Tanks, Guns, and Automobiles: Summer Fireworks in a New Light

by Stephanie Dray

The Allies captured Leopold and shipped it to the Aberdeen Proving grounds where its desert camouflage contrasts starkly with the lush green trees around it. It's a compelling display, and museum visitors find it irresistible to muse that the city of Baltimore proper could easily be bombed from Aberdeen by Leopold’s thirty-mile range.

As if to emphasize that Americans do it bigger and better, the United States Atomic Cannon sits across the street from Leopold. Like Leopold, it’s mobile, but instead of railroad tracks, the Atomic Cannon is mounted on two tractors, making it highly mobile and adaptable to most road conditions. This gun is capable of firing both conventional and atomic warheads, but judging from tourist response, it lacks the romance of the German Railroad gun.

Outside the museum building, scores of young boys and men stroll amidst the tank displays outside the museum is a haven for the male imagination. The Ordnance Museum is also a place that brings the generations together. Eighth grader James Andrews, of Bristow, Virginia, was visiting the museum for the day with his father and his grandfather. He's been to the museum several times before, but came back this year because his grandfather wanted to show him the new work that museum officials are doing to restore the tanks to their original appearance.

James said, “I wanted to see what they really looked like. I'm really into this stuff. I learn a lot about history here because my grandpa tells us about the wars and about each weapon and stuff. My grandfather was in World War II and the Korean War, so he's used a lot of them. I'm really glad that they're painting the tanks now so that you can see what they looked like originally.”

For Xavier Keil, an articulate twelve-year old boy from Delaware, the Ordnance Museum was a quick day trip and a chance to spend some quality time with his dad. After climbing around and investigating tanks out in the blistering heat, Xavier and his father came inside the air-conditioned museum building to look at the smaller weapons. It was his first visit to the museum, and his eyes lit up as he explained, “There are things here that can never be seen anywhere else: weapons that were captured from the enemy, prototypes that were never used, and uncommon handguns. They’re weird looking--not like what you see on the television.”

Xavier was surprised to learn about, “all the ingenious methods of keeping people from getting behind tanks.” He also pointed out a uniquely surprising weapon amidst the others--a German “Around the Corner Gun”. This device, in use from 1944-1945, was fitted with 30- or 90-degree curved barrels and a special prism sight and could be fired around corners of buildings or over the top of tanks without exposing the shooter. And in spite of all the “cool” weapons, Xavier didn’t miss a larger message lurking behind a museum that boasts of a 43,600-lb. earthquake bomb on display in front of the building. “It’s a fun place and I’d encourage my friends to visit, but it’s scary how much devotion and time we’ve spent developing terrible weapons of war. This museum shows you how much money and energy we spend just learning better ways to kill people.”

The indoor portion of the museum is a compact display of smaller weapons and other interesting relics of war. The entranceway, ostensibly guarded by a soldier at all times, has a large bowl for donations to expand the museum. The need for more space is obvious--I was not the only visitor to trip over the handle of a large wheel mounted gun while navigating my way to the display of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese equipment. And people have to crowd around the case full of ingenious booby trapped bottles, cigarettes, land mines and cigarette lighters to view, with morbid fascination, these clever methods of death and destruction.

But the museum isn’t only about munitions. There’s an interesting and delightful display of swords that have been used in the armed forces throughout the years, a frightening diagram of underground complexes built by the Viet Cong, a piece of ENIAC (the grandfather of modern computers, used for calculating artillery ballistic tables), an exhibit of military insignias and decorations, an ode to the Jeep, and a gift shop. The gift shop sells posters, toy guns, weapon models, army figurines, memorabilia, T-shirts, hats, military books, and even novel little bullet key-chains. (It’s open from 12am-4pm Mondays and 10am-4pm Tuesday through Sunday.)

One of the few women at the tank museum turned down an interview for this article on the basis that she’d been unwillingly dragged along by her husband and her stepson. But the museum itself is quick to point out that ordnance isn’t just for men, in spite of the emphasis on mass destruction, mechanics, and machines designed to blow stuff up. The women’s restroom, painted in soft pastel shades and décor reminiscent of an Asian brothel, proudly displays posters of “Rosie the Riveter”, pictures of AWAC, and a tribute to the women who support their husbands, brothers and sons at war. (The men’s restroom reportedly features discussions of the origin of the words “latrine” and “head”, and each stall demonstrates a different type of camouflage.) Moreover, there’s a display inside the museum meant to explain the softer, practical implications of ordnance in our every day lives. That display examines the origin of many of our most cherished modern inventions such as toasters and sewing machines, which were developed as a result of innovations by armorers.

OK. So maybe there’s not all that much at the Ordnance Museum that would fascinate the average twelve year old girl, and hold her attention in the same way that the nuts and bolts of munitions delight and entertain the boys and men that visit the museum. Maybe, in your family, the Ordnance Museum would be best appreciated as a father-son affair. But the museum itself is both impressive and free, and with many of its displays out in the open instead of behind thick glass, it lends a personal and interactive atmosphere that most museums lack.

With gas prices so high, more and more Baltimorians are looking for cheaper alternatives to the traditional summer vacation. Open from the hours of 9am-4:45pm daily, the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum is a quick drive, and may be the perfect alternative trip for your family this summer.