It seems unusual, living in the Detroit area, that the US seems to absolutely lack any museum on the scale of Bovington, Kubinka or the Panzermuseum. We produced a tremendous variety and number of armored vehicles, and very few of them still exist. Either in metal, or on display.
When the US Army Ordnance Museum did exist, it was an outdoor, largely untended facility it seemed. And post WWII it ended up either losing or straight up destroying a large number of artifacts.
What happened to bring about this absolute disinterest in AFVs versus aircraft and the like? There are at least 3 major government museums dedicated to aircraft, but none seem dedicated to armor. The Patton Museums collection was moved somewhere, and the USAOM had the same happen.
Writing this on mobile so bear with me:
The US Army Armor collection is a weird amalgamation due to the way Armor development was treated prior to the formalization of the Armor branch in the 1950s. I won’t get into the branch’s history, however, the infantry and cavalry branches independently developed what was know as tanks during the inter-war years. The development of large caliber guns (think 75mm artillery pieces and bigger) fell to the ordnance branch with guidance from Field Artillery.
When World War 2 breaks out and the Armor Force undergoes a rapid upgrade process (going from .50s on vehicles to 37mm to 75mm in the span of about three years) the ordnance branch is called on to develop the main cannon that these tanks would use and help test the various trