Tanks in storage/range target @ Elgin Air Force Base(Flickr)

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

Not wanting to duplicate content if someone already has this but I visited the storage area on Elgin Air Force Base Florida several weeks ago. I was amazed at the volumes of tanks, apc, anti-aircraft (conventional and guided armaments), recovery, and self propelled artillery on site.

Most everything was mid 1950s on up other than Perishing/Pattons and the four M74 recovery vehicles. Several Soviet items T-72 (I think) and a couple of armored cars (one tagged with an Army Museum tag) plus two Russian trucks one sporting rocket launcher system.

Some weird modifications to the turrets of a line M46Pattons? that were outside of the fenced storage. Made me think that the turret rears were cut off to present a more Soviet tank profile.

And then there was the "salvage" area where the expended range targets were apparently salvaged for scrap. Saw some M113s with extensive damage there too along with rows of hulls and turrets of the expended M46/M47 plus other scrap vehicles.

I only mention this because there seems to be more interest in documenting range targets of interesting types more now.

I will try to post the few pictures taken with my older phone in the near term. However this storage area is also visible from Google maps. I have to transfer my pictures to my laptop and will get them here.

mikek92888 · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Oct 15, 2006 Posts: 50

Is this the location you are talking about: Latitude N30.5075 Longitude W-86.59

L.Delsing · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 960

Interesting!! Looking forward to your pictures
Regards,
Lesley

1meandad · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Sep 10, 2015 Posts: 11

I found this online

Joe_D

Would love to just spend a day there collecting SN's and RN's along with a few shots documenting their existence before being destroyed,

Rick_Eshleman

I found 2 areas of target vehicles West of Eglin AFB. 30degrees30'20.87"N by 86 degrees46'24.17"W

30degrees30'46.78"N by 86degrees35'42.19"W (triangle shaped area).

I used Google Earth, clarity is better than Bing. Dated though, both 3/28/2013. There's a large quantity of various AFVs there.

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

fineartamerica.com/fea...ndley.html Pershing.

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

A photo of a lot of M60s here.
www.airfields-freeman...._Eglin.htm

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

Sorry for the delay. I transferred the pictures from my old work phone to a hard drive prior to returning the work phone when that job shutdown. My personal phone at that time was older than my work phone!

Then life happened (covid, moving, new job, etc) and I've now finally transferred from hard drive to new phone about 2 months ago over Christmas time.

I have to down size pictures to 800 pixels x 800 pixels per the instructions because I could not attach and save to the posting.

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

[quote="mikek92888"]Is this the location you are talking about: Latitude N30.5075 Longitude W-86.59[/quote]

Yes. That's the scrap out yard for the vehicle's coming off or getting prepared for the ranges. There were some m113 that looked like Swiss cheese along with burnt and shredded civilian vehicle's. I guess they remove fluids and select stuff from vehicle's going to the range. But this area is fenced and had low level activity of people when we went. We took pictures from our van but there wasn't much to see because it was parts of tanks

The future range tanks parked on the sides of the former runways were not fenced in although there was another fenced area. This 2nd fenced area had specialty vehicle's including historic 1950s-1960s-1970s AFV vehicle's and even one or two soviet block vehicles. There were 4 or 5 or 6 M32 Sherman based recovery vehicles there which makes sense for these being used longer term as range recovery vehicles versus front line use after these were outdated. There were a bunch of M60s there too. There was no activity or people in these areas when we went. We were able to drive our rental mini van out here without difficulty through by keeping on the main tracks.

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

[quote="Pzkpfw-e"]A photo of a lot of M60s here.
www.airfields-freeman....tm[/quote]

I think that the M60s were behind the fenced area. We didn't see aircraft scrap on the fields just the boat load of Pershings with rear turrets cut off and plated over.

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

Ok,
I just posted the March 2020 pictures to Flickr unlocked and all should be able to see and download them.

flic.kr/s/aHBqjzFR2Z

Hopefully you will be able to identify some of the 1950s to 1970s oddball A.F.V. on-site there. Sorry for the quality of the pictures because I was using a Samsung S8 that I had through my work and just popping off photos plus the majority of the interesting stuff was behind a chain link fence. If someone would bring an 8' folding ladder they could get much better pictures of the equipment by being above the fence height.

Buq-Buq · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 86

Holy cow! There is an XM800T Scout chassis in the fence!!

Crying or Very sad

Mark

[edited to correct spelling]

econobiker · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jun 13, 2009 Posts: 7

[quote="econobiker"][quote="mikek92888"]Is this the location you are talking about: Latitude N30.5075 Longitude W-86.59[/quote]

There were 4 or 5 or 6 M32 Sherman based recovery vehicles there which makes sense for these being used longer term as range recovery vehicles versus front line use after these were outdated.[/quote]

Probably the 4 units are M74 units not the earlier M32 version plus perhaps an M60 based recovery unit. And the gutted civilian vehicle's for realistic range targets and a helicopter body behind the fence.

I'd be interested in finding out the model of the green tanks with the turret rears cut off and plated over. I'm not astute enough on differences between M46 versus M26 plus the extremely rusty versions behind the fenced area. Anyone?

Buq-Buq · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 86

econobiker:

The tanks with the rear of their turrets cut off and plated over are M47s. I have no idea why someone would cut off the back of a turret like that (ignoring Israeli M50 and M51 tanks, of course) and then go to the trouble of plating over the gapping hole.

I didn’t see any “M60 based recovery unit” in any of the pictures. However, I did see an M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle that had its boom raised, which might have been mistaken for a recovery vehicle. Just Google “M728 CEV” and see if that is the vehicle you are asking about.

I was rather shocked to see the turret-less XM800T chassis in your pictures. I think there were only a bout a half-dozen of those built. If I remember correctly, one still belongs to BAE Systems in the San Jose area (in running order. Apparently one also is part of the National Armor & Cavalry Heritage Foundation’s collection at Fort Benning, but when I was there in 2017 I didn’t see it. There was a chassis in Danbury MA . . . possible at that museum that went belly-up, where they put that XM803 (or was it an MBT-70) prototype to the torch? I wonder if that is the hull that is shown in your pictures.

That’s all for now.

Mark