hey guys, For the Elefant GB I am building the Elelfant at Aberdeen Tank Museum. Heres my question,
Does any body have any idea of what is in this canvis sack?
I have no idea!
thanks
I’ve never seen it before in other pictures. Perhaps they are doing some repairs on it.
i agree with tigerman, from the looks of it they are probably in the process of cleaning up the rust spots and trying to cover it up somewhat incase of bad weather.
Man its looks bad.Hope there fixing it up.
It does look to be in a sorry state, its a shame really
its a dead body. trust me on this one.
How recent is that photo?? I was at APG last summer and the Elephant was on the main lawn, with the entrance road to the highway in the background. When I saw it, it was not rusted anywhere near this badly.
Jeff
It’s the trunk.[(-D]
It’s a shame to see the condition of some of those tanks. Is there a group that helps keep them in shape that we could donate time and or money to help preserve them? I’m especially fond of the Elefant.
well, from what I understand, the elefant here was sold awhile ago and the buyers never came to pic it up. Seems like a hard thing to forget though. Apperantly the people over there could care less.
Jeff, I think this pic is pretty recent, it was posted by falcon------
I think there might be the tanks accesories in there, like the jack and tool box (both missing from the vehicle.
I visited APG about 2 years ago. It was really very sad to see the vehicles & the varying states of neglect that they were in. I was so upset at seeing truly one of a kinds sitting out in the open that I went looking for answers at the museum. But as i was about to head there we spotted a compound that appeared to have an answer. There were several American vehicles that were recently restored. But 1 stood out from the rest, a Panzer Mk I. I couldnt believe my eyes. It was in ready to run condition. So after seeing this I gave APG another chance. I contacted Dr. Atwater I believe is his name he is the director of the museum, we have all seen him on the History Channel. He informed me of the program in place to restore the vehicles. They were up to a time funded by the EPA, who felt that these vehicles were ticking timebombs waiting to destroy the soil that they were decaying on. So they only funded 1 large & 1 small vehicle per month to be restored. Dr Atwater then gained control over what vehicles were to be restored & he is concentrating on the American vehicles first, then the others. He is hoping to up his production to 2 lg & 2 sm vehicles per month. But his funding was zero at the time we spoke. He was hoping to persuade the military to give him a budget to work with. I have not spoken to him since that time. The museum does accept donations, they are trying to raise money now to house all of the vehicles in doors. But back to the Mk I it was painted what i thought to be primer black but I was informed that this is infact Panzer Grey. So bear that in mind when painting, panzer grey that is sold in bottles is already lighter in shade, it is by no means out of the factory panzer grey. It would take years for the original color to fade to the levels that we see in bottles.
thanks for the explanation, Wonder why they dont take donations???
Well, hopefully they can get their funding back and restore these fine vehicles.
Surely the American tanks aren’t as rare as the German ones? I would defo want to get that Elefant restored!
Do they keep any tanks under cover? I’m used visiting to Bovington & I can’t imagine them letting exhibits get into such a sorry state.
Chris
Hey Jeff. That picture was taken by me in the fall of last year. I have no idea what that canvas is holding down, but if you want me to I can take a gander at it and let you know what it is doing there. Bryan
Only if its not too much of a hassel. But if you could that would be really cool!
They must have moved it sometime between August (when I was there) and the time you took it…sad…it’s a rare vehicle that deserves better than that. Hopefully it will end up restored and indoors somewhere.
The photos can be misleading though…what appears to be rust on many of the vehicles is red primer coming through the gray paint. I photographed the Flak 18 when I was there and noticed that was the case.
Jeff
You can see the difference between rust and red primer in this pic I took:
Red (lead) primer on Flack43
Red (lead) primer on Panzer 3, rust also visible:
You CANNOT compare rust on ARMOR against rust on regular steel. No comparisons to visits to car junkyards can be made to a TANK. Armor plating is so much more dense than regular steel that the rust may appear bad but its only “skin deep” so to speak. The side skirts and what-not may take a beating, but that is pretty easy to replace with just regular sheet metal. Armor sections are usually intact even after 60 years in a parking lot. Even tanks that were SHOT AT (remember its a proving grounds) are remarkably intact after all this time.
Yeah in a perfect world the tanks would ALL be restored, but that perfect world would also not have any tanks [:o)]
Aberdeen is not as bad as pics from this arms dump in England [:0][:(][:(][:(][:0]
http://www.project-x.org.uk/armsdump.html
Rotted, wasted, tommy guns!
They do take donations, and they’re tax deduictible. Visit here:
You can even join up on an annual basis. Be sure to gnader forth at the proposed (and covered) facility they want to put out there for all of the equipment, much like the Bovington Museum in England (good to excellent facility) or the Kubinka Museum (not so good but better than open air) in Russia.
oh whoops![:I]
How can they waste all of those guns![:O][xx(][xx(][V][banghead]
I dont understand why these vehicles are not taken care of and kept up.These are rare vechicles and historical.Im sure there’s alot of other museums, who would love to have these vechicles and guns. It’s just ashame. Lets all go paint them…hihi.[8-]