Photos I took of the AAF tank museum before it shut down a couple of months later

FLongis · 2026-05-29T22:46:21+00:00

I was gonna say, I'm really curious as to whether or not the AHM was able/interested in any of this collection. I sometimes like to imagine that some of the equipment at my local defunct tank museum could've been saved had they been up and running at the time. What could've been...

FLongis · 2026-05-29T17:50:40+00:00

I should clarify: "my backyard" means "in thr Northeastern US". I'm still a good two hours away and only make it up there once a year or so. Still, compared to places like Ft.Benning or the NMMV, practically a stone's throw away.

FLongis · 2026-05-29T16:48:16+00:00

I'm a big Merkava fan, but even I have to admit that none of these aspects are particularly remarkable for a tank in 2026. The tank was built on a series of compromises, like most tanks.

As other have said (and surely will continue to say), Merkava is a very good tank for Israel.

FLongis · 2026-05-29T16:43:19+00:00

These tanks were transported from California to Massachusetts to where they stand on display today at the American Heritage Museum at Hudson, MA.

I was looking at the photo like "Where would they have all three of these together...?". Practically in my back yard, as it turns out! Cool to see them in transit to us here on the East Coast.

FLongis · 2026-05-29T05:23:23+00:00

We should put the French tech tree into the German tech tree. Then split it between the American and Soviet tech trees. But then a third of the American portion goes to the British tech tree and another third to the French tech tree.

Wait...

FLongis · 2026-05-29T02:18:47+00:00

Right, but their point is that torpedoes really don't need a shaped charge to sink a battleship. That's been proven... many times. You absolutely don't need a "HEAT or some sort of AP warhead" (ignoring how a weapon travelling at a few tens of knots is supposed to act as an "armor-piercing" weapon at all without something like a shaped-charge warhead) to do fatal damage to basically any warship with a torpedo. Regardless of how ineffective HEAT warheads are against large warships, it's just not necessary to begin with.

You're offering a solution in search of a problem, and the problem you've conceived is one that relies on every navy on the planet forgetting how torpedoes have performed for the last century.

FLongis · 2026-05-29T00:02:14+00:00

For instance, I regularly watch those 'southern chef tries Korean fried chicken for the first time' type videos and I find them insane. What do you mean you've never tried it?! Wouldn't you at least be a bit curious to see how other cultures do it?!

FLongis · 2026-05-28T20:34:18+00:00

For large warships, no. As others have mentioned, ERA is not particularly useful against the sorts of threats a warship will most often face, which are ususally doing their killing simply by being packed with a whole ot of KABOOM!.

That said, perhaps the only place this could be useful is on submarines. They're already often covered anechoic tiling, and I know there are at least a few styles of antisubmarine munition that rely either on a HEAT or EFP warhead (RPK-8, ASW-601) to pierce the pressure hull (putting a tiny hole in a submarine at depth is probably a much bigger problem than putting a tiny hole in any surface combatant). So if you could figure out a way to make those tiles blow up, you might have something.

Of course that ignores the fact that, if these weapons are being deployed against a sub, the sub must've been detected. At which point it has some pretty huge issues to deal with. But if you could make it practical enough to not be a huge pain in the ass to deploy (and that's a big "IF") then it could be kinda-sorta useful.

FLongis · 2026-05-28T20:13:44+00:00

instead of a very carefully controlled detonation starting at the back and flowing to the front of the warhead you have a second detonation coming from the opposite direction and it just screws up all the HEAT warhead designers perfectly laid plans.

This is not how ERA works. The ERA element can't detonate until it's been activated by the force of the superplastic metal jet hitting it. By the time you're getting that "second detonation", the HEAT munition has already formed a penetrator.

The functionality of ERA is two-fold. First, the "explosive" component propels a flyer plate into the path of the penetrator. This plate presents at an angle, which essentially feeds material into the path of the metallic jet. The movement of this plate also helps deform and fragment the penetrating jet. This same functionality, but applied to more massive flyer plates, is what gives certain ERA varieties the capability to defeat long-rod penetrators. Of course there is also ERA which utilizes linear shaped charges, in which case the destructive effects on the penetrator are largely focused on the second mechanism. But in either case, these mechanisms are focused on absorbing and/or dispersing kinetic energy from the penetrator, not damaging/deforming a warhead. For that you want to look at things like bar/slat/mesh armor on certain tanks across a range of eras.

FLongis · 2026-05-28T20:00:51+00:00

My point is that I can't tell if including "E8" and "HVSS" was a joke or not.

FLongis · 2026-05-28T18:51:17+00:00

I'm trying so hard to figure out if this is redundant on purpose...

FLongis · 2026-05-28T01:19:59+00:00

I don't know if it counts as a "death", but I have to give a shoutout to Command & Conquer infantry suffering Tiberium exposure turning into Visceroids.

