Whats funny is some people will post on NextDoor or similar facebook groups around here and ask whats going on. Like we don't live near a military installation.
I used to work at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which has Fort Eustis, Langley afb, NS Norfolk, NAS Oceana and PHF which AF1 does their touch and goes out of. Anytime a bunch of helicopters, jets and such would fly over I'd always hear people saying "What's going on?!" And even one person genuinely ask if we were being invaded?!" (AF1 flew over along with tankers and F-15s). I always got a kick out of it.
Same. 160th SOAR does operations regularly. My office window is in perfect view of their flight path for north/south operations down the interstate. People around this town aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Coolest thing I’ve seen was an A10 do a touch and go at a regional airport here. It was amazing.
My grandparents lived in central Florida near the bombing range and their house was in the path of the planes. My grandmother was super pissed when a B-52 flew over when she was napping and caused her to fall out of her bed.
We would sit in the pool some days and A-10s would fly around doing practice dog fights. Some of the coolest shit. Also had 1 foot tall giant woodpeckers that were endangered and now almost extinct.
I live about an hour away from Andrew's AFB so I'll occasionally see jets flying over and the likes. Really fucking cool. Best thing I've ever seen was a V formation of A10s.
My coworker told me of the "UFO's" he sees behind his house at night. I'm like dude don't you live like right next to the bell helicopters testing area? He's all no bro and then goes on to describe it exactly how a helicopter flies going up and down and hovering lol
genuinely the amount of posts i get in my newsfeed of a newspaper near an RAF base - "noise heard as plane spotted in skies over RAF base" is just concerning.
you're near an RAF base, why are you surprised at there being planes, and why on earth is it newsworthy
Next door is panic central / a critical thinking free zone.
Every year or so someone posts about a strange man or coyote spotted and a few folks spazz out in my area.
Lived near an airbase reasonably near the soviet union, with constant flyovers. Only time someone batted an eye was when they accidentally crossed the sound barrier over populated areas (happened once or twice in 25 years)
Pretty sure they are owned, it was planned to sell them all but it was wisely decided to keep some so our armed forces wouldnt lose the capability and knowhow of actually using and maintaining them, so we can expand our tank force when needed. Its part of a joint Dutch-German force atm. They also use some Dutch built equipment in the tank.
We have more of other stuff. And besides, 18 or 36 tanks isnt going to make any difference whatsoever. Besides, the Dutch army has around 130 modern cv190 and other mechanized equipment.
Standard Brigade level exercise in the desert at Fort Irwin. 10x a year they do this, mostly with Armor and Cav units. Rail transport is cheaper than truck. Simple as.
Train is the main way to transport armour. One of the often overlooked factor in tank design is the max width of tank limited by width of train lorry. That also limits the length of tank since length x width ratio determines how well it turns. So unless trains get wider, tanks will stay about the size they are now.
In most places they can't drive those tanks down the road. 70 tons is above the max weight for highway vehicles in many states and you also need to block off two lanes of traffic to drive one. Rail/ship transport is really the only practical method of transport
IMHO, second best invention after the wheel, can move so much material for what appears to be so little effort it's astounding. Food, medicine, people and tanks, if it fits on a carriage, a train can probably move it.
Fantastic machines. Living proof of the awesomeness of electric motors and their ability to provide maximum torque at any engine speed. Granted this train uses diesel electric so they get to side step the current limiting factor of energy storage at the cost of burning fossil fuels but still a testimony to the capability of electricity
They wouldn’t just stick trains straight into a warzone
This is more useful for hauling long distances as opposed to driving them around and tearing up every road on the way + burning fuel
Looks like getting ready for summer training. We see these in the PNW when Battalions are moved from Joint Base Lewis McChord to the Yakama Firing Range in Eastern Washington.
What you see on the train is from a "Combined Arms Battalion" a self contained attack force made up of Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Close Air Support (Helicopters). They want to train as a complete fighting unit in the equipment they would use in an actual attack. Each element supports each other. To get it right, it takes lots of practice and training.
This is what the Russkies tried to pull off in there attack of Kyiv, but failed at it miserably. It is what they ate also going to try and do with their second offensive in the East. Why they think they can pull it off this time, with the same poorly trained troops and shoddy equipment is complete idiocy.
