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Trevor, I was in Solbiate Olona 10 days ago but, once again, there was very little time, and I've spend most of it on the L6 and Sherman Dozer (see dedicated thread). I failed to check the rebuilt plate for the M47, but I've took some additional shots of it. Let me know if you are working on it and would like a copy.

Massimo

- Tanklord

The M47 that was in the Louisiana Museum of Military History, which later was transferred to Camp Shelby, MS, was an Italian rebuild. It had bothe the plate with all the little squares and the plate with ORMC.

Thanks for that - I'll return to Camp Shelby at a later date (watch this space).

- Kurt_Laughlin

The casting marks on the M47 turret (Pittsburgh Steel Foundry, Scullin Steel, CFM-Wheeling, and General Steel Castings, are the ones I recall.) indicate only the foundry that cast the turret, nothing else. The only tank producer that made any cast armor in the period 1940-1965 was Ford, whose GAD symbol can be seen on numerous small armor items on their M4A3s. (They also produced bogie brackets for other assemblers, but I don't believe these were armor steel.)

KL

I wondered if that might be the case. I guess then that no correlation can be discerned between turrets and hulls (e.g. Pittsburgh turrets always went to Detroit, Scullin Steel turrets always went to American Locomotive)? It's not necessarily a problem, as I also try to track turrets anyway, where they are made independently of hulls. Examples are the Tiger I and II (turret manufacturer listed/linked to in Location History, and also marked on the map if you zoom in far enough), e.g.:

Unique ID 72: Bovington Tiger
Unique ID 216: Saumur King Tiger

Whether I can manage to do this for US tanks remains to be seen, but I will try.

- Dontos

I went thru M47 Photos & noticed that the Shepardsville Ky M47 does have the 'rain gutters'



However it does not seem to have the Italian Rebuild data plate....

Trevor
Due to the proximity to Ft Knox, perhaps this may be one of your mystery M47's (#3 or #4).

Just a thought
Don

That would be neat - however, all mine had the cylindrical muzzle brake. Nice pics, though - I'll try to do a write-up for this M47 as soon as I can.

- TrevorLarkum

Thanks - that has prompted me to add an entry for this one too:

VFW Post 9473, Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Updated with Mike's photo:

Unique ID 1329: Reynoldsburg M47

- TrevorLarkum

- ShermanWasRight

If it helps any, here's the rear plate from the M47 in Reynoldsburg, OH (no SN though):

Thanks - that has prompted me to add an entry for this one too:

VFW Post 9473, Reynoldsburg, Ohio

(Unique ID 1329: Reynoldsburg M47)

Do you have any general pictures of it that I could use?


[Everyone else - thanks for your posts, I'm trying to work through them in order.]

I've got more, too, if you need them.

- Dontos

I went thru M47 Photos & noticed that the Shepardsville Ky M47 does have the 'rain gutters'

...

I have now created an entry for Shepherdsville, including your pics of the M47, thanks:

Location ID 67700: VFW Post 5710, Shepherdsville

(Unique ID 1330: Shepherdsville M47)

- ShermanWasRight

- TrevorLarkum

Do you have any general pictures of it that I could use?

I've got more, too, if you need them.

Yes, please! Ideally send the originals to me by email (trevor-larkum at armourarchive.co.uk) so I can process them for the website, but you can post them here if you prefer (though they always end up rather low resolution that way).

- TrevorLarkum

- Kurt_Laughlin

The casting marks on the M47 turret (Pittsburgh Steel Foundry, Scullin Steel, CFM-Wheeling, and General Steel Castings, are the ones I recall.) indicate only the foundry that cast the turret, nothing else. The only tank producer that made any cast armor in the period 1940-1965 was Ford, whose GAD symbol can be seen on numerous small armor items on their M4A3s. (They also produced bogie brackets for other assemblers, but I don't believe these were armor steel.)

KL

I wondered if that might be the case. I guess then that no correlation can be discerned between turrets and hulls (e.g. Pittsburgh turrets always went to Detroit, Scullin Steel turrets always went to American Locomotive)?

Theoretically you could do that, but we don't know who made which tanks yet . . . If that was known we could then see which tanks had which turrets.

KL

- C_Sherman

Trevor,

Are you tracking two tanks at Chiriaco Summit? I have pics of a green one and a brown MERDC one there.

Yes please!

- C_Sherman

Joe,

That M47 was still by the motorpool as of late 2008, although it's an 11ACR motorpool now. I have pics of it too.

Chuck

and again!

- C_Sherman

Here is the Barstow tank in April of 2008:



...

Enjoy!

