United States Army Ordnance Museum
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The U.S. Army Ordnance Museum is a museum located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Aberdeen, Maryland, USA.
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[edit] History
The mission of the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum is to acquire, preserve, and exhibit historically significant equipment, armaments and materiel that relates to the history of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps and to document and present the evolution and development of U.S. military ordnance material dating from the American Colonial Period to present day.
Established in 1919, and officially opened to the public in 1924, to exhibit captured enemy equipment and materiel, the Museum was located in Building 314 of the Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) and operated by the U.S. Army until 1967. Co-location with APG provided convenient access to the equipment being delivered to APG for testing after World War I. In 1965, local citizens formed the tax-free Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc. to establish and operate a museum of these military artifacts. The Foundation is not affiliated with the U.S. Army, nor the Department of Defense. The Foundation began operation of the Museum in the early 1970s, upon opening at its current location in Building 2601 on the Aberdeen Proving Ground and operates the Ordnance Museum until this day.
The museum consists of two parts: a large outdoor collection of field military equipment and weaponry, covering a 25-acre park, and an indoor museum displaying firearms and explosives from numerous of the world's militaries, along with histories of their development.
The museum is open to visitors seven days a week, from 9:00am to 4:45pm, excluding most federal holidays.
- Museum Foundation
A Ordnance Museum Foundation has been established with future plans to improve the museum through the construction of a 300,000 square foot indoor exhibition area and maintenance facilities.
The Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc. was formally incorporated in the State of Maryland as Charity #8849 in December of 1991 as a non-profit, tax exempt corporation. This status as a non-profit tax-exempt corporation was recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as an authorized 501(c)(3) corporation in the Spring of 1992.
[edit] Exhibits
The outdoor collection features nearly 200 various military vehicles, Self-propelled guns, tanks, munitions, and numerous mortars and artillery pieces from World War I era forward.
Sample outdoor exhibit artifacts include (not all-inclusive):
Vehicles:
- an M2 Bradley armored personnel carrier,
- an US M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank,
- a World War II-vintage halftrack,
- Self-propelled guns,
- a German WW II Panther Tank),
- a Panzer IV tank
- a Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go Tank
- a Soviet T-34 medium tank
Munitions:
- "T12", the largest conventional bomb ever built [1] (U.S. 44,000 lb bomb), standing upright outside the front entrance to the museum building
Artillery pieces:
- US 280mm Field Gun M65 "Atomic Cannon"
- German Krupp K5 Railway gun "Leopold" (one of the "Anzio Annie" twins)
The indoor portion of the Ordnance Museum contains a large collection of firearms, shells, hand grenades, cartridges, and educational displays. Numerous antique artillery and mortars are on display, as is a 1942 Jeep.
[edit] References and Notes
[edit] See also
- Kubinka Tank Museum - Russian Tank Museum
- Musée des Blindés - French Tank Museum
- Bovington Tank Museum - United Kingdom Tank Museum
[edit] External links
- External photographic catalogs / galleries
- US APG OM at peachmountain.com
- US APG OM German tanks at axishistory.com
- Ordnance Collection at Aberdeen Proving Grounds
- US Army Ordinance Museum Photos of Tanks, Armored Vehicles, Artillery, and other weapons at the US Army Ordinance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds
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