Museum of American Armor, Long Island, New York: Model Collection

 

In addition to the big collection of armored vehicles at the Museum of American Armor in Long Island, the museum has an impressive collection of scale models of World War II armor. Below are photos. 

Museum of American Armor, Bethpage, Long Island, New York

 

Thirty miles west of Manhattan on Long Island is the Museum of American Armor. This collection of mostly World War II armor and equipment is occasionally rolled out for convoys. Museum patrons can ride in halftracks, scout cars and other armored vehicles across fields in Long Island. 

Click on the web site above and you can learn about every vehicle in their collection.

Tactics, Not Just Numbers, Win Tank Battles

The Panzer I, armed with just machine guns was 

no match for any French or British tank.

The common view of the first year of World War II is that the British and French armies were routed and defeated in six weeks by a superior German armored force using Blitzkrieg tactics. 

The truth is, the invading Germans were outnumbered and outgunned by the defenders of France. They won because Erwin Rommel commanded 7th Panzer Division at the front of the invading German Army carrying out a brilliant invasion plan. The British and French had a combined 3,000 tanks, all of which had cannons capable of destroying any of the German tanks in the invasion force. 

The British Matilda tank. 

Better armed and armored than most German tanks in France in 1940

The Germans had 2,000 tanks, hundreds of them armed with just machine guns. But the Germans concentrated nearly all their armor on a 20-mile invasion front, while the British and French spread their tanks from the Swiss border to the English Channel. Rommel punched through the allied lines. He personally waded into rivers when his engineers were making bridges for his tanks. Rommel broke through the allied lines and captured huge formations. 

Without Rommel carrying out a brilliant invasion plan by General Heinz Guderian, the allied army could have stopped or slowed the German advance and dragged out the war in France. The great early success of Rommel, Guderian and the German Army led Hitler to invade Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Weapons of every kind are wielded by soldiers.  How the weapon is used, as much as the weapon itself, determines the outcome of battles.

Tanks Devour Fuel, Ammo and Spare Parts: Ukraine will be training tank crews, mechanics, and supply crews

 

M559 Goer Fuel Truck

One long night in November of 1977, my tank crew was on our third week of training in the West German countryside near the East-West border. We needed fuel. The 375-gallon fuel tank in our M60A1 Patton tank was at half full. To be combat ready, we needed to refuel.  Usually we refueled when the big M559 Goer fuel truck pulled up alongside us.  Other nights we would pull out of the line and go to the Goer.

M60A1 Patton tanks

On this night, the Goers were gone. I never learned what happened, but our only option was carrying five-gallon cans of fuel 200 meters up the hill from a five-ton truck with a fuel pod.  Two of us had to stay with the tank, while two of us carried the 40-pound jerrycans up and down the hill. We stopped at 100 gallons of fuel, 20 cans. Tanks drink fuel. We needed more fuel the next day; thankfully, the Goers were back.

German Leopard 2 Tank

I was thinking about walking uphill with eighty pounds of fuel when I heard the news about German Leopard 2 tanks going to Ukraine.  The BBC news report was talking about NATO training crews for the tank. Ukraine will also be training soldiers to fix, to resupply fuel and ammo and follow close behind the tanks with everything that a 60-ton, 1,500-horsepower tracked vehicle consumes.  

A Leopard 2 can fire on the move at up to 50 mph with its advanced electronic sights and gun stabilization computers.  It can fire a dozen cannon rounds per minute. But a Leopard only carries 42 120mm cannon rounds.  At a dozen rounds per minute, it would be out of ammo in four minutes.  To reload, the tank has to leave the battle area and go back a supply depot. 

Crew handing rounds up and into a Japanese Type 90 Tank.

At the supply point, each round is handed from a platform beside the tank or up from the ground. Each round is then handed through the loader's hatch and stowed in racks in the turret and hull of the tank. Even the fastest crew will take ten minutes or more to stow 42 rounds inside the tank. 

In a battle, a single tank can burn more than one hundred gallons of fuel, more than one hundred rounds of cannon ammunition and upwards of 5,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition. 

