Patton Museum moving to Ft. Benning afterall

[wdbtchr]

I for one am sorry to see the move. Knox is only 280 miles away, Benning is 650. I'll probably never get to see the new place.

 

[BobM]

I for one am sorry to see the move. Knox is only 280 miles away, Benning is 650. I'll probably never get to see the new place.

ROADTRIP!!

 

[lonegunman]

I liked the old infantry museum at Benning. It had style and character you can only get from an old creepy building full of cool stuff. The new museums tend to be long on sorry looking diaramas and short on actual equipment and displays of interesting stuff.

The armor museum at Napoleon's Tomb in Paris was awesome, they have several floors of everything through the last four centuries and you can wander for hours.

 

[popacom]

I work for a Govt. contractor at Bluegrass Station in Ky ,and my boss is pretty well in the know and he said they were gonna place an active STRYKER brigade. at Knox when they move the Armor training mission out . The reason he said they gave for moving the PATTON Museum
as well was that in armor training there is a certain amount of training dedicated to the evolution and History of armor and it was felt that the museums armor history exhibit's would
better serve the ARMY at its new armor training center. I thought that they had discussed leaving Patton's personal stuff at FORT KNOX but I could be wrong on that part. As a guy who has been addicted to military equipment and operations since I was 16 it will be hard to drive by where the museum stands at Fort Knox and not feel sadness at its leaving for after visiting Military museums all over the U.S. the Patton was by far my favorite. I just hope it gets a fair shake at Benning cause it has been a huge inpiration to a lotta folks in KY.

popacom........Bill Kagin III in KY!

 

[todds112]

I hope it would be a cold day in you know where if they decided to move the National Museum away from Wright-Patterson.

Not that I go there very often it is a sense of pride in being able to live in the area with all this aviation history.

The one day I was on Ft Knox we went to the Patton Museum and it was closed. Going out on one of the ranges while the guard was having a live fire exercise with M60s (armor) more than made up for it though. Nothing like standing next to a tank when the main gun goes off.

sw

I started going to the old AF musuem when I was a kid. Dad probably took me at least once a month.

One of the only good things about Dayton. Of course they did lose NCR to Georigia.

 

[KyCUCVs]

I’m not in the loop like I used to be, so this is the first I’ve heard of the Patton Museum moving. Really, really sorry to see it go. The first time I visited the museum was in the early sixties when it was located in an old, wooden, WWII warehouse building on Old Ironsides Ave. The building was filled with armored vehicles parked track to track and bumper to bumper (I know tanks don’t have bumpers). The vehicles were all open and you could climb on them and get inside! I got to sit inside an unrestored German Panther tank. All of that went away when they moved to their current location.

The vehicles actually on display in the museum are only a small part of the vehicles the museum owns. Their website used to have a complete list of their inventory. There’s an old motor pool on Main Range Road behind Range Control at Pickett Road that is filled with armored vehicles and artillery pieces waiting to be restored. On the MapQuest aerial photo, I can count about 100 vehicles. I need to get down there and take pictures before this stuff is moved out.

Have you seen the LST building at Fort Knox? It’s located on Eisenhower Ave between Wilson Road and Old Ironsides Ave. It’s one of the few wooden WWII buildings left on post. One end of the building was built to look like an LST bow with doors and ramps. I assume it was used during WWII for tankers to practice disembarking from an LST. I was privileged to see inside the LST building. It was a spur of the moment invitation and of course, I had no camera. It is filled, again, track to track and bumper to bumper with armored vehicles. These were mostly one of a kind and experimental vehicles. Several of the prototypes of the MBT-70 are located here.

At the intersection of Eisenhower Ave and 7th Avenue is a large Motor Park, formally used by National Guard and Reserve units for temporary storage during weekend drills and Annual Training. One corner of the park has a large K-span building, basically a giant Quonset hut the size of a high school gym. We used to use this building to administer the Tank Crew Gunnery Skills Test (TCGST) in inclement weather. The museum eventually took over this building and used it to consolidate vehicles stored all over post in other smaller buildings. I've never seen the inside after the museum took over, but I hear it to is filled with vehicles.

Fort Knox is going to stay a busy, active post for years to come. Army Recruiting Command moved to Ft Knox several years ago. Army Human Resources Command is schedule to move there soon. Their buildings are under construction. And it’s my understanding that a Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division is moving there. I’m seeing the Big Red One around post, so this must be true. The population is definitely up. Everything is much more crowded. Takes longer to get a haircut and the food court at the PX is packed. Traffic during the lunch hour is terrible.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. I hope the museum benefits from the move and gets a much larger facility so many of these historic vehicles in storage can be put on display.