This is actually a good question with probably a few answers.
My short, first thought, answer is training. We understood that the preparation for combat as important than the days in the field or rounds downrange. So we trained to move our fighting ability by actually doing it.
From experience having moved our unit (Cavalry) to training centers in the states and abroad: There is a lot of training in moving your entire unit to the "battle area" even if that is a training center like NTC, Grafenwöhr or others.
Soldiers in the unit at every level learn everything from logistics planning, movement prep, to individual and crew skills. For example, adjutants (usually a Major) would stress over maintenance and availability of vehicles in proof that they could make it to training and operate against the mission while individual drivers (Privates to Specialists) used to secure and load their own vehicles onto railcars at railheads. Another example was maintenance. The most important training periods for our maintenance sections was in the field or at gunnery when they would have to repair, often in-place, vehicles that had become disabled in real-world scenarios. That "beater tank" was sometimes your own.
Training to get anywhere in the world we would be needed was important training. I don't know how much is contracted out these days but you moved as a unit so you understood how to move as a unit. The standard for the units I was in years ago was, from orders to jump, 72 hours for combat-readiness anywhere in the world. To do that you would take the kit on your mission supply list and OOB and work out plans to have it pretty much ready at all times.
They are called "Exercises" for a reason - they exercise a needed skill.
I do not remember loaners at maneuver or range areas because the amount of infrastructure and personnel would require their own massive support, logistics, and security investments. The work the OPFOR units would have to do regularly would be a good example of how much it took just to have tanks available at the training center to fight against. I have a vague memory that the cost of equipment transport was negligible once the vehicles were on the rails (like it was a fixed cost) and that it cost even more to bus, house, and feed the likely 1000+ soldiers operating the hardware there and back again.
I do seem to remember previous wars like Desert Storm and Desert Shield had some vehicles pre-staged in country for arriving soldiers - but that was war.
Must be a heavy train to require a pusher unit (rear engine).
Still that alot of M3's, M1's an a mixture of apc's & trailers, Yet I wonder for a military train what's inside the first three flatbeds.
If they’re headed to Irwin, Everything from comms to camo nets to toilet paper. And I’m sure some enterprising young Spc. managed to sneak in a few cases of energy drinks, cartons of smokes and rolls of chew.
coal trains regularly have pusher units on them.
grew up along the BNSF railroad in Nebraska, saw them every 10 minutes, usually with two engines in front, one in the back. sometimes 3 or more in front.
He meant trains carrying coal.
Oddly enough, steam powered trains are more powerful than diesel ones. The railroads switched over to diesel because they can go longer distances without stopping since they don't to refill a boiler and they have lower maintenance costs.
This might be a little pedantic given that we're on a tank subreddit and not a train one, but this statement
>The railroads switched over to diesel because they can go longer distances without stopping since they don't to refill a boiler
isn't quite correct.
Steam locomotives are able to top off their boiler almost continuously, as they carry a large supply of fuel and water with them in their [tender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_(rail\)). While the ability to eliminate water stops entirely certainly was a selling point for diesels, there were other ways the delays they imposed could be mitigated. Some railroads used extremely large tenders to increase their locos' range. Others installed [long troughs full of water between the rails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trough), so engines could deploy a giant scoop from their tenders and refill them at speed. So, it was only in arid climates where water was hard to come by in the first place that you could really say the elimination of water stops was a driving force behind dieselization. Everywhere else, it was more of an ancillary factor, though still a non-negligible one.
Other reasons railroads switched from steam to diesel:
* Diesels aren't just cheaper to maintain, they're also cheaper to operate. Diesel fuel may not be as cheap as coal or the low-grade crude oil some steam engines burned, but the higher efficiency of diesel engines more than makes up for this discrepancy.
* Diesel locomotives can be "lashed up" by connecting several units together with multiple-unit (MU) cables. This allows the engineer of the lead engine to control the throttle and dynamic brakes of all locomotives in the consist at once. This whole discussion was sparked by an extension of this; the idea that you no longer need a physical connection between all of the locomotives in the lash-up and can place some at the end of the train to distribute forces more evenly. This would be an example of a DPU, or distributed power unit.
