Com-Central.net

Had a pretty good trip and tour with Bob yesterday. It was good to see Jeff again and meet Eric, as well as others - we met a Falklands veteran!

Anyway, I tried out my new Kodak Z612 camera - I was amused to see Eric & I had both procured one in the past week... The camera seems to be pretty neat, features a longer zoom & image stabilization over my Z700 and it seems to have been pretty successful yesterday...

First off, I think I was able to confirm the SN for the M60A0. It appears to be SN 7, although the number is stamped rather crudely.



The front hull just above the tow lug has the number 15 stamped into it.



The museum's Abrams SN is "H0002"



Although it appears one piece of skirt came from 0078



Number 0002 was also on the rear right side, but not on the rear itself



I also got the SN off the museum's M48A2C - 518



The T70 (M18) Hellcat pilot had an odd number stamped - appears to be the RN, instead of the SN. I need to check Hunnicutt's Stuart to try to cross-reference...



I think I also found the M113's SN: 174 and RN? C5033...





This was really the only new item at the museum (in the warehouse) - Sergeant York model & associated materials.







Neil

Oh yeah, I also got a couple of better shots of the two T23s thanks to my new 12x zoom...





Neil

Neil, We have the Kodak Z612 too. Great little camera. Have you shot viseos with it yet?

No, I just got it in 6 days ago.

Neil

Thanks for the confirmation on #7 Neil,
Still curious why this example was made with 3 shocks instead of 2 per side. I do not own "Patton Tank" by Hunnicutt and don't have any access to it but wonder if there are any pictures of this particular tank with greater explanations. It wouldn't be hard to ID it among the M60A0's in there.

Joe D

I'll try to check tonight....

Neil

Neil

The 0078 SN on that skirt.....

Did you notice this? From the Ft McCoy M-1....



More questions arise....??

Don

Yes, curiouser & curiouser Don... I was wondering if the McCoy one was 0078... I dont suppose you happen to have any right-side pictures?

I am very certain the Ordnance Museum's one is H0002, since that was stamped on all the other skirts and 0002 was stamped on the rear upper right side... They probably needed a skirt piece and stole it from 0078... I suppose this leads to the question of is 0078 missing a piece of skirt or have a similar surrogate piece...

Neil

- Neil_Baumgardner

Yes, curiouser & curiouser Don... I was wondering if the McCoy one was 0078... I dont suppose you happen to have any right-side pictures?

I am very certain the Ordnance Museum's one is H0002, since that was stamped on all the other skirts and 0002 was stamped on the rear upper right side... They probably needed a skirt piece and stole it from 0078... I suppose this leads to the question of is 0078 missing a piece of skirt or have a similar surrogate piece...

Neil

The 0002 / 0078 skirts appear to be the non-ballistic ones. That means the SNs are not important. The ballistic skirts are SN'd to the hulls for accountability. That was 'back in the day' though. Swapping any skirts would have been strictly forbidden.

Now that the 'gutted' M1's have been demilled for museum use, that would not be an issue.


As for the McCoy M-1, No right side shots, exact the SN closeup is from right side. No other shots. Due to the sun position when I was there, the left side shots were best.

Perhaps JoeD got some when he was there, after I returned to 'Planet Knox'.

Don