Quote:
Originally Posted by rcaf_777
LOL that old chestnut funny how that story keeps resurfacing every few years, the bases keep changing and so dose the tank form sherman to centurions, I image in a few years it will be a Leopard I found in back waters of Gagetown, Do you really like think a country like Canada with a grand total of 120 tanks would really be able to loss two and no one find would them for about 20 some years, besides giving the size of Lahr and activitiy both air and ground I find highly doubt full nobody would find theses "hidden tanks" No to metion what happens when the IIV CH Regt trun in their old tanks for a new ones, excuse mr LCol you seem to short two tanks. It's army urban legend just like the tide box myth.
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RACF,
I did qualify the story as likely being pretty dodgy, although I should have added a "friend of a friend" told me because he read it on the Intewebz.
Sure it's an old chesnut, but could it have been true or at least plausible in some sense? Purely hypothetically, if said apocryphal tanks were hulks used for training purposes, then they wouldn't be "lost" for 20 years. If a Lieut. Col. signs off on a couple of now-surplus Centurions to be used for training of some kind, it wouldn't be his problem anymore (out of sight, out of mind). They would be left behind like all the other detritus and then cleanup crews stumbled across them. Probably the legend has its roots in the aftermath of WWII, when surplus vehicles, supplies and weapons were destroyed and/or simply abandoned in remote locations (especially after the construction of the Alcan highway). Mind you, I'm just spitballing how a story could be plausible, not defending the veracity of the story any more than I did in the first place!
Speaking of the Centurion, apparently one was used during atomic testing in Australia in 1953:
It was placed less than 500 yards (460 m) from the epicentre and left with the engine running. Examination after detonation found it had been pushed away from the blast point by about 5 feet (1.5 m) and that its engine had stopped working only because it had run out of fuel. Antennas were missing, lights and periscopes were heavily sandblasted, the cloth mantlet cover was incinerated, and the armoured side plates had been blown off and carried up to 200 yards (180 m) from the tank.[23] Remarkably the tank could be driven from the site. Had it been manned the crew would probably have been killed by the shock wave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_tank
As this tank was used for another 23 years, it's safe to say it wasn't radioactive. It's now permanently parked at Robertson Barracks. These were relatively small tests, with yields between 7 and 9 kt. Other tanks hit by battlefield nuclear weapons might be left in a similar recoverable and semi-operational state.
Tony