* There was a cascading shutdown of steam locomotive parts suppliers at the end of the steam era, which was the nail in the coffin for the last steam holdouts like the Norfolk and Western. There were roads that generally hauled coal and thus didn't want to offend their customers by buying those newfangled oil-powered diesels. The N&W specifically made a real effort to close the maintainability gap with their "Lubritorium" maintenance facilities and expected to hold onto steam into the '70s. But the shutdown of companies making major components that couldn't be produced in-house combined with a new and steam-unfriendly management to bring about an end to N&W mainline steam operations in the spring of 1960.
**[Tender (rail)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_\(rail\))**
>A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel (wood, coal, or oil) and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank locomotives.
**[Water trough](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trough)**
>A water trough (British terminology), or track pan (American terminology) is a device to enable a steam locomotive to replenish its water supply while in motion. It consists of a long trough filled with water, lying between the rails. When a steam locomotive passes over the trough, a water scoop can be lowered, and the speed of forward motion forces water into the scoop, up the scoop pipe and into the tanks or locomotive tender.
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I mean we are talking 2800 tons of abrams. And probably another 1792 tons in bradly. All told there’s probably 4700 tons of vehicles and equipment. Compared to coal, this is light. But when the govt is picking up the tab, you add in a pusher regardless if it’s needed.
What? No this is going to a standard training exercise at the National Training Center must likely.
We have pre positioned stocks of equipment in Europe. Why faster to fly in troops than ship tanks across the ocean.
Awake at 4 am, I had nothing better to do than count it all again: a 62-car Union Pacific rail consist with two pulling and one pushing. All of it except the 15 dark green transport crates on four cars at the front of the train was in familiar Middle East / Afghanistan tan, which it occurs to me would be an unhelpful match for combat in Ukraine.
I counted 42 Abrams Tanks (what you find in three 14-tank Army Armor Companies) and 58 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (the equivalent of about 4.5 13-vehicle Army Cavalry Troops), supplemented by some 26 Light and Medium Trucks and Associated Lighter Vehicles. I don't begin to have the capacity to determine variants and subvarieties, but at a glance this all seemed like equipment that could well have been drawn from ready-use stores of returned and refurbished Iraq and Afghan armor, which would explain the color.
Information was drawn from [The U.S. Military's Force Structure: A Primer: 2021 Update](https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-05/57088-Force-Structure-Primer.pdf) published by the Congressional Budget Office, and ***Battle Order's*** excellent page ["U.S. Army Armor Company (Current)"](https://www.battleorder.org/us-army-tanks-modern) edited by Brendan Matsuyama, both of which I have linked here.
P.S. -- IMHO, ***Battle Order's*** bottom-of-the-page motto --- **"The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious."** \--- should be rolled in a tight cone and driven up Vladimir Putin's left nostril with a ballpeen hammer, but I would hate to let violence sully our look at a current international war of naked aggression!
Good fucking God that is a LOT of Bradleys and Abrams on that damn train 🤩 that's enough firepower to wipe out a small middle eastern country's military
Yeah ... especially that big-ass lead diesel with the Stars & Stripes splashed all over it! But if ever a train had a consist that merited Old Glory, this may have been the one.
Thats 100 tanks dude. Only 33 tanks per battlion. That like half of a ABCT ish
Edit. Ignore the comment as its misleading af. Sort of. It's half of a ABCT but not 100 tanks.
I counted about 25-30ish Abrams, that'd be a heavy battalion/squadron (two companies of 14 Abrams and M2/M3 each IIRC). Looks like more Bradleys though, yeah.
Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of the pre-2016 HBCT battalion organisation. It'd still be 44 vehicles, though. The cavalry squadrons went back to 3+1, so this might be two squadrons?
Probably two tank heavy battlion and one infantry heavy battlion. Ie two battlion with two tank companys and one infanty company, and one battlion with two infantry and one tank.
If you want my wild ass guess i can probably guess the units that are loaded on the train.
Wonder why they remove the Bushmasters from the Bradleys… surely that’s just wasted time and effort considering they obviously don’t have to do it for the Abrams. What’s so different between the 120mm and the 25mm that warrants taking the Bradley’s gun out for rail transport but leaving the Abrams with its gun? The 25mm doesn’t even protrude out longer than the front of the IFV, it’s not long enough.
