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Tanks - US Army Ordnance Museum - Aberdeen Proving Ground
(List of photos at bottom of page).
US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground
The US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground is one of the world's best tank museums - full of Russian tanks, German tanks, French tanks, British tanks,and even.... American tanks. It's about 25 minutes north east of Baltimore at the Aberdeen Proving Ground military base.
The US Army Ordnance Museum building itself is genuinely small and anticlimactic. Inside the two story dark brick building is a single tiny Renault 35 tank accompanied by a superb collection of small arms - rifles, machine guns and a few mortars. It's free, though I dropped $20 into the donation box in the foyer. (Please support this museum financially if you are there. They are doing a great job of preserving our history.) So if you're going on a rainy day, then you'll probably not get much out of the place since the vast majority of the holdings are outside. But outside is the best collection of AFVs outdoor I have seen. The natural light and natural setting makes photography far easier and better. The tank park sits on a vast, slightly undulating, field gridded with a series of twin concrete pads (think big "=" signs) upon which the tanks sit spaced apart.
There are around 400 tank photos on the US Army Ordnance Museum - Aberdeen Proving Ground portion of this site. Tanks detailed include: Renault R-35 tank, Grant tank, Sherman tank, Leopard I tank, Panzer I tank, Panzer III, Panzer IV, Panzer V, T-34 tank, T-34/85 tank, T-72M tank, Matilda, M7 Priest, Conqueror and the Stalin tank (IS-3 tank).
The US Army Ordnance Museum's collection is fabulous. It's as good as that at the Patton Tank Museum, though not as large as the Saumur tank museum - Musee des Blindes.
Some stars were missing: Tiger tank, King Tiger tank, FT-17, Somua S-35, KV-1 (though I saw a photo of both tanks at the US Army Ordnance Museum prior to my trip), etc. But there were a lot of empty storage pads, so probably the tanks are being restored. A lot of tanks I assumed the US Army Ordnance Museum would have were missing as well: the impressive US M6 tank, all of the different variants of Sherman tanks (weren't there about 88 different types?), different American tanks that evolved from the Sherman tank (T20 tank, T21 tank, T22 tank, T23 tank, T24 tank, T25 tank and T26 tank) which led up to the M26 Pershing tank and more. Were these prototypes all scrapped?
The museum has the best collection of artillery I have seen and unusual AFVs such as two experimental Pzkw IV tanks.
Narayan
Directions
From Baltimore take I-95 North to exit 80 (Riverside/Churchville), then MD 543 South then US 40 East then MD 715 to the APG Visitor Center.
From Delaware take I-95 South to exit 85, then left onto MD 22, then right (Follow US 40 Sign) then left then right onto US 40 West, 2 miles to MD 715 to the APG Visitor Center.
(410) 278-3602
Photos from US Army Ordnance Museum/Aberdeen Proving Grounds
Please contact me at newfrontiers@mindspring.com if you are interested in high resolution versions of any of these photos for publication. US Army Ordnance Museum/Aberdeen Proving Grounds photo portfolio shot May, 2006 by Narayan Sengupta.
