The "lost tanks" reminds me of a story from Michael Lee Lanning's book on commanding a mech. company in 1970s Germany,
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...ttles-of-peace. When he took over the company, he went over the equipment inventory, and found they were short by 1 M113 (nothing much)!
Someone remembered that Brigade had the idea a year or two ago, that each company should park 1 track at the supply depot, so they could load ammo quickly from the stores if they went on alert. Everyone forgot about the concept, but no one remembered to collect the tracks from the dump.
Sooooo, the captain and a sergeant went to check it out. Gee, wouldn't you know, the cleanest, shiniest, newest one there was the one that matched their serial number! At least it did by the time they got back to the company....
The maintenance manual was even free of greasy thumbprints.
