±Recent Visitors

Recent Visitors to Com-Central!

±User Info-big


Welcome Anonymous

Nickname
Password

Membership:
Latest: HighestAce
New Today: 0
New Yesterday: 0
Overall: 6648

People Online:
Members: 0
Visitors: 273
Total: 273
Who Is Where:
 Visitors:
01: News
02: Home
03: Community Forums
04: CPGlang
05: Member Screenshots
06: Community Forums
07: Community Forums
08: Photo Gallery
09: Home
10: Member Screenshots
11: Community Forums
12: Home
13: CPGlang
14: CPGlang
15: CPGlang
16: Home
17: Community Forums
18: CPGlang
19: Home
20: CPGlang
21: Home
22: CPGlang
23: CPGlang
24: Home
25: CPGlang
26: CPGlang
27: Home
28: CPGlang
29: CPGlang
30: CPGlang
31: Home
32: Home
33: CPGlang
34: CPGlang
35: Home
36: CPGlang
37: Home
38: CPGlang
39: CPGlang
40: CPGlang
41: CPGlang
42: Home
43: Downloads
44: Community Forums
45: Community Forums
46: Community Forums
47: Community Forums
48: Community Forums
49: Home
50: Community Forums
51: Photo Gallery
52: Community Forums
53: CPGlang
54: Community Forums
55: CPGlang
56: Community Forums
57: Community Forums
58: CPGlang
59: CPGlang
60: Community Forums
61: Home
62: Home
63: Home
64: Home
65: Photo Gallery
66: Community Forums
67: News
68: CPGlang
69: Community Forums
70: Community Forums
71: Home
72: Community Forums
73: Community Forums
74: Community Forums
75: Home
76: Community Forums
77: Home
78: Home
79: Community Forums
80: Community Forums
81: Community Forums
82: Community Forums
83: Community Forums
84: Community Forums
85: Home
86: CPGlang
87: CPGlang
88: Home
89: CPGlang
90: Community Forums
91: Community Forums
92: Home
93: Community Forums
94: Home
95: Community Forums
96: Community Forums
97: Community Forums
98: Community Forums
99: Community Forums
100: Downloads
101: Community Forums
102: Community Forums
103: Community Forums
104: CPGlang
105: Photo Gallery
106: Community Forums
107: Downloads
108: News
109: Community Forums
110: Home
111: Home
112: Community Forums
113: Community Forums
114: Downloads
115: News
116: Community Forums
117: Community Forums
118: Home
119: Community Forums
120: Community Forums
121: Home
122: Your Account
123: Community Forums
124: Statistics
125: Community Forums
126: Community Forums
127: Community Forums
128: Home
129: Community Forums
130: Community Forums
131: Community Forums
132: Home
133: Community Forums
134: Home
135: Community Forums
136: Community Forums
137: Photo Gallery
138: Community Forums
139: Community Forums
140: Community Forums
141: Home
142: Community Forums
143: Community Forums
144: Community Forums
145: Community Forums
146: Community Forums
147: Home
148: Community Forums
149: Member Screenshots
150: CPGlang
151: Community Forums
152: Community Forums
153: Community Forums
154: Downloads
155: Community Forums
156: Community Forums
157: Community Forums
158: Community Forums
159: Community Forums
160: Community Forums
161: CPGlang
162: CPGlang
163: CPGlang
164: CPGlang
165: Home
166: CPGlang
167: Home
168: Community Forums
169: Home
170: CPGlang
171: CPGlang
172: CPGlang
173: CPGlang
174: Home
175: Home
176: Home
177: Community Forums
178: Community Forums
179: Community Forums
180: Community Forums
181: Community Forums
182: Home
183: Community Forums
184: Community Forums
185: Home
186: Home
187: Home
188: Community Forums
189: Community Forums
190: Community Forums
191: Home
192: Home
193: Community Forums
194: Home
195: Community Forums
196: Statistics
197: Community Forums
198: Home
199: Community Forums
200: Community Forums
201: Home
202: Home
203: Community Forums
204: Community Forums
205: Community Forums
206: Community Forums
207: Community Forums
208: Community Forums
209: CPGlang
210: Home
211: Community Forums
212: Community Forums
213: Community Forums
214: Community Forums
215: Community Forums
216: Home
217: Community Forums
218: Photo Gallery
219: Community Forums
220: Downloads
221: Home
222: Community Forums
223: Community Forums
224: Community Forums
225: Community Forums
226: Community Forums
227: Community Forums
228: Community Forums
229: Community Forums
230: Community Forums
231: Community Forums
232: Home
233: Community Forums
234: Supporters
235: Home
236: Photo Gallery
237: Home
238: Community Forums
239: Home
240: Home
241: Home
242: Downloads
243: Community Forums
244: Community Forums
245: Your Account
246: Home
247: Home
248: Community Forums
249: Community Forums
250: Community Forums
251: Member Screenshots
252: Community Forums
253: Community Forums
254: Community Forums
255: Community Forums
256: Community Forums
257: Community Forums
258: Community Forums
259: Home
260: Community Forums
261: Downloads
262: Downloads
263: Downloads
264: Community Forums
265: Home
266: Photo Gallery
267: Statistics
268: Community Forums
269: Home
270: Community Forums
271: Community Forums
272: Photo Gallery
273: Community Forums

