Aberdeen Proving Ground collection being moved

[Max Caliber]

After years of talking, the collection is finally being moved. I hope they eventually put all of the pieces under cover that are now outside. This is a great collection and is a must see. Yes, they do have some muzzle loading artillery and at least one Gatling. I wonder if they will move the German railway gun? Probably not.

Max

http://www.progress-index.com/articles/2009/08/05/news/pi_progindex.20090805.a.pg1.pi0805tanks_s1.2715679_top2.txt

[KABAR2]

That's not too far from me!  I always went to the Aberdeen museum when I went up to the MV meet,

now I won't have to drive that far. Bad for Maryland lousing a museum good for Virginia!

[cannonmn]

Word of warning:  The new curator is Dr. Ranier, who replaced Dr. Atwater (big person you'd see on a lot of history channel things.)  If you ever need to contact that museum for anything, especially by phone, make sure you use the form of address "Dr. Ranier."    The move is officially sked for 2011, or maybe that's the new opening date at Ft. Lee, not sure. 

If I may for for one brief sentence or two depart from BP, since the topic is aready "alive:"  I think the Atomic Cannon is moving, but not sure about Anzio Annie.  The Germans periodically try to get it back but the Army has said "No Way Jose'" (or maybe Keine Weg Hans or whatever) up to recently.  I'm sure that matter would be addressed at very high levels anyway, far above that of a museum director.

[Cannoneer]

  Dr. William Felix Atwater

This guy is a blast; (pun kind of intented) one HC show had him critiquing a French "Chauchat" WWI light machine gun, and as he held it in his chubby white gloved hands he looked down at it, trying to hold back a laugh, and intoned: Well, this gun right here is what would properly be called "a piece of junk." You can tell that he'd be a good guy to clink a couple of glasses of beer with across a table.

Interesting article Max, it doesn't give a total of the pieces that are going to be transported, but this is going to have to cost the Army quite a few pesos.

[cannonmn]

Chauchat

For anyone not into Frogspeak, they pronounce that as "show-show" or at least that's how the WWI GI's said it.

[1Southpaw]

when stationed in Ft.Sill Ok. I had the pleasure of seeing the "Atomic Cannon "moved in , set up and  fired.  A field day Demo of set up and firing of all the then current artilery pieces in use . 1960 . Impressive cannon . we were stationed a couple barracks North of the Atomic guys . They had two projectiles on the front steps of their Company HQ . Impressive . massive  rounds for sure. 

[dominick]

I visited the museum last week.  Most of the field artillery outside has already been removed.  There are only some tanks and few heavy guns.  Here is a link to photos I took from inside the museum.  Dom

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=2102988

[Cannoneer]

That's a fine photo album, thanks.
Dom, did you make a Mt. Howitzer for someone?

[dominick]

That's a fine photo album, thanks.
Dom, did you make a Mt. Howitzer for someone?

I built a barrel and the iron work for a guy from Iowa.  He is making the carriage.

[p51]

I spent a lot of time at APG, first as a ROTC cadet going through a three-week “OJT” training (in a HHC company for a CPT who was never around, it was a three-week vacation), then going through Ordnance OBC as a 2LT for almost 6 months. I went through two Gettysburg Staff rides with DR Atwater. He was a really nice guy but never seemed to know what to do with someone who knew a little bit about the subject, he always talked to folks like they didn’t know which was the end that goes “boom.” He let me hold some extremely rare weapons in the gun vault, though, and never yelled at me for hopping into the commander’s hatch of a German tank for a photo in uniform.
I was there for what I’m sure will be the final time a couple of months ago with my wife, showing her around one of my favorite places to be. I was totally shocked at how little the place had changed, other than the “mile of tanks” being gone.
As for Anzio Annie, I’m dying to see what they with her. “Leopold” was really the name of the gun at APG today. I found some decent photos of Leopold, including photos of the running gear and the proximity to the spur into the post: http://www.williammaloney.com/Aviation/ ... /index.htm I doubt given the highway bridge and tunnel clearances between Aberdeen and Ft Lee (and yes, I’ve driven directly between the two places when I was in the Army) that Leopold would fit on a tractor trailer, even broken down. I once talked with one of the Ordnance guys from 5th Army who loaded her onto the ship at Naples, but for the life of me I cannot recall how he said they shipped her. I would assume they broke her down into components (along with parts off of the other K5 gun that was used to eventually restore Leopold to firing condition), but I’m pretty sure you could have put RR tracks into a LST (Landing Ship, Tank, designed to carry a small unit of armored vehicles) and wheeled it into one of those ships through the front doors without taking anything apart. A K5 gun is about 100 feet long and about weighs about 400,000 pounds. It could have been lifted disassembled into a Liberty ship as well and would have been a far safer method of transport. I have read that at least another K5 was brought to Aberdeen and that Leopold was actually test fired after the war, but details on that are very sketchy.

[RocklockI]

i believe that Dr. Atwater was a combat Marine in Veitnam .

whats he doing now ?