley. Created by the late Jacques Littlefield, the foundation is the largest private tank collection in the world, with more than 200 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles. The collection features tanks dating from World War I to today. The ta […] David AxeKyle’s Links 8/14/09by KYLE MIZOKAMI * Missing ship reported off West African coast * Battle in Phillipines involved Abu Sayyaf, MILF * U.S. to resume training Georgian army * Air Force: fewer bombs, more fly-bys for Afghanistan * NATO’s Russian air freighters: “dodgy operators” Kyle MizokamiDefense Industry Consultant Launches Blog, Insults Bloggers by DAVID AXE Loren Thompson, pictured, a defense industry analyst with the conservative Lexington Institute, has launched a new blog, Early Warning. His goal, Thompson wrote in his inaugural post, is to be “long on facts — especially little known, useful facts — and short on opinions.” Most military-industry blogs, Thompson contends, […] David AxeWorld Politics Review: Israel Boosts Nuclear, Conventional Deterrence by DAVID AXE In July, the Israeli navy — a force mostly confined to the eastern Mediterranean — sent three of its most powerful warships through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. A Dolphin-class diesel-powered submarine passed through the canal on July 3. Two Sa’ar 5-class corvettes (pictured) followed, 10 days later. The ships trained [... […] David AxeAir Force Snoops on Public, via Twitter and Blogs On the advice of U.S. Strategic Command, the Pentagon is weighing an all-out ban on using social-networking Websites — including Facebook, Twitter and blogs — on military computers. The Marines have already issued their own Web 2.0 block. “These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content,” the Marin […] David AxeKyle’s Links 8/12/09by KYLE MIZOKAMI * Russia sends submarines to search for hijacked ship * China does first long range, army-level ground exercise * U.K.: U.S. hogging the tarmacs in Afghanistan * Arms merchant Bout escapes extradition to U.S. * Marines on the offensive in northern Helmand Kyle MizokamiKenya Rejects Disarming Herders by DAVID AXE Cattle raiding underpins much of the violence in East and Central Africa. With growing populations competing for dwindling pastures, herders often resort to raiding neighboring tribes, in a bid to drive them from the land or simply wipe them out. The raids, while strictly local in origin, can take on international proportions when [...] David AxeAxe, Russian Shill, Misquoted by DAVID AXE A year ago, Russia and Georgia fought a brief, bloody war over Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia won, and today South Ossetia is essentially autonomous, and a Russian client. The conflict featured propaganda efforts on both sides. Photographers in Georgia took several photographs, allegedly depicting civilians slain by R […] David AxeAfghanistan Landing Zones = “Hot” and “Hairy” by DAVID AXE Helicopter landing zones in Afghanistan are “hotter” than those in Iraq, Marine Corps aviation boss Lieutenant General George Trautman said back in May. How hot? Air Force Times reporter Erik Holmes is at Bagram, in eastern Afghanistan, and described one recent mission by a pair of Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk medevac crews. [...] David AxeKyle’s Links 8/10/09by KYLE MIZOKAMI * U.K. report projects MoD equipment spending to balance … in 2028 * Chavez calls on Venezuela to get “ready for combat” * N.Z. SAS to be deployed to Afghanistan * U.S. Navy adopts more aggressive tactics to counter Somali pirates * Report: air shippers moving aid, guns, diamonds in Africa (Hat tip: Peter Vine, Richard A) Kyle MizokamiAfter Rain Break, Somali Piracy Set to Return by DAVID AXE Summer is monsoon time off the East African coast. For months, the weather has been too severe, and the waters too choppy, for Somali pirates to effectively chase down and capture merchant ships. Pirate attacks peaked in March and April, at a rate double last year’s rate, then dropped off in May. In [...] David Axe [...]
This weekend I had occasion to drive past Camp Smith in Peekskill, NY, north of NYC on the east bank of the Hudson.
They have a tank (M48?) parked at the entrance, and my instinctive response was “Damn! That thing is tiny!” As you mention above, it takes a brave man to go to war in such a steed.
Hilsen, The