Staff Online:

No staff members are online!
The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee
The AFV ASSOCIATION was formed in 1964 to support the thoughts and research of all those interested in Armored Fighting Vehicles and related topics, such as AFV drawings. The emphasis has always been on sharing information and communicating with other members of similar interests; e.g. German armor, Japanese AFVs, or whatever.
Post new topic    Reply to topic    Printer Friendly Page     Forum Index ›  AFV News Discussion Board

View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
the_shadock
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: May 27, 2006
Posts: 2865
Location: Normandy, France
PostPosted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:16 pm
Post subject: The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee

Here I found some informations about the Aberdeen museum being moved to Fort Lee.
Who can confirm this information?

www.wehrmacht-awards.c...p?t=163961

I hope they will be able to move the Ferdinant and the Jagdtiger.. they will maybe have some fun with it..

Pierre-Olivier
Back to top
View user's profile Send e-mail Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
Neil_Baumgardner
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 24, 2006
Posts: 3942
Location: Arlington, VA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:44 pm
Post subject: Re: The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee

Pierre-Olivier, thanks for posting the link, I hadnt seen that article yet. Below is a link to the best summary I have come across of the situation, we've been discussing it for some time actually.

www.com-central.net/in...pic&t=3355

Here's a link to some pics I took of where the museum might be located:
www.com-central.net/in...pic&t=3858