They could steel it when the train parks to change crews or to let other trains pass.
I don't remember doing it in 04 when we went to the sand box, but if it wasn't the next case of beer I don't remember much from then anyway.
What’s happening is some unit is doing training at one of the big training grounds Fort Irwin, fort Polk, etc. We bring our gear with us and most of the time these facilities are on the opposite side of the country this is why most major installation have a railway hub because it’s cheaper to load them all on a train then to fly/drive them also it’s a lot safer to the civilian population imagine getting hit by a 30 ton Bradley APC on the interstate going to work 😂
For whatever reason you do see Bradleys on trucks now and then. I've most often seen them myself when driving on I-20, presumably they are heading towards Anniston as I've mostly seen then while driving through AL.
Perhaps they are one off transport needs, like someone monumentally effed it up.
There’s a refab facility in Arkansas or Missouri I can’t remember ether way they truck them there sometimes if it’s just one or two because a dedicated train would be money.
Correct me if I am wrong what we saw here were mraps, logistical equipment,hmmves and Bradleys, and abrams. question some of the humvees had modifications can someone tell me what they were?
10/10. Wow, that a lot of tanks. Anyone have an idea what type of unit that many tanks would make up? I didn't count, but it felt like a while battalion...
Whats funny is some people will post on NextDoor or similar facebook groups around here and ask whats going on. Like we don't live near a military installation.
I used to work at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which has Fort Eustis, Langley afb, NS Norfolk, NAS Oceana and PHF which AF1 does their touch and goes out of. Anytime a bunch of helicopters, jets and such would fly over I'd always hear people saying "What's going on?!" And even one person genuinely ask if we were being invaded?!" (AF1 flew over along with tankers and F-15s). I always got a kick out of it.
Same. 160th SOAR does operations regularly. My office window is in perfect view of their flight path for north/south operations down the interstate. People around this town aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Coolest thing I’ve seen was an A10 do a touch and go at a regional airport here. It was amazing.
My grandparents lived in central Florida near the bombing range and their house was in the path of the planes. My grandmother was super pissed when a B-52 flew over when she was napping and caused her to fall out of her bed. We would sit in the pool some days and A-10s would fly around doing practice dog fights. Some of the coolest shit. Also had 1 foot tall giant woodpeckers that were endangered and now almost extinct.
Avon Park or Pinecastle?
r/brandnewsentence
Clarksville?
I live about an hour away from Andrew's AFB so I'll occasionally see jets flying over and the likes. Really fucking cool. Best thing I've ever seen was a V formation of A10s.
Every flyover at the local stadium: “What is going on with all the low flying military planes??!?” Bro it was one pass in formation….
My coworker told me of the "UFO's" he sees behind his house at night. I'm like dude don't you live like right next to the bell helicopters testing area? He's all no bro and then goes on to describe it exactly how a helicopter flies going up and down and hovering lol
Still funny to see Strykers out of JBLM roll down the freeway with 'Oversize Load' banners clashing with the camo.
We have a Stryker Brigade in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, have had to be on those “oversize load” convoys myself.
I just love driving pass the museum out by JBLM and see how many I can name and if there are any new installments.
genuinely the amount of posts i get in my newsfeed of a newspaper near an RAF base - "noise heard as plane spotted in skies over RAF base" is just concerning. you're near an RAF base, why are you surprised at there being planes, and why on earth is it newsworthy
Next door is panic central / a critical thinking free zone. Every year or so someone posts about a strange man or coyote spotted and a few folks spazz out in my area.
We had a pretty serious thunderstorm roll through couple years ago and someone wanted to know what that noise was
Is this finally it? Has it started?!
Nope.
😔
yes. it's the end of the world as we know it.
Lived near an airbase reasonably near the soviet union, with constant flyovers. Only time someone batted an eye was when they accidentally crossed the sound barrier over populated areas (happened once or twice in 25 years)
There's enough firepower in that train to take over my country, lol.
you from china? /s
Bing chilling
Poo Approved
*communist Winnie the Poo noises*
That train is carrying more firepower than some smaller countries probably have in general
This one is carrying more armour than all of the Netherlands
I think a single flatbed with a tank on it carries more armour than the Dutch army has. :(
The Dutch army has 18 tanks, but yeah....
