Tank Museum

A late production Sherman tank. One of my favorites. Now both Paul Heiser and Bill Jr Models make these in HO. That's going to get expensive for me.

Another M47 tank, they had two at the museum. I always like this one. I think they should have painted it with Tiger II markings for use in the Battle of the Bulge movie!

They had a number of various other civilian type trucks that had been used by the military.

The M8 armored car and the M60 tank. They were in great condition.

A mid / late war Sherman tank.

American Military Museum & Restoration Center

Whittier Narrows Recreation Area

1918 N. Rosemead Blvd.

South El Monte, CA 91733-2948

Telephone: (626) 442-1776

Fax: (626) 443-1776

email: tankland@aol.com

www.tankland.com

Check them out and send them a few bucks, if you have a couple extras.

Tank Museum

A Sherman tank with a Sherman tank engine.

The other side of the engine.

An M56 Scorpion 90 mm sp atg. Roco never made one, too bad.

An M551 Sheridan peeking around the corner. I love the smooth look of that turret. Roco does not quite capture the look exactly.

A Stuart light tank with a Jeep behind it. It is amazing how large a small light tank really is when you see it close up.

Museum Stuff

The old soldier is also an old cop. The V100 Commando was a military armored car that served Los Angeles Police Department for many years. I think they had three of them.

The M151 Jeep in the TOW configuration.

Another view of the TOW version.

This little US Army tankette was in a Bob Hope movie in about 1940.

The M8 M20 series armored cars were a well liked vehicle and served around the world until just recently. I would not be too surprised to find that some were still at work in South America or Asia someplace.

Museum Picts

This is a big one! The 155 Long Tom. One of my favorite Roco guns was this huge howitzer. It is one of their most recent additions to the museum.

This WWII artillery served until just recently. They had either an 8 inch or 155 mm gun barrel. I saw one a few years ago being used to test liquid propellant explosive, probably at Yuma testing grounds. Same everything, but the barrel had several more bands around it and the loading was automatic from some mechanism at the breech.

The other end of the inventory, the WWII US Army 37mm ATG. Note the huge 155 barrel over it and how small it is in comparison to the wheels of the large howitzer.

Can you guess what this is? One of the most important guns of WWII that Roco never made. I have to use the Airfix one in 1/76th scale.

The 40mm Bofors guns were used by armies and navies on both sides of WWII! This gun looks like it was in service this morning, it is in perfect shape.

A humble US Navy Jeep, driving out of a landing craft. By switching service you can make some interesting vehicles out of existing kits. Naturally the Jeep was used by the Army, Navy and Marines in WWII. The M113 APC was used by the Army, of course, but also NASA! I have also seen an M60 series tank in US Air Force markings. What did you do in the Air Force? I was a tanker! You don't hear that too often.

Museum Stuff

The M578, a tank tow truck. Roco made the earlier version and then later this version. These were used to tow tracked vehicles and it could use it's crane to lift out a tank engine.

The US 5 ton truck. The breather on the fender and the exhaust pipe on the back of the cab were made as accessory parts by Roco to upgrade their older model.

The famed DUWK from WWII. A two and half ton truck with a boat chassis. Roco never made one, but I made do with the Eko and later Kibri kits. Roco marketed the Kibri version for a while.

Another M7 Priest. I think they had three or four different ones there.

The M35 two and a half ton truck. These trucks could go anywhere. If you collect post WWII US Army, you can't have enough of these trucks. I know I have well over a hundred of them, with different truck beds.

Museum Pieces

A couple slightly different M7 105 self propelled guns.

A US 1 1/2 ton truck. Many of them survived the Second World War by not being shipped overseas. They were almost the same size as the deuce and a half, so they stayed home while big brother fought the in the war.

The massive 155 mm SPG on the late war Sherman chassis.

The post war replacement for the M7 series. It was realized after the war that a light tank chassis could carry the 105mm howitzer. Of course, the late war WWII light tanks were much larger than the early war Stuarts.

A couple tired old relics of the Cold War era. While they may be obsolete, they can still be dangerous when properly employed. The larger one is an M53 155 SPG. The other one is a former O-3 MI USAR.

Guns and Boats

I love seeing real versions of models that I have in HO scale. In some ways this museum is like the Roco Minitanks / Paul Heiser Museum. There are some notable exceptions. This US Army 75mm Mountain Howitzer is one of them. This little gun was used before WWII and until a few years afterwards. It was towed by Jeeps, carried by mules when broken down into bits, and also towed by horses. It could be broken down into small parts and had both rubber tires or wooden spoked wheels.

Take note of the panels that gun is sitting on. It is Marston Matting. Perforated Steel Planking, PSP. It could be linked together to make a muddy field into an airfield in a few hours.

Another item I had to get in 20mm / 1/72nd scale, the LCM. Landing craft to bring tanks to shore for Normandy and other WWII landings.

LVT IV, a tracked landing craft used in Normandy and all over the Pacific. Another one we did not get from Roco.

US AA gun. The US had a wide variety of AA guns be with air superiority we did not use them much.

The US 105 mm howitzer, next to the 75 mm gun. You can see why the 75 is mule portable and the 105 is not. The 105 was in service about 50 years!

A Clean Army Is Important

Here is one of those items you don't often see in the history books, but it is an essential war fighting device. It is a tactical clothing washer and dryer. In war uniforms get dirty and have to be cleaned, just like in peacetime. These would be found in service & support units and medical units.

The little tube are a late WWII US Army rocket launcher. Just small tubes on a framework.

This is the driveway I always wanted. Click on the photo for a bigger image. M60 and Sherman series tanks.

An M16 series US Army AA gun halftrack. This has a quadruple .50 caliber machine gun turret. These were some of the last halftracks to see service in the US Army.

This is a dummy T72 tank. Not used at the National Training Center, this one was for weapons testing.

More Museum

The WWII era US Army ambulance. This is a nice truck!

Another ambulance. You can see the difference between this and the WWII version. The olive drab is a much darker color for the post war vehicle. You can also notice that this is the same basic Jeep pick up truck as we saw yesterday.

This vehicle is the Mechanical Mule. The number one on the concrete plinth is for Bob G. He is my number 1 fan and he requested this little gem. The Mule was used as a cargo and even weapons carrier in the Viet Nam War era. They were an attempt to give the infantry squad some way to carry a large amount of ammunition, food and other supplies in a small package.

This strange vehicle is a USMC cargo carrier from WWII.

It is a unique vehicle but it did not find much service.

Trucks and Car

The US military used a number of different kinds of pick up truck type vehicles since long before WWII. Here is one from the 1960s that was based on a commercial Jeep chassis. This one is from the US Navy, but I have seen many of them being used by the US Army.

Here is a WWII era version of the pick up truck.

This weapons carrier is unusual as it has an enclosed cab. Good in cold weather.

In WWII there was hardly a vehicle type that did not see service. Cars were used to transport staff officers around and even used as taxis on large bases.

Many of them had the star on the rear door, I like the front door star version better. It looks more balanced.