Chuck

Many thanks - pictures added and text expanded:

Unique ID 1328: Barstow M47

Since the Barstow tank came from Fort Irwin I needed to write up an entry for that location - that's now done, though it's really just a placeholder until I can get pictures of all the tanks there. For now it's just got an M47 (using a photo on Picasa with a CreativeCommons licence):

Location ID 54300: Fort Irwin, CA

That has allowed me to add Fort Irwin as an entry/link in the Location History list and on the map for the Barstow M47:

Unique ID 1328: Barstow M47 (updated)

- ShermanWasRight

I've got more, too, if you need them.

That's a good picture of the Reynoldsburg M47. I notice it links back to your Photobucket account with more pictures of the M47 so, with regard to your offer, I'll get to work adding those pictures tomorrow, assuming you're happy with that. They also give more background information on the location, so I'll be able to extend the write-up too.

I have extended the entries for Fort Irwin, including some more tanks from Neil's USA register, in order to tie in with some photo's I have been able to use, to include another M47, and to add in some interesting details from Jeff Button from other threads on this forum:

Location ID 54300: Fort Irwin, CA

These details include the fact that the first Irwin M47 had a Cittadella upgrade plate, so I have researched and written up this company (and added a link to the M47's Location History and map):

Location ID 5090: Officine de Cittadella, Italy

That led me back to Caserta, which is linked to from one of the Fort Knox M47's. I had written up the tank base/barracks at Caserta but now I have found out about the workshops at Caserta which is actually where the M47 would have gone, so I have changed its link to this new company:

Location ID 5780: Officine Fiore, Caserta, Italy

What's interesting is that both of these companies originally worked on maintaining M47s and other tanks and later mostly concentrated on making railway rolling stock, before both become part of the same Firema group, which appears to Italy's largest railway manufacturer. What's depressing is to learn that just last month it went into administration. I only know what I've just read, but I get the impression that the Italian rail industry is in something approaching meltdown. That appears to be reinforced by what I see 'on the ground' - look at this link, first at the main picture (the most recent from Bing Maps) and then at the map top right (the current one from Google)!

preservedtanks.com/Loc...oryId=5090

They say a picture paints a thousand words!

Meanwhile, I'm going to start researching the ORMeC plates that have been mentioned here a number of times.

- Massimo_Foti

Trevor, I was in Solbiate Olona 10 days ago but, once again, there was very little time, and I've spend most of it on the L6 and Sherman Dozer (see dedicated thread). I failed to check the rebuilt plate for the M47, but I've took some additional shots of it. Let me know if you are working on it and would like a copy.

Yes, all of them please - I will get to them as soon as possible. The current irony is that I'm working on writing up Fort Knox and M47s, but mostly spending my time researching locations in Italy!

Trevor

Here is the Stithton Traffic Circle static Display M47







I'm not sure this is the Italian Rebuild Data Plate, but it looks to be a good location. I guess it got taken off at some point.


SN for this tank is confirmed from the front tow lugs as being SN 2796.

Regards
Don

Three hi-res shots are available here:
www.massimocorner.com/...lbiate.zip

Massimo

Don, Massimo - thanks guys, I'll get to those pictures as soon as I can.

Massimo, I came across the following Wikipedia page when writing up Caserta but I can't remember if we discussed it. It looks to me, from the way the author has included the photo's, that there may be preserved M47, M60 and Leopard tanks at Caserta. See what you think:

it.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Corazzate

That school moved to Lecce, carrying along quite a bunch of cool AFVs. Including a P40 (only two worldwide) and a Lancia Lince (three worldwide).

At one point the P40 was restored to running order, but not with its original engine. Check Pierre-Olivier's PDF for some info.

This list isn't up to date, but should give you an idea:
digilander.libero.it/p...o_02.htm#6

Massimo

So you think those pictures were taken at Lecce? I noticed they are dated this year. Have you any plans to visit?

The pictures are intented to illustrate the tanks used by school. It's hard to tell where they were taken.

I would love to visit the tanks in Lecce, but, apart from the distance (1100 km), it's very hard to get inside Italian Army's barracks.

Massimo

Back at last - I have now written up ORMEC on PTC:

Location ID 5340: ORMEC, Bologna

This gives a background link for the Reynoldsburg M47, plus other ORMEC M47s as I add them.

It took a bit longer than I planned as I made some enhancements to the website in parallel - the most obvious one being that location pages, like that one, are now standalone with all photographs and information on the one page. I have also added information for each tank and location on when it was added to the database and last edited (and went back and added that information retrospectively for the 1300 tanks and 400 locations already online!), plus tweaked the code so I can override the date ordering of photo's if I want a particular one as the 'headline' picture for a tank or location.

- Dontos

Trevor

Here is the Stithton Traffic Circle static Display M47

...

SN for this tank is confirmed from the front tow lugs as being SN 2796.

Regards
Don

Added, thanks:

Unique ID 1325: Stithton M47

- Massimo_Foti

Three hi-res shots are available here:
www.massimocorner.com/...lbiate.zip

Massimo

Added, thanks:

Unique ID 1069: Solbiate M47