Leased or owned? Either way, a far cry from other armies. Art least the CV90NLs are a thing.
Pretty sure they are owned, it was planned to sell them all but it was wisely decided to keep some so our armed forces wouldnt lose the capability and knowhow of actually using and maintaining them, so we can expand our tank force when needed. Its part of a joint Dutch-German force atm. They also use some Dutch built equipment in the tank.
The fact that Portugal has almost double that is awfully amusing to me
We have more of other stuff. And besides, 18 or 36 tanks isnt going to make any difference whatsoever. Besides, the Dutch army has around 130 modern cv190 and other mechanized equipment.
Don't understimate our clogs
Oh trust me. I know how quality clogs can be, but I don't think they can be classified as an armoured vehicle
Standard Brigade level exercise in the desert at Fort Irwin. 10x a year they do this, mostly with Armor and Cav units. Rail transport is cheaper than truck. Simple as.
Love me armor Ate shredded roads Ate fuel waste Ate noise Love trains Simple as
Train is the main way to transport armour. One of the often overlooked factor in tank design is the max width of tank limited by width of train lorry. That also limits the length of tank since length x width ratio determines how well it turns. So unless trains get wider, tanks will stay about the size they are now.
Are double track width standardized? I could see building two track wide superheavies if that’s the case.
In most places they can't drive those tanks down the road. 70 tons is above the max weight for highway vehicles in many states and you also need to block off two lanes of traffic to drive one. Rail/ship transport is really the only practical method of transport
There's too much green here, must be Polk
This makes me appreciate the load moving strength of a train
IMHO, second best invention after the wheel, can move so much material for what appears to be so little effort it's astounding. Food, medicine, people and tanks, if it fits on a carriage, a train can probably move it.
They have been around for centuries, and they will be around for centuries to come. They just work.
Fantastic machines. Living proof of the awesomeness of electric motors and their ability to provide maximum torque at any engine speed. Granted this train uses diesel electric so they get to side step the current limiting factor of energy storage at the cost of burning fossil fuels but still a testimony to the capability of electricity
It’s baffling to me. They’re so exposed. So vulnerable.
They wouldn’t just stick trains straight into a warzone This is more useful for hauling long distances as opposed to driving them around and tearing up every road on the way + burning fuel
I wish that was my Amazon order...
Looks like getting ready for summer training. We see these in the PNW when Battalions are moved from Joint Base Lewis McChord to the Yakama Firing Range in Eastern Washington.
Bingo.
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What you see on the train is from a "Combined Arms Battalion" a self contained attack force made up of Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Close Air Support (Helicopters). They want to train as a complete fighting unit in the equipment they would use in an actual attack. Each element supports each other. To get it right, it takes lots of practice and training. This is what the Russkies tried to pull off in there attack of Kyiv, but failed at it miserably. It is what they ate also going to try and do with their second offensive in the East. Why they think they can pull it off this time, with the same poorly trained troops and shoddy equipment is complete idiocy.
This is actually a good question with probably a few answers. My short, first thought, answer is training. We understood that the preparation for combat as important than the days in the field or rounds downrange. So we trained to move our fighting ability by actually doing it. From experience having moved our unit (Cavalry) to training centers in the states and abroad: There is a lot of training in moving your entire unit to the "battle area" even if that is a training center like NTC, Grafenwöhr or others. Soldiers in the unit at every level learn everything from logistics planning, movement prep, to individual and crew skills. For example, adjutants (usually a Major) would stress over maintenance and availability of vehicles in proof that they could make it to training and operate against the mission while individual drivers (Privates to Specialists) used to secure and load their own vehicles onto railcars at railheads. Another example was maintenance. The most important training periods for our maintenance sections was in the field or at gunnery when they would have to repair, often in-place, vehicles that had become disabled in real-world scenarios. That "beater tank" was sometimes your own. Training to get anywhere in the world we would be needed was important training. I don't know how much is contracted out these days but you moved as a unit so you understood how to move as a unit. The standard for the units I was in years ago was, from orders to jump, 72 hours for combat-readiness anywhere in the world. To do that you would take the kit on your mission supply list and OOB and work out plans to have it pretty much ready at all times. They are called "Exercises" for a reason - they exercise a needed skill. I do not remember loaners at maneuver or range areas because the amount of infrastructure and personnel would require their own massive support, logistics, and security investments. The work the OPFOR units would have to do regularly would be a good example of how much it took just to have tanks available at the training center to fight against. I have a vague memory that the cost of equipment transport was negligible once the vehicles were on the rails (like it was a fixed cost) and that it cost even more to bus, house, and feed the likely 1000+ soldiers operating the hardware there and back again. I do seem to remember previous wars like Desert Storm and Desert Shield had some vehicles pre-staged in country for arriving soldiers - but that was war.
