Aberdeen Proving Ground

Visiting the Aberdeen Proving Ground One chilly Saturday afternoon in February on my last visit to the US offices Ben, Rob and I decided to pay a visit to the Aberdeen Proving Ground museum. The museum houses one of the largest collections of WWII vehicles and arms anywhere in the world. Despite the negative temperatures the howling wind it was a lovely sunny day and the couple of hours we spent outside was well worth it. Luckily no photos of any of us slipping on the ice and falling on our arses survived.

Leopold Rail Gun (above) The largest and most impressive gun on display is the Leopold rail gun. A true monster firing 283mm shells from its 21,5m barrel over 60km away. It used to fire 8 shells an hour which if you were on the receiving end would have certainly seemed like hell.

No Playing Sign (above) The only bad news at the museum is that you are not actually allowed to get on the tanks.

British Honey Stuart The collection itself is undergoing a re-vamp in preparation for its move to an indoor location in Virginia at the end of the year. Restored and given a fresh coat of paint the tanks really come to life.

French S-35 SOMUA Tank Interestingly the order in which they are doing the restoration seemed a little odd to us as they started with some of the smaller vehicles instead of going for the big cats as I think most of us would have done.

German Elephant This particular tank was used as target practice before joining the collection and as you can see Ben is pointing to an impact hit showing you just how tough these things were.

Canadian Sherman Firefly I choose to include this photo after looking through the ones we took it was the only one that made me think about a conversions as the side mounted rocket was not a bad look at all and would have added some real punch.

German Panzer I Ben and I standing beside one of the smallest and earliest tanks of the war.

German Jagdtiger By contrast one of the biggest tanks of the war and still one of the largest ever made for any conflict.

Soviet IS-3 Rob with his favorite tank of the war.

German 8.8cm Pak43/41 Ben playing the “guess what figure I am” game.

German Nebelwerfer As well as many tanks the museum has a collection of artillery pieces including these Nebelwerfer rocket launchers and the later US version that used the same principle to launch even more rockets in a single salvo.

German 12.8cm FlaK This is one of those Early-Mid models that we definitely have to go back and make.

The internal part of the museum is a veritable Aladdin’s cave with collections of weapons of all sizes, explosives, medals and a heater, which for us was the saving grace after almost two hours outside. Top to bottom: • US 60mm Bazooka • German Panzerschreck • British PIAT • US M20 Super Bazooka • Soviet RPG

Aberdeen's extensive Military Medel collection.

Anti-tank Rifles. Top to bottom: • German 13mm Mauser T-Gewehr • British Boys • Czech 7.92mm C.Z. Model S.S. 41 • German 7.92mm PzB39 • German 2.8cm sPzB41 barrel • Soviet PTRS 14.5mm • Finnish Lahtil 20mm

Such an odd idea but yet so cool that science fiction and the real world are not that far apart. A weapon that could have done so many cool things if it had been made a reality.

I leave you with the oddest item in the collection. An infantry fired nuclear warhead launcher. Yes that’s right, feeling left behind the Air Force in the who has the biggest bomb race the Army came up with a few ways to allow them to carry around some serious firepower. The odd thing about this is despite it being very Starship Troopers it does beg the question of how safe would you really be if you were the guy who fired it?

To find out more about Aberdeen Proving Ground visit their site at: http://www.apg.army.mil/apghome/sites/about/history.cfm The museum is on a military base so you need picture ID to get in and not have any outstanding issues with any government agency but the directions are shown in full on this link. http://www.apg.army.mil/apghome/sites/about/directions.cfm Thanks to both Rob and Ben for keeping me company for the day and I hope to be bringing your more detailed and images from the museums collection at a later date. ~ John-Paul. Editor's Note: The Presently the Ordnance Museum is missing some of their tank display. This is because it is in the process of relocating. Originally situated about 35 miles north of Baltimore, the decision has been made to relocate the Museum to Ft Lee, Virginia. Many of the tanks are still available for viewing, although more get moved daily. The task of relocation will take some time, and even with tanks removed from the 25 acre display field, this is still worth the trip. Read more here...