 

[mckeeranger]

we are takeing most of the collection of armor with when we move we are all ready hett'ing stuff down every monday i'll make take some good pic's as well as the new armor cav museum will be 3 times larger then the current patton patton museum.

So are you going to be moving as well?

 

[mckeeranger]

First the national Boy Scout museum moved from Murray, now the Patton museum is moving from Ft. Knox, I wonder what's next?

I vote we move the state capital from Frankfort to Nome Alaska.

 

[papabear]

I agree

I liked the old infantry museum at Benning. It had style and character you can only get from an old creepy building full of cool stuff. The new museums tend to be long on sorry looking diaramas and short on actual equipment and displays of interesting stuff.

I was not going to make that comment lonegunman but I'm glad you did...now I can express my feelings toward the new Infantry Museum.

It is unfortunately exactly that...a collection of diaramas and pictures. There are certainly some impressive uniforms, assorted weapons and a very few MV's. In fact I think all the vehicles inside include a bradley, a WWII GP jeep and a mule. The mule has no seats..just steering..engine and deck.
Nearly everything is behind ropes or glass.

A friend and I toured the museum again last Wednesday and we both agreed the old Museum was far superior.

Don't get me wrong...it's an incredible facility..depending on who you ask $86 to $91 million worth! But after my second tour I was moved to name it "The Past Behind Glass".
As you said...it is a high-tech...non-touchy-feeling type operation.

There are NO vehicles displayed outside, don't know if there are plans to but the landscaping would lead me to believe not.

It is definately worth touring but as a career Infantry Soldier I have to say
i am disappointed after touring the old museum many times.

I can only hope the new Armor Museum planners will keep that museum more along the lines of the Patton Museum at Ft Knox which I toured long ago and was just amazed.

 

[glcaines]

I would be sorry to see the Patton Museum move from Fort Knox, although Benning is much closer to where I live. I took Basic at Knox (D-17-5) in 1970, followed by AIT at Fort Knox (D-5R-2), where I received my 11-Delta MOS and there are a lot of memories from that time. For AIT I was in the Disney Barracks (AKA Disneyland). I reported for Basic on January 5, 1970 and it was COLD!! I remember pulling guard duty at the Patton Museum and even worse, pulling Fire Duty in the freezing cold. Fire duty for those that might not know is where you were responsible for shovelling coal into the coal-fired furnaces in the different buildings, the Patton Museum being one. Being stationed at Fort Knox for five months of training is where I first startedt o appreciate MVs. This was firmed up by duty in Germany with the 3rd Armord Division. I really enjoyed visiting the Patton Museum during my tenure at Fort Knox and I have visited it several times since. My other memories of Fort Knox include the terrible dust clouds from all of the armored vehicles running around, mostly M60s, M113s and M114s. I have a lot of photos of the Patton Museum from 1970. I'll see if I can find some to post.

 

[68t]

I sure hate to see fort knox move, i did not know about the move. . In 1962 i did my basic training there. we did heart break hill, and marched all over that place, no rides at all in those days. but i,v been back there several times for military training. In 02 we were there doing door gunner training with the blackhawks at yano range. we stayed in the some old barrack,s and ate at the same mess hall, that i went throught basic training . i could not believe it. i think all the old barrack are going now , also fort campbell old barracks are gone. well things in life sure change.

 

[wdbtchr]

I would be sorry to see the Patton Museum move from Fort Knox, although Benning is much closer to where I live. I took Basic at Knox (D-17-5) in 1970, followed by AIT at Fort Knox (D-5R-2), where I received my 11-Delta MOS and there are a lot of memories from that time. For AIT I was in the Disney Barracks (AKA Disneyland). I reported for Basic on January 5, 1970 and it was COLD!! I remember pulling guard duty at the Patton Museum and even worse, pulling Fire Duty in the freezing cold. Fire duty for those that might not know is where you were responsible for shovelling coal into the coal-fired furnaces in the different buildings, the Patton Museum being one. Being stationed at Fort Knox for five months of training is where I first startedt o appreciate MVs. This was firmed up by duty in Germany with the 3rd Armord Division. I really enjoyed visiting the Patton Museum during my tenure at Fort Knox and I have visited it several times since. My other memories of Fort Knox include the terrible dust clouds from all of the armored vehicles running around, mostly M60s, M113s and M114s. I have a lot of photos of the Patton Museum from 1970. I'll see if I can find some to post.

I have some pictures a friend and I took in the 1968 to 1970 era of the original Patton museum, mostly of the outside displays because the old Brownie camera didn't have a flash. We were going to school in Louisville at the time and that was a favorite hangout on weekends. I remember the wide ruts in the road from tank traffic and the warning signs along the way warning that the tanks had right of way. The new museum was much larger but didn't have the same atmosphere of old canvas, wool uniforms, and leather that the new one had. I can't imagine after they move it that it won't be even more sanitized. I quess that's what they call progress. I'll have to see if I can find that album and post some of the pictures.