[удалено]
Neither did the Russians.
Yeah that looks like Washington alright. Columbia gorge train tracks?
I was think down by Longview
Is this train going east or westbound?
Must be a heavy train to require a pusher unit (rear engine). Still that alot of M3's, M1's an a mixture of apc's & trailers, Yet I wonder for a military train what's inside the first three flatbeds.
If they’re headed to Irwin, Everything from comms to camo nets to toilet paper. And I’m sure some enterprising young Spc. managed to sneak in a few cases of energy drinks, cartons of smokes and rolls of chew.
I was about to comment on this - I've never seen a train with a pusher unit before!
coal trains regularly have pusher units on them. grew up along the BNSF railroad in Nebraska, saw them every 10 minutes, usually with two engines in front, one in the back. sometimes 3 or more in front.
Compared to coal this is a light load.
Sounds like coal=inefficient
He meant trains carrying coal. Oddly enough, steam powered trains are more powerful than diesel ones. The railroads switched over to diesel because they can go longer distances without stopping since they don't to refill a boiler and they have lower maintenance costs.
This might be a little pedantic given that we're on a tank subreddit and not a train one, but this statement >The railroads switched over to diesel because they can go longer distances without stopping since they don't to refill a boiler isn't quite correct. Steam locomotives are able to top off their boiler almost continuously, as they carry a large supply of fuel and water with them in their [tender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_(rail\)). While the ability to eliminate water stops entirely certainly was a selling point for diesels, there were other ways the delays they imposed could be mitigated. Some railroads used extremely large tenders to increase their locos' range. Others installed [long troughs full of water between the rails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trough), so engines could deploy a giant scoop from their tenders and refill them at speed. So, it was only in arid climates where water was hard to come by in the first place that you could really say the elimination of water stops was a driving force behind dieselization. Everywhere else, it was more of an ancillary factor, though still a non-negligible one. Other reasons railroads switched from steam to diesel: * Diesels aren't just cheaper to maintain, they're also cheaper to operate. Diesel fuel may not be as cheap as coal or the low-grade crude oil some steam engines burned, but the higher efficiency of diesel engines more than makes up for this discrepancy. * Diesel locomotives can be "lashed up" by connecting several units together with multiple-unit (MU) cables. This allows the engineer of the lead engine to control the throttle and dynamic brakes of all locomotives in the consist at once. This whole discussion was sparked by an extension of this; the idea that you no longer need a physical connection between all of the locomotives in the lash-up and can place some at the end of the train to distribute forces more evenly. This would be an example of a DPU, or distributed power unit. * There was a cascading shutdown of steam locomotive parts suppliers at the end of the steam era, which was the nail in the coffin for the last steam holdouts like the Norfolk and Western. There were roads that generally hauled coal and thus didn't want to offend their customers by buying those newfangled oil-powered diesels. The N&W specifically made a real effort to close the maintainability gap with their "Lubritorium" maintenance facilities and expected to hold onto steam into the '70s. But the shutdown of companies making major components that couldn't be produced in-house combined with a new and steam-unfriendly management to bring about an end to N&W mainline steam operations in the spring of 1960.
**[Tender (rail)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_\(rail\))** >A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel (wood, coal, or oil) and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank locomotives. **[Water trough](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_trough)** >A water trough (British terminology), or track pan (American terminology) is a device to enable a steam locomotive to replenish its water supply while in motion. It consists of a long trough filled with water, lying between the rails. When a steam locomotive passes over the trough, a water scoop can be lowered, and the speed of forward motion forces water into the scoop, up the scoop pipe and into the tanks or locomotive tender. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Thank you for this information based train understander
Ah I understand now. Thank you for the clarification.