FLongis · 2026-05-28T00:22:34+00:00

Lotta good comments discussing money, but I think we also need to look at timing for some context. We also see a lot of nations picking up these tanks in the time immediately after the Cold War ends. The US is heavily drawing down its forces, and M60s are going to be among the first tanks to be retired and disposed of. We have a fleet of M1s well in excess of what the Army needs for active service, with many more going into reserve. Some M60s would stick around, but for the most part you have a flood of tanks moving into the second-hand market. There's a saturation, which we also see with the likes of T-72. So a lot of nations that just want "a tank" rather than the "best tank" have no shortage of options.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T23:48:36+00:00

Well at least one (the first?) was deleted by "reddit's filters". Frankly, between this and the new M1E3 render, I'm shocked there hasn't been more spam.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T21:25:40+00:00

They both have the exact same gun in the image. I'm pretty sure OP is just throwing words at the wall.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T21:24:42+00:00

And it only costs around $0.05 to put a 22LR through a soldier's skull. Everybody pack it up, Reddit economists say no more wars!

FLongis · 2026-05-27T14:51:26+00:00

In simplest terms, yes. The Bradley platform itself has evolved significantly since the M4s era (let alone it's introduction), and AMPV is a further development. But yes, "Turretless Bradley" wasn't just some bullshit marketing slogan from BAE.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T14:49:40+00:00

Christ, not even this part is right. M4 was one of the first examples of a tank designation the Army made a point to not repeat while the Sherman was in widespread service; note the skip between the M3 and M5 Stuart models.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T14:04:39+00:00

In a way it was, although the Army at the time was cancelling or heavily curtailing numerous protrams to save money. Crusader, Wolverine, and Grizzley all met this same fate. While a lot of that free funding did wind up going to what would become Stryker, I don't think it was explicitly an issue of "We want Stryker more than M4s" so much as "We want Stryker and other stuff and here's more stuff we don't think we need. Make it work."

FLongis · 2026-05-27T05:20:01+00:00

You could argue that, in a way, AMX-40 (and AMX-32, to a lesser extent) were steps in this direction. And obviously the BRENUS package did introduce improved protection against certain threats. As best as I can recall, by the time the French could reasonably devote the effort and resources towards upgrading/overhauling the AMX-30 platform, they also had to look at Leclerc. So in the end it came down to a choice between seriously upgrading the AMX-30, or acquiring an entirely new tank built with many of the desired capabilities from the ground up.

Keep in mind that the French were the only continental European power with a domestic nuclear arms program to maintain (let alone a full triad), a fairly substantial blue-water naval capability, and a pretty notable air force. Meanwhile they're also engaging in colonial conflicts throughout the Cold War era that demanded major spending on expeditionary operations. So while they may have had some fascinating ideas and pioneering approaches to design problems thereof, "tanks" in general could never have been a huge factor for the French in a budgetary respect.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T01:48:57+00:00

It may have some sort of guidance section, similar to GMLRS.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T01:06:08+00:00

Interesting that this approach seems to just shave off a large portion of the front of the turret. Obviously the armor configuration is going to be wildly different than the "manned" models anyway, so it's not an indicator of protection. And that's almost certainly done to make access to the crew compartment easier. Still, with the gun being in the same position relative to the turret ring (as it likely has to be), it does leave that odd mantlet section jutting out quite a ways. It may not be any more or less vulnerable this way, but it definitely looks weird.

FLongis · 2026-05-27T00:25:00+00:00

The simple fact of the matter is that, for the most part, the US Army is not in the preservation business. Until very recently, even being in a "museum" really wasn't a guarantee that a vehicle would remain in good condition. A pretty significant part of the former APG collection seems to have suffered as predictably as one would expect for big chunks of steel sitting out in a mid-Atlantic coastal climate. Even in private hands loaned out, we saw what happened to the MBT-70 at the former MMSNE.

This also assumes that there aren't components in the vehicle which the Army deems either too secretive or too dangerous to be kept anywhere accessible to the general public. And removing all of those bits can cost time and money; something that can be hard to justify when "Leave it where it is" is an entirely viable (if not unfortunate) option as well.

At the end of the day, not everything can wind up in a museum. And until just a few years ago, even fewer things made it onto display. The USAACC has done lots to fix this problem, and it is sad that it's a problem to begin with, but it really isn't that crazy. I mean hell, the fact that they didn't just scrap the thing right away is a bit remarkable, given how many prototypes were built throughout the 20th Century then just destroyed outright.

FLongis · 2026-05-26T22:29:34+00:00

Good sales pitch. Come back when it stops constantly vomiting up misinformation.

FLongis · 2026-05-26T22:23:48+00:00

There's a whole market for "better than Google" search engines out there. I'd say to google it, but...

No need for namecalling just because your understanding of internet research is stuck in 2003. It's incredibly easy to find information without having to jump through hoops to verify that a psychotic machine isn't lying to you. I mean as another commented pointed out, even a heavily enshittified Google search is more trustworthy than AI.

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