Reassembling the Last U.S. T28 Super Heavy Tank

On 28 October 2020, the U.S. Army Armor & Cavalry Collection went to work to reassemble the T28 Super Heavy Tank (also known as the Gun Motor Carriage T95) into its full 90-ton, four-tracked configuration. The T28 will now reside in the new Armor Heritage Training Support Facility of the U.S. Army Armor & Cavalry Collection, its first indoor home ever.
The T28 had been originally designed in World War II as an assault tank specifically made to take on the German defenses along the Siegfried Line. With that in mind, it was armed with the powerful T5E1 105mm main gun and had an impressive frontal armor of 12 inches (not counting the gun mantlet armor on top of that). Due to its weight, the T28 featured extra sets of tracks to properly distribute its mass. To allow the vehicle to be transportable by rail, boat, and truck, the outside tracks were detachable and could be towed behind the T28. Once near its objective, the T28 was capable to attaching its own tracks without external assistance within only a couple hours.
Only two T28s were produced, and neither ever saw combat as the war ended before they were complete. Both served in important roles as test and evaluation platforms. One T28 was sent to the Yuma Proving Grounds to test new floatation bridges around 1947 but suffered a severe engine fire and was scrapped. The sole surviving T28 was eventually declared obsolete and sent to serve as a test weight for the Mobility Equipment Research and Development Center (MERDC) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Eventually the last T28 was considered no longer needed in testing and abandoned in a remote training area at Fort Belvoir before being rediscovered in 1976 in a time when interest in World War II armor was renewed. It was sent to Fort Knox to the Armor School Museum and moved with the Armor Collection when the Armor School was moved to Fort Benning, Ga, in 2010.
This was the first time the outer track assemblies were attached to the vehicle since 2010, and the first time the installation process was conducted since the late 1970s. This was made possible by the supporting efforts of the Fort Benning Logistic Readiness Center and the U.S. Army Armor School Ground Mobility Division, which consists of Ordnance Corps Instructors that train tank mechanics on how to recover heavy armored fighting vehicles.
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