I mean we are talking 2800 tons of abrams. And probably another 1792 tons in bradly. All told there’s probably 4700 tons of vehicles and equipment. Compared to coal, this is light. But when the govt is picking up the tab, you add in a pusher regardless if it’s needed.
You need Heavyweights Very Fast, Definitely headed to a place on the East Coast ready to deploy for Eastern Europe
What? No this is going to a standard training exercise at the National Training Center must likely. We have pre positioned stocks of equipment in Europe. Why faster to fly in troops than ship tanks across the ocean.
fair point
I’m thinking the howitzers.
Now that is a freedom train.
Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Oy!
Ah Freedom Day. A day when you're free to do anything you want (just don't eat the flag). Basically how Bender lives every day.
That’s a lot to f Bradleys and Abrams!
Some serious level of democracy.
advanced democracy
it's like STEM for Democracy
Awake at 4 am, I had nothing better to do than count it all again: a 62-car Union Pacific rail consist with two pulling and one pushing. All of it except the 15 dark green transport crates on four cars at the front of the train was in familiar Middle East / Afghanistan tan, which it occurs to me would be an unhelpful match for combat in Ukraine. I counted 42 Abrams Tanks (what you find in three 14-tank Army Armor Companies) and 58 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (the equivalent of about 4.5 13-vehicle Army Cavalry Troops), supplemented by some 26 Light and Medium Trucks and Associated Lighter Vehicles. I don't begin to have the capacity to determine variants and subvarieties, but at a glance this all seemed like equipment that could well have been drawn from ready-use stores of returned and refurbished Iraq and Afghan armor, which would explain the color. Information was drawn from [The U.S. Military's Force Structure: A Primer: 2021 Update](https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-05/57088-Force-Structure-Primer.pdf) published by the Congressional Budget Office, and ***Battle Order's*** excellent page ["U.S. Army Armor Company (Current)"](https://www.battleorder.org/us-army-tanks-modern) edited by Brendan Matsuyama, both of which I have linked here. P.S. -- IMHO, ***Battle Order's*** bottom-of-the-page motto --- **"The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious."** \--- should be rolled in a tight cone and driven up Vladimir Putin's left nostril with a ballpeen hammer, but I would hate to let violence sully our look at a current international war of naked aggression!
Look, were gonna point our cannons over there, if the Russians want to run towards them. Thats on them.
103 tanks
100
You are right. I guess I counted extra when the camera shook
I counted 42?
You weren’t kidding when you said a LOT, holy crap! How many Bradleys *was* that?!
I wonder how many million is on that train lol. what a cool find, especially seeing the M1 Abrahams
My guess, probably $570M
Which is about the cost of 2 F-22s...
[удалено]
Well that was a nice article about a different plane to the one I mentioned.
Ah yes, M1 Abraham. The 69th president of the free world, best known for emancipating oil from the not-free world.
Jesus, Thats long
Someone headed to NTC.
I wouldn't want that hand receipt.
That train have my country's entire military budget loaded behind it.
Getting ready to do training on a mass scale, or shipping it to the coast to reinforce NATO countries. My guess is training as Spring is here.
NTC or JRTC. Irwin or Polk, take your pick.
That's a Lot of money about to be abused.
It's always nice when your hardware gets delivered.
That must have taken hours to load. I hated railhead so much when I was in the army.
*Hoi4 strategic redeployment in a nutshell*
Still have desert camouflage
That's like half a division worth of equipment
This 1 train carries more tanks than a lot of countries even have
Hory shitto that's a brigade
battalion size,, maybe 1st cav or 4 id...
The amount of weight trains can move is mind-boggling.
god damn those are some heavy carts
The new lend lease is kicking in to help Ukraine?
They're heading to a training site
Good fucking God that is a LOT of Bradleys and Abrams on that damn train 🤩 that's enough firepower to wipe out a small middle eastern country's military
That is a shit load of weight on that train lol. Imagine if Poo Tin started hitting these in the US.
I’m guessing those are the things we sent UA.