Abrams tanks in attack training exercise

A battalion of 50 tanks and fifty more support vehicles burns more than 100 gallons per mile of fuel. In a sustained attack it will fire 5,000 rounds of cannon ammo and a half-million rounds of machine gun ammo. If the attack covers 20 miles, the battalion will consume upwards of 100 tons of ammo and fuel in a day. All that fuel and ammo has to follow the tanks to the edge of the battle. 

Logistics win wars, said every general from Napoleon to now.  The Russians have shown themselves to be terrible at logistical support.  With these new tanks, Ukraine will get another chance to show how much better they are than the Russians, both fighting with the tanks and keeping the hungry beasts supplied.

Deutsche Panzer Museum: World War II Self-Propelled Guns

During World War II, the German Army made many self-propelled guns (SPGs) based on all of their main battle tank chassis designs: The Panzer MkIV, Panther and Tiger all had SPG variants. They used a variety of main guns. 

The Deutsche Panzer Museum displays all of the variants that could be restored by their staff.

 

Tank Museum Designed as a Warning: Panzer Museum East, Denmark

Most military museums, particularly tank museums, display the best and most lethal weapons of their country. Part of the intent of these museums is to say,

"Look at the awesome firepower our soldiers had." 

When I visited the Deutsche Panzermuseum, one hundred years of German innovation and technology was clearly on display. The Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, Israel, displays tanks Israel fought with right up to the Merkava (chariot) developed and built in Israel. 

So I was quite surprised when I toured the many exhibits of Panzermuseum East in Denmark. All of the exhibits are of Cold War Soviet weapons and equipment.  The museum was designed and built as a warning to what could have happened to Denmark if the Soviet Union had invaded.  Their official intent: 

At Panzermuseum East we tell the story of the Cold War and our focus since its inception has been to show visitors from around the world what would have been seen on the streets and in the air if the Warsaw Pact, led by Russia, (The Soviet Union), had attacked Denmark during the tense and heated period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We also document what would have happened if nuclear weapons had been used, and the terrible consequences of this, namely that there would have been a total Ragnarok throughout Europe, with millions of dead and destroyed.

The collection is several buildings crowded with Soviet tanks, trucks, missiles, guns, motorcycles, radar stations, ambulances, field kitchens, and other equipment. 

BMP armored personnel carrier 

T-72 M1

T-55 AM2

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum has been tagging displayed vehicles, like the BMP and T-72, that are being used by the Russian invaders of Ukraine.

Here is what the head of the museum says about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

Regarding the horrific and heinous attack on Ukraine. 

Ukraine is being brutally attacked right now, with a lot of material that the Panzer Museum East has on display, which the heroic Ukrainians are also using to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the brutal superpower also has far more modern equipment than the Ukrainians, so it's an unequal battle. That is why it is so important that we all support and help the Ukrainians in their fantastic fight for freedom and democracy. 

On 28 February, Tank Museum East asked the Danish army for a donation of 1,200 boxes of field rations for the brave soldiers of Ukraine. If they are donated, we will immediately drive to one of the major border crossings between Poland and Ukraine and hand them over to all those who enter Ukraine to fight for freedom and democracy and a happy future. Right now, as you read this, what I myself was terribly and cruelly afraid of when I was young is becoming a harsh reality. I myself, together with my wife, visited Chernobyl and experienced Kyiv, and we had only positive experiences and great respect for the people in their struggle to build a healthy democracy and live as free people. 

Out of my pacifist ideology and to point out that war and enmity can and will never lead to anything good for humanity, I have founded my very own private tank museum East. That is why spreading the word about history is so important, even if it seems that at the moment no one cares about the atrocities of the past. Of course I have deep contempt for the cruel and blunt attack on Ukraine.

Best regards 

Owner of the Panzermuseum East 

Allan Pedersen and staff

BMP armored personnel carrier

PRAGA M53/59 "Lizard" with 30mm anti-aircraft guns

Tank transporter flatbed truck with a T-72 tank on the end of its bed.