 

[saddamsnightmare]

February 15th, 2010.


Gents:
Regrettably, if we want this armor and related equipment to survive for the ages, it must be indoors, maintained, and out of reach of the visitors.... If you want to see how handling affects display items, I could show you a reproduction 1842 Harpers Ferry .69 cal rifled musket I own and used daily at Harpers Ferry NHP as a display and demonstration weapon. Even though it was disassembled and cleaned and oiled daily, the only area on the armory white (polished steel) barrel that hasn't developed patinia is under the barrel bands. This was a weapon that visitors were allowed to heft and examine daily to feel the weight under my control. If 4 years use can cause such wear, what will hundreds of people handling the artifacts in a museum like the Patton do to those irreplaceable objects?
There might be a small justification for allowing visitors to touch a tank or a gun that there are duplicates of in the collection and the "touchee feelie" unit is determined to be surplus to the collection's needs, but the deterioration will be accellerated on that unit. There are acids in human skin oil that are very deleterious to artifacts over time, as there are UV rays that damage fabrics, so the balance has to be reached in favor of preservation
versus need to handle, but the artifacts do have to be displayed and rotated to maintain their condition and encourage the visitor's interest. If you want to see touchy feelie, go to an MVPA convention and touch one of the sacred handger and trailer queens, the reaction from the owbner is likely to be worse then that of a collections curator......

Just foood for thought,

Cheers,

Kyle F. McGrogan

Besides which, not everyone is as honest as your or I, I have seen the oddest things get stolen by visitors.......

 

[greenjeepster]

First the national Boy Scout museum moved from Murray, now the Patton museum is moving from Ft. Knox, I wonder what's next?

I vote we move the state capital from Frankfort to Nome Alaska.

Okay I have to respond with an off topic lame joke.

The politicians in Frankfort wanted to put in a new fountain so they put the job up for bids:

A contractor from eastern KY submits a bid of 3000.00. The politicians want it broken down so the contractor breaks it down as 1000 for materials, 1000 to pay his men, and 1000 for him.

A contractor from western Ky submits a bid of 6000.00 and he breaks it down as 2000 for materials, 2000 to pay his men and 2000 for him.

A contractor from Frankfort submits a bid of 9000.00. The politicians say so how does that break down and the contractor reply's. 3000.00 for me 3000.00 for you and we pay the guy from eastern Kentucky to do the work.

 

[maddawg308]

That area of Kentucky has been pretty built up the last couple decades. By in the day, it was wilderness. However, that whole strip from Louisville down Dixie Highway to Radcliff and E-town has made the whole area very crowded. I heard instances of several depleted-uranium penetrators from the M1 Abrams "escaping" the range and hitting a couple structures off base. I can't remember exactly when that was, but I remember hearing about it in the late 1990s. When the base was built, stray rounds escaping the base probably wasn't as big an issue.

Perhaps Benning has a better tank gunnery range setup with impact areas well inside the base perimeter, to alleviate any damage or injury that could be caused by errant projectiles.

Just a thought.

 

[KyCUCVs]

My understanding is that depleted uranium (DU) cannot be fired in the US without the permission of the Atomic Energy Commision due to their radioactive nature.

Most M1 tankers had never fired a service (Combat) round until the were deployed for Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF). No tank service rounds (SABOT or HEAT) are fired at Fort Knox, though artillery service rounds are routinely fired.

A tanker I went to Master Gunner School with told me when the fired their first DU round in the desert in prep for Desert Storm, it was so much more powerful than training rounds, it lifted the front of the tank off of the ground. No comparison with training rounds.

Farmers and landowners in the Fort Knox area do on occasion bring expended tank training rounds to Range Control. They are inert, no explosives. Attached a picture of a SABOT training round projectile that was returned. It currently sits on my bookshelf.

 

[B3.3T]

That makes sense. Thanks for sharing.

 

[papabear]

Well...it's true about the Armor Museum coming here to Ft Benning...has already started.

One of our scouts near Atlanta called me yesterday and said there were 11 old tanks headed south on I185!
I waited until I thought they had enough time to get down this way and then sat up an observation post armed with my trusty camera. The rascals bypassed me someway!!
I called a friend that works on Ft Benning and pretty much has free reign in most areas but as noon he had not found them.

I led a three man scout mission in search of the elusive armor and found them at the third suspected location we checked!

This is just a start and we got to talk to the feller in charge of making the move happen.

Here's a few pics of what arrived yesterday:

 

[papabear]

A couple more pics:

 

[wreckerman893]

Excellent "Snooping and Pooping" Soldier.
We expect the intell to continue. Drive on!!!!!!!