Russia Re-Uses Museum Tanks - When Militaries Bring Antiques Back Into Service

[Music] thank you over the past few days the Press has widely reported that Vladimir Putin has had to resort to ending museums and storage areas of tanks that are being pressed back into service in the war in Ukraine these specific type mentioned is the t-62 an old Soviet era tank dating back some 60 years according to reports the museum and store tanks are being repaired and modernized at a military facility at cheetah in Siberia Russia stopped building t-62s 12 years ago but they remain in Frontline service with many armies around the world today but according to journalists Russia may have two and a half thousand examples sitting in storage or Museum collections the tanks are receiving new engines communication systems thermal images and dynamic active protection armor the plant is apparently working flat out to get the upgraded vehicles to the front line in Ukraine to help make up for Russian losses in more modern tanks since the start of their Invasion last year this sort of recycling and reuse of Museum Vehicles is not limited to Russia though the Russians are doing it on a massive scale but in fact has been practiced by many militaries around the world including those of the United States and Great Britain particularly during times of War order and financial crises Ukraine also has been forced by circumstances to occasionally use Museum and memorials as sources of weapons and equipment in early 2022 as Russian forces drove on Kiev World War II era check Hedgehog anti-tank obstacles were dragged out of a museum for use as roadblocks while as the ground fighting intensified I covered recently in another video how World War II era t-34 tanks were being dragged off memorials for use as decoys to force the Russians to expend valuable anti-tank missiles during the war in the donbass region of Ukraine a Soviet era t-54 tank and a couple of howitzers were stolen by pro-russian militants from a military museum in Donetsk in 2014. our separatists also managed to start the Soviet World War II is-3 heavy tank from a memorial foreign [Music] was later captured by the Ukrainian Army who demilitarized it and put it back in the museum Ukraine has also been reusing captured Vehicles taken from the Russians including several dozen t-62 tanks fear of what Sweden described as Russian aggression in 2018 caused it to deploy old cust robot battery 90 anti-ship missiles mounted on Scania trucks on the coast of the Baltic island of gotland some of the parts for these elderly missiles were scavenged from Swedish military museums according to the Press in the United States in 2016 a funding crisis was brought to the attention of journalists when the United States Marine Corps was forced to go Scavenging in museums for parts to keep its aging Fleet of fa-18 hornet aircraft flying some parts were taken from an old Hornet aboard the museum ship USS Yorktown from an aircraft that had seen actions in the 1986 raid on Libya two years earlier in 2014 the Warren intercontinental ballistic missile and Heritage Museum at Warren Air Force Base in Ohio was asked to donate parts to assist upgrades to the old Minuteman 2 nuclear missile system specifically racks for housing Communications equipment that hadn't been made since 1962. the estimated cost to manufacture new racks was put at 2.2 million dollars so recycling those from the museum was a sensible allocation of resources in 2012 the Royal Canadian Air Force faced a problem keeping its aging Fleet of rescue planes in the air two sets of navigation equipment inertial navigation units were taken from an older c-130e Hercules on display in a museum in Trenton Ontario and plays back into Air Force service a similar problem had occurred to the Raf in 1982 when it deployed a series of old bomber and tanker types to support Avro Vulcan attacks on Argentine occupied Port Stanley Airfield in the Falkland Islands a massive effort was required to quickly restore Vulcan b2's in-flight refueling capabilities and the conversion of some Vulcans to K2 tanker aircraft foreign also had to hastily convert Nimrod Maritime Patrol reconnaissance aircraft in a very short space of time the first converted Nimrod mr2p received a refueling probe from a Vulcan on display in a museum another Vulcan that had been donated to Castle Air Force Base in California as an exhibit was raided for parts to be fitted to nimrods from the Falklands War after the war Castle Air Force Base demanded the parts to be returned one of the best examples of recycling old Vehicles due to a modern emergency occurred in the 1970s during the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland British soldiers and Royal Ulster constabulary policemen were extremely vulnerable to attack in the streets of the province and many were killed or injured formerly the fv-1611 the Humber Pig was a one-ton armored 4x4 truck that entered British service in the 1950s basically replaced in the late 1960s by the bigger saracen armored car a sudden need for a smaller lighter but reasonably protected armored vehicle went out as Northern Ireland erupted into very serious violence the Army quickly reconditioned those Humber pigs it still held in storage and then scavenged pigs from scrapyards private owners and anywhere else that they could find them including as far afield as Libya 487 being modified and upgraded between September 1972 and July 1973. these vehicles would serve on in Northern Ireland until the early 1990s the examples I've outlined here are only a small cross-section of the times when vehicles and aircraft in museums have been pressed back into service or scavenged for spare parts what is reportedly happening in Russia concerning upgrading old t-62 tanks is certainly on a very big scale but it is by no means a unique example thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook Channel War stories with Mark Felton you can also help to support both of my channels at PayPal and patreon 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Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,366,018

Keywords: Mark Felton, War Ukraine, T-62 tank, T-34 tank, T-54 tank, IS-3 tank, F/A-18, USMC, C-130, Vulcan, Nimrod, Humber Pig, Northern Ireland

Id: B372GirZ3Cs

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 16 2023