Aberdeen Proving Ground . . .

¶ . . . As promised! Sorry for the delay, but the demands of the job, blah, blah, blah . . .

. . . The day after my Gettysburg trip I made the run up to Aberdeen Proving Ground, long on my "To See" agenda. The APG is a rather large and quite nice base, and security measures were in effect, serpentine at the entrance and I.D. check. On the parkway near the entrance you are immediately treated to a show of armor.


The acreage surrounding the museum is home to many pieces of armor, from WW I through the Vietnam era. I'll keep the blethering to a minimum and just post a few pics.     Here's a Panzer assortment:


    A couple of PzkpfwIV's:



    I was awed by the size of the Panthers: they're enormous!! I was up at Camp Pendleton's School Of Infantry Friday and there are a couple of captured modern Russian tanks there, a T-55 and a T-62, from the '91 Gulf War and they don't appear to be as large.


    Of course, there was the dreaded 88:


    Speaking of Russians, these from WWII also appeared larger than their modern counterparts:


    And here's yours truly with Anzio Annie. I just learned that "Anzio Annie" was a battery comprised of two of these rail guns, "Leopold" and "Robert"; the one below is Leopold:


    The museum itself is rather small but houses an excellent collection of machine guns, Maxims to SAW's, several .50's, etcetera. There's a gift shop where you can get the requisite Flaming Bomb swag to commemorate your visit. If you're in the area, check it out. I don't know of any other place with examples of WWII armor like this, so this in itself lends value to a visit.