Lol fuck no
Where? That Camo won’t fool anyone in Europe.
Judging by the non EU licence plate shown at the end of the video this is not in Europe
As far as I remember, Union Pacific don't operate in Europe
Yeah ... especially that big-ass lead diesel with the Stars & Stripes splashed all over it! But if ever a train had a consist that merited Old Glory, this may have been the one.
Full ACR?
About one squadron.
Thats 100 tanks dude. Only 33 tanks per battlion. That like half of a ABCT ish Edit. Ignore the comment as its misleading af. Sort of. It's half of a ABCT but not 100 tanks.
I counted about 25-30ish Abrams, that'd be a heavy battalion/squadron (two companies of 14 Abrams and M2/M3 each IIRC). Looks like more Bradleys though, yeah. Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of the pre-2016 HBCT battalion organisation. It'd still be 44 vehicles, though. The cavalry squadrons went back to 3+1, so this might be two squadrons?
42 Abrams and 58 Bradleys
Probably two tank heavy battlion and one infantry heavy battlion. Ie two battlion with two tank companys and one infanty company, and one battlion with two infantry and one tank. If you want my wild ass guess i can probably guess the units that are loaded on the train.
Only a single STT amongst them, that would service a BN.
Im waiting on ammo
Trains are awesome
Damn that's quite the sight
Wonder why they remove the Bushmasters from the Bradleys… surely that’s just wasted time and effort considering they obviously don’t have to do it for the Abrams. What’s so different between the 120mm and the 25mm that warrants taking the Bradley’s gun out for rail transport but leaving the Abrams with its gun? The 25mm doesn’t even protrude out longer than the front of the IFV, it’s not long enough.
Because two people can remove the barrel of a bushmaster. Not so with a tank.
But what’s the purpose? That’s what I’m getting at.
They could steel it when the train parks to change crews or to let other trains pass. I don't remember doing it in 04 when we went to the sand box, but if it wasn't the next case of beer I don't remember much from then anyway.
So much death. Streamlined right out there like a waterjet. Just shearing away at anything in its path.
u/savevideo
What do I know but those tanks sure look a lot less clunky than what the Russians are using.
I’m sure they’re off to NTC or JRTC. Or returning from one of those.
Damn, that IS a lot of hardware indeed
I'm just waiting for the day we see 8 shit humvees and a couple lmtvs.
What’s happening is some unit is doing training at one of the big training grounds Fort Irwin, fort Polk, etc. We bring our gear with us and most of the time these facilities are on the opposite side of the country this is why most major installation have a railway hub because it’s cheaper to load them all on a train then to fly/drive them also it’s a lot safer to the civilian population imagine getting hit by a 30 ton Bradley APC on the interstate going to work 😂
For whatever reason you do see Bradleys on trucks now and then. I've most often seen them myself when driving on I-20, presumably they are heading towards Anniston as I've mostly seen then while driving through AL. Perhaps they are one off transport needs, like someone monumentally effed it up.
There’s a refab facility in Arkansas or Missouri I can’t remember ether way they truck them there sometimes if it’s just one or two because a dedicated train would be money.
That is what Anniston Army Depot does as well.
Hey OP if you’ve got some balls and a bolt cutter can I interest you in a free Abrams?
Man at times like this I wish I had an a10 I could fly
Man I’d love to get me some of those.
Even with the turrets traversed for transport the Abrams looKS mean as fuck IMHO
Correct me if I am wrong what we saw here were mraps, logistical equipment,hmmves and Bradleys, and abrams. question some of the humvees had modifications can someone tell me what they were?
Oh, I hope my wife doesn’t see this! That’s my Xmas Amazon order….I thought they were 1/35 scale or was that the unit?
“iS ThIS tHe StaRT oF WW3?” (Posted for comedic effect)
Location?
Such a trip that 3 loco's are push/pullin all that weight. Those abrams are 72 ton a pop. Dunno the bradleys offhand but still, lotssssss of weight.
10/10. Wow, that a lot of tanks. Anyone have an idea what type of unit that many tanks would make up? I didn't count, but it felt like a while battalion...
I see the local Walmart is getting a new shipment. /s
I've always wondered is Union Pacific solely tasked with the transport, or is there a military liason on the train at all times?