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Found these while 'digging around'....





This is way too cool...!!!



More to follow....
Regards
Don

Ever wonder what an M551 Looks like after it gets air dropped.....? Without any 'chutes'....!?









Regards
Don

Good stuff, Don. I think I'll pass those along to Vic Pitts, another Armor Board alumni and on the early M551 tests. He might actually have been there for that last incident.

Gosh, I wonder if anyone got in trouble for that air-drop incident?

Don, that third photo from your first set of three is very similar to one used on the cover of an Armor Center publication called “Armor/Cavalry Orientation”. I was looking at it just a couple of weeks ago, digging through a foot locker, looking for manuals. The picture on the cover of the magazine is very similar, but not exactly the same. The vehicle* and camera positions look the same, as do the trees in the background. I imagine that they would want a number of attempts to get a shot like that just right. Major General William Desobry, the then-current commander of the Armor Center, gives the address at the beginning of the magazine, so that should give a sense of the time-frame of the magazine. I would imagine that would have been the early- to mid-1970s. I wouldn’t have had a clue who he was at the time (and wouldn’t have recognized his name until I was years out of the army).

Great pictures. Do you know any background to the air-drop accident?




Mark




* The bumper number is visible in the “Armor/Cavalry Orientation” version of the picture: it is “T179” (without the quotes). Also, some text appears to be centered on the front lower hull; although partially obscured, it looks like it says “Test Operation” (again, without the quotes). I can’t make out any unit code due to the muzzle blast obscuration.

- Buq-Buq

Gosh, I wonder if anyone got in trouble for that air-drop incident?

Don, that third photo from your first set of three is very similar to one used on the cover of an Armor Center publication called “Armor/Cavalry Orientation”. I was looking at it just a couple of weeks ago, digging through a foot locker, looking for manuals. The picture on the cover of the magazine is very similar, but not exactly the same. The vehicle* and camera positions look the same, as do the trees in the background. I imagine that they would want a number of attempts to get a shot like that just right. Major General William Desobry, the then-current commander of the Armor Center, gives the address at the beginning of the magazine, so that should give a sense of the time-frame of the magazine. I would imagine that would have been the early- to mid-1970s. I wouldn’t have had a clue who he was at the time (and wouldn’t have recognized his name until I was years out of the army).

Great pictures. Do you know any background to the air-drop accident?




Mark




* The bumper number is visible in the “Armor/Cavalry Orientation” version of the picture: it is “T179” (without the quotes). Also, some text appears to be centered on the front lower hull; although partially obscured, it looks like it says “Test Operation” (again, without the quotes). I can’t make out any unit code due to the muzzle blast obscuration.

Mark,

Vic Pitts, referenced above and a friend of mine and Mark Hollway's was a witness to that incident as he preceded me at the Armor Board by about five years and has provided us with many interesting Board pictures from that time. He did not have pics of that incident in his collection, however, all of which I have scanned. I have seen the film of the incident, as it was very popular viewing in the Armor Board Photo and Graphics Branch.
I do have copies of Vic's pics of a successful Sheridan drop.

The drop was witnessed by numerous dignitaries and there was live loudspeaker announcement describing the demonstration. When no chutes opened, there was a protracted silence, followed by the announcer saying something to the effect of "scratch one M551", according to Vic. The microphone was apparently switched off at that point.

BTW, the markings are likely "test operation" (all our vehicles were so marked) and probably "TEC *triangle* EBD for "Test and Evaluation Command, Engineer Board", the short form for USAARENBD or "United States Army Armor and Engineer Board".

Speaking of MG Desobry (a tough customer who had been in some deep kim-chi at Bastogne, having had an eye popped out of it's socket by a German tank shell in a house in which he'd taken cover behind an armoire, which he replaced into it's socket prior to being taken prisoner, IIRC), he was the Ft. Knox installation CO in the early '70's up until he retired and Donn Starry succeeded him in late '73. Desobry and some BG named "Patton" were the principle signatories to my M60A2 IPT course training certificate.

Do you think you could scan and send me the relevant portions of that magazine?

FROM VIC PITTS:

This is Pilot #12 of the XM551 'Sheridan' tank after airdrop tests in 1965 at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
"From left to right, SP/5 Andy Grizzle, some LTC from Ft. Bragg, myself SP/5 Vic Pitts, Pilot of C130 that dropped the XM551,LTC Fitzpatrick our project officer, SP/ 5"Red" Sowalsky, and SSG Dan Cisco. This picture was taken at Rolling Forks Tank Range at Knox, and where all air drops were done. The drops were done from 1500 feet and it was also on this range the first air drop failure happened with one of the first 5 production confirmatory test vehicles. When the vehicle rolled out of the C130, the 8 drop chutes just rolled off of the vehicle and she hit the ground engine first and the back half of the vehicle was in the ground, She had ammo on board as all were had, and she burned for about 2 or 3 days and it wasn't safe until EOD said so becauxe of the ammo." ~Vic Pitts

Cool stuff

There are many more images of the 'splashed' M551. Included is a shot of a number of main gun rounds that seemed to have been removed from the crater.

Talk about a 'lawn dart'...!?

Regards
Don

Doug:

I sent you a PM.




Mark

Don, Can I post these to my Flickr page with credit to you and/or the museum and Army? I have an M551 group at www.flickr.com/groups/m551/

sure, no problem

Regards
Don