Neil

By MARK YOST
The Wall Street Journal
May 25, 2006; Page D8
Aberdeen, Md.
When the Base Realignment and Closure Commission announces that your military base has to close, it's usually greeted as bad news. Jobs will be lost, families uprooted; the environmental cleanup costs can be enormous. But in the case of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, home to the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum (www.ordmusfound.org), it's a blessing in disguise.
Opened in 1925, the museum was initially supplied with weapons from around the world that were tested at the proving ground. Once established, the museum was able to build an impressive collection of U.S., allied and enemy weapons.
Some of the many tanks the museum has on display.
Its shortcoming is that the museum is squeezed into an undersized building on a post more often associated with developing new weapons than preserving old ones. As a result, museum curator Jack Atwater, who has a doctorate in history from Duke and has been here for 17 years, can display only 5% of the collection he oversees. That's a shame, because he has much to show the museum's visitors, who number about 35,000 a year.
Even if you've never been to the base, the museum is easy to find. It's the small building in the middle of a field surrounded by about three dozen tanks, cannons and artillery pieces. Such as the 500-ton coastal defense gun. It and other 100-ton objects will be a logistical nightmare to move. They are too heavy for the interstate, so Mr. Atwater will either move them by rail or float them by barge to the proposed new museum site at Fort Lee outside Petersburg, Va. There's also the 280mm "Atomic Cannon," a Cold War weapon that was designed to fire tactical (that means close-range) nuclear warheads at the Soviets as they theoretically advanced from Eastern Europe into Germany.
In the tank department, which makes up the bulk of the large items on display, there's the 30-ton 1917 Mark IV, one of the first tanks ever made (and one of only three left in the world). The World War I British tank had a top speed of 3.75 miles an hour and traveled two miles on a gallon of gas. There's also a World War II-vintage Sherman tank. As the placard notes: "The M4 was the principal U.S. combat tank in all combat zones for most of WW II. Though undergunned (75mm) and under armored compared to German tanks, the Shermans prevailed by their numerical superiority (estimated 50,000)."
The Atomic Cannon, a Cold War weapon that was designed to protect Germany from a Soviet invasion.
While this collection is mostly made up of U.S. weapons, many of our former enemies are well represented. There's a 1943 German Panzerkampfwagen V Panther, "considered the best of the German WW II tanks," the museum tells us. "It had superior firepower and mobility over allied tanks of the same period."
The fact that many of these pieces have been sitting in a field for decades presents a problem.
"No one's ever thought to do regular maintenance on them," Mr. Atwater said during a recent tour. "Most of these pieces, many of them the only ones of their kind left in the world, are literally rotting where they sit."
So Mr. Atwater has set up a workshop nearby where many of the tanks and other large pieces -- he has 240 of them -- are going through an extensive rehabilitation process. He also uses the shop to refabricate new additions to the museum that come to him in less than pristine condition.
Recently, a Russian T-55 tank was sitting outside the shop, ready to go back on display. Typical of the problems Mr. Atwater must remedy, it had layers and layers of lead-based paint. Mr. Atwater's armor artisans pull these mechanized monsters into a special booth and blast them with water pressurized to 43,000 pounds per square inch. That removes the paint (and could remove your leg, Mr. Atwater says with a chuckle), exposing bare metal. It is then flash-dried and repainted in historically accurate colors and paint schemes. Mr. Atwater's crew also has to remove the radium-coated dials and drain the oil, which often contains polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a family of 209 chemical compounds that were used in industry until they were found to be highly toxic.
"My watch emits more radiation, but the environmental weenies tell me they're a hazard," the former Marine says of the glow-in-the-dark dials.
The T-55 looks like it just came off the production line, ready to hold off the Germans at Stalingrad. It's in marked contrast to a World War II British Vickers reconnaissance vehicle that just came to the shop. The floorboards are rotted out; there's a big hole in the front that exposes the cockpit. When Mr. Atwater's men are done, it'll look as good as new.
Our next stop is one of three large storage warehouses. This is where Mr. Atwater keeps the pieces that have been rehabbed but he doesn't have room to display. The collection is impressive and includes Pershing's staff car from World War I, as well as a VW-made Nazi SS staff car used in North Africa in World War II. It has a propeller on the back that's flipped up. Mr. Atwater flips it down and shows how it can engage a power takeoff drive -- like on modern-day tractors -- that drives the propeller so that the car can go through shallow rivers.
"The SS got the cool stuff," he says.
Also stored here are row upon row of inert hand grenades, fuses and shells. Some of the material is educational, such as a cut-away of a World War II German "potato masher" grenade that shows how it was constructed and used.
"I simply don't have the room to display this stuff," Mr. Atwater said.
That will all change when the museum moves to its new digs at Fort Lee. The expanded museum is expected to have room to display almost everything in the collection. The move is slated for 2009, but having worked for the government for more than two decades, Mr. Atwater thinks it will be later than that.
For now, the public will have to be satisfied with the cramped space and open field that do a very good job of giving visitors a good cross-section of some of the military's biggest -- and most lethal -- weapons.
Mr. Yost is a writer in Lake Elmo, Minn.
Back to top
View user's profile
the_shadock
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: May 27, 2006
Posts: 2865
Location: Normandy, France
PostPosted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:59 pm
Post subject: Re: The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee

Sorry Neil, I didn't see that there was a topic about that before.. However, it's a good thing that the entire Aberdeen AFV collection will be in a safe place, and be able to be restored..

Pierre-Olivier
Back to top
View user's profile Send e-mail Visit poster's website MSN Messenger
bsmart
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 23, 2006
Posts: 2523
Location: Central Maryland
PostPosted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:09 pm
Post subject: Re: The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee

Ferdinand shouldn't be a problem It's sitting where it was unloaded from a rail car years ago and can be put right back on one Smile

The article is pretty good. My only complaint is that it is DR. Atwater not Mr. Atwater. He also under estimated the number of exhibits outside the Museum building.

The 16" Coast Defense Gun and Anzio Annie will be problems due to their size. Some other artefacts will be a problem because of their condition, they are very fragile after sitting outside for years (especially some of the rockets and missles they have)

My fear is that when they get the actual costs the bean counters will decide they don't need the entire collection and do something stupid with it or that the move will get half way completed and the funding dry up and things get left in some 'temporary' storage and we won't be any better off than we are now but in a different location.

_________________
Bob Smart ([email protected])
Back to top
View user's profile Send e-mail
Neil_Baumgardner
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 24, 2006
Posts: 3942
Location: Arlington, VA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:13 pm
Post subject: Re: The Aberdeen museum is moving to Fort Lee

My fear is similar, except I'm not sure Fort Lee has the same kind of storage space as APG does. My fear is that come 10 years from now part of the collection will be at the new museum at Fort Lee, some of it will still be sitting outside the old museum at APG, and some more items will still be "behind the fence" at APG...

Neil
Back to top
View user's profile
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic    Reply to topic    Printer Friendly Page    Forum Index ›  AFV News Discussion Board
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 6 Hours



Jump to:  


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum