Wrecker Driver Towing Home War Trophy

[blackdog]

 

[maddawg308]

Where'd you find this pic?

BTW - that haul is a Soviet-made MT-LB amphibious armored personnel carrier.

 

[blackdog]

I found it in my camera!

We (volunteers at the Marine Corps Mechanized Museum on Camp Pendleton) removed the MTLB from where it had been sitting for about 10 years to our storage yard. It is apparently going to eventually call Fort Irwin home.

It is not in that bad of condition, the interior is actually pretty nice and I think it was last fired up two or three years ago.

I'm somewhat kind of a fan of Russian equipment, I think I might try putting some batteries and fuel in it this week...

 

[halftrack]

Blackdog,

Why are you not driving the new MVTR 7 ton wrecker? Is that the museum's 5 ton? Are ya'll Marines or civilian volunteer's? Just curious.

PS - You need to save the M151A2 at MCAS Miramar at their museum. Is just sitting outside.

 

[Dieselsmoke]

Brian, you guys get to play with all the cool stuff. We missed ya at Tower, but I wasn't there long this year.

 

[blackdog]

The M936 belongs to the Mechanized Museum and is being driven by Jim King. He is in the Marine Corps, I'm not. He has access to MTVR's but there is just too much paperwork to fill out to use one, and he's required to wear helmet, flak jacket, and uniform while driving/operating it where as when using an M936 it's just "get in and go".

If I could "save" that M151A2 I would, but I don't think they'd let go of it. It was a FAC version too. MCAS Miramar has about three or four M151A2's spread amongst the base...

 

[rmgill]

You know what the sad thing is. Most of these trophies will then spend the next 50 years rotting away at places like Aberdeen because the military can't be bothered to properly preserve these things. I just learned there are two British Comet Tanks sitting in the woods at Fort Mead. There's next to no examples of this kind of tank in the US and the US Army had two and left them to rot in a field. The only place that seems interested in actual preservation is the Patton Museum. The guys at Aberdeen could give a rat's ass.

 

[maddawg308]

Time for a covert extraction! Unfortunately, Ryan, most of the neat stuff sitting in the fields at these military bases are hard targets, or forgotten relics that noone, not even DRMO cares about. If the unlikely event comes around when they decide to clean up an area of a base, then they will tow it out to a range and blow it up, or cut it up for scrap metal.

Ryan - do you happen to know exactly where these Comets are? Would like to drive up and take a couple pics....

 

[blackdog]

Yes, you're totally correct, I hate to see this one potentially going to Fort Irwin, it is in such good shape, it would not be difficult at all to give it a coat of paint and some fresh fuel. This is probably the best condition war trophy on the entire base. About every other vehicle is rotting away and no one is doing anything to stop it.

However, it is difficult enough to maintain our own US vehicles at this museum, try maintaining 50 vehicles with no funding.

If you find rotting Iraqi stuff disheartening, just check out what was allowed to happen to this Japanese "Ka-Tsu" landing craft...

http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/japamphib1.jpg
http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/japamphib2.jpg
http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/japamphib3.jpg

Just as bad are these one of a kind Marine Corps landing craft prototypes that are also rotting away.

http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/aaav1.jpg
http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/hydrofoillarc5.jpg
http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/m76ottertrailer.jpg
http://www.surfacezero.com/sdmvcc/faye/stout105amphib1.jpg

They should have never been allowed to deteriorate to this condition in the first place, and now myself and only a few other volunteers are stuck with this stuff to restore by ourselves with no funding? Chances are that they will never be restored. I suppose that it's a little bit better than the fate that two of the larger prototypes met when they left the Amphib museum on Camp Pendleton in the early 90's, they were cut up and sold for scrap aluminum. Can you believe that? Pieces of HISTORY that are CUT UP AND SOLD FOR SCRAP!!!

I could go on and on for hours about how screwed up the system is but I will spare you all from it...

Just remember, if you want to see something done about it, you need to see about doing it yourself otherwise it will never get done, or at least that's what I've come to find out...

 

[maddawg308]

Why not send those pics, along with a very well written letter, off to the Patton Armor Museum? They have been known to send the flatbeds to rescue oddball military items when they are made known to them. I remember in the late 1970s when Army Reserve magazine posted an article about "Identify this Tank" and the winner gets $50 or some stuff like that. The pics was of a T-28 heavy tank, only two build and ARM said that both were destroyed in testing. NExt issue - some reader sent a pic of the T-28 tank in, that he took the week before sitting behind a shed at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and said "Wrong!". Patton Armor Museum quickly sent a railcar to rescue the last remaining T-28 tank in the world, and it proudly sits in front of the museum to this day....here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:T28_Front_Quarter.jpg

 

[emmado22]

There is a very nice display at Ft Irwin with various Soviet armor. They do maintain it, and used to drive it arround.

 

[rmgill]

The curator of the Patton museum and the other private collectors and museums around the country are the ones that are best able to take care of this stuff. I spent part of friday, crawling around the land prototype for the new USMC expeditionary Amphibious Vehicle. It's big inside and looking at the prototype, I could see how it was designed to be water planeing. That and another prototype are up at VMMV awaiting conservation and restoration.

 

[SierraHotel]

I know this is a little off topic, but there is an F-4A Phantom II (one of the first half dozen) just sitting at MCAS Quantico, rotting.
I’d be more than happy to refurbish it out of my own funds if someone could hook me up with a Chinook, CH-53 or Osprey to do the heavy lift. I promise to provide it with a proper concrete pedestal and appropriate lighting. Heck, Haymarket is just a stones throw from Quantico.
I tried with the guys at HMX-1, but it was during the Clinton Regime…and well…they were a bit frazzled…you know, with Hillary throwing things at Bill and all…