I was just browsing through the Squadron book M1's in Action and came across a statement that puzzled me. The book says "when traveling on roads the turret is normally traversed to the rear and the gun locked in position."

In my unit this was not so. The only tank that had it's gun over the rear deck in a road march or maneuvers was the last tank - rear guard. Any one else?

Also, if anyone gives me the word they care to see them, I'll put some vintage 80's road march photo's in my gallery. We had M1's, M113's ,M901's, M106's and the usual support vehicles. They don't do Cav like that anymore.

Sure. Pop them in there. Thanks for your time.

I just put in a couple of photos. I will try to go through my stuff and try to find some other interesting things to put in as time permits.

19K,
Im with you on that one. When I first arrived to my first duty station, Germany, in 1990, I didnt know what to expect. At forst i was living in barrecks for about 2 months till my wife arrived. So I didnt get out much. The first time I had to drive from my apartment to my unit, I ran across a convoy on the autobaun. Fir a kid straight out of basic and AIT, seeing that on a highway was a sight.
Long story short, not one of the M1 had its turret traversed to the rear, only the last one like you said, pulling rear guard.

Here are some photos of my unit in Germany 1985 - 1986 era. They aren't the clearest, but you can get the idea of what it was like. The maintenance halt shots show the entire troop as viewed from my tank fore and aft.

Tasty photos!!

I was there from Oct 86-Oct 88

That brings back some memories!! Mostly of the cold!!
Were those shots from a REFORGER??

JP

The shots with the convoy moving are just us going to our local training area outside Amberg. The maintenance halt shots are from March 1986 on our way to Grafenwehr for gunnery. I have some Reforger photos, but they aren't that good, and are off road.

cool Thanks for the Memories!!

Typical German weather!!!!

The only time we had gun tubes locked to the rear when out of the Kaserne, was when I was stationed at Baulholder. We took the tank trail around the town to get to the railhead. Out tubes were to the rear in travel lock and a cable was lashed across the gun tube and rear deck to ensure the gun tube would not swing out to teh side while on the railcar. I never could figure out how the gun tube was going to swing our when the interior turrent ring lock was engaged and the tube was in teh travel lock! But that was Bundesbahn regulations, and to rail out of Baulmholder involved passing thru 13 railroad tunnels!!!

I never enjoyed rail load. I would rather road march. Then again, I can remember one trip to Hoenfels (spelling?) that I thought my hands would never thaw out. The cold air was coming over the front slope and into my driving hole right onto my hands. I was using our issue gloves and liners. I bought a very good pair of civilian gloves after that field problem and learned some new ways to keep the cold air out and the warm air in.

When I was a TC in Ft Riley Kansas, we had this crappy M1 and the heater didn't work.
In the dead of winter, we were on a road march, and I remember from the wind, the tears coming out of my eyes, onto the side of my head and freezing!!

I also remember a day out there, where it got so cold (-70º), that they SHUT DOWN THE POST for training!!!

Of course, I had BNSDNCO, and I froze my a$$ off!!!

Great pics 19K!! They bring back memories of my time in Germany 1983 to 1990,I was with the Canadians down in Lahr.We always had to do Train moves to get our tracked stuff out to the training areas in Hohenfels and Graf.Chocking and chaining was not too much fun in the cold and wet.


Thanks for the memories

Mark

Engineers

I have found a photo taken at the destination of the maintenance halt photos. I thought you guys might be interested. I think this was Table VI. I can't recall for certain. It certainly wasn't Table VII though!. This range was a nasty mud hole every time we went to it. This photo doesn't make it seem too bad, bad I am pretty sure that off to the right of this photo, a person could easily sink knee deep in mud. Wet, cold and miserable. Typical March weather at Graf.



Sorry about the quality... 1980's disc camera. Note the M114s that help form the defilade.

19K,

Great pics, "tanks" for the memories. I know when I was in Germany 1/68 Armor traveled like you remember, with only tail-end Charlie having the main gun over the back deck. The rest were herringboned. Maybe things have changed, or someone gave the author some bad gouge on how they do things.

The reference might be relating to travel trough villages. The barrel sticks out quite a lot at the front (as if you didn't know ) and it is all to easy to hit something when going round corners. A friend of mine who served with the Dutch Cavalry told about a Leopard which knocked the corner out of a house on a march in the mid 80's. Apparently the TC got into a lot of trouble because he should have been travelling with the barrel in the travel lock but didn't.

Nice pic's, I can feel the cold and DAMP. Makes you shiver.

Cheers
Henk

I have fond memiores of tearing round the range road from Fallingbostel to Hohne in my XR2 and nearly hitting into the back of a Leo that was the rear end of a convoy of them used to drive that road 2 times a day never knew what you'd see

Wow! Those pictures bring back some nightmares!
Just kidding! I was in Bradleys not tanks but we sure did all the same stuff. Rail-loading,Graf, Hohenfels. We didn't have to worry about our gun barrels though, too small to travel lock.

I was in Baumholder from 85-88 with Aco 2/68 armor. We never traveled the roads with our gun tubes over the rear deck unless we were road marching to the rail head at Baumholder. And thats because we had cables tieing the guntubes down so the turret would't swing around in case of a gearbox malfunction. We had a crew in another company rail load and didn't lock the turret lock and they also had a defective travel lock. the turret swung around and took out alot of stuff along the tracks. The tanks we had in this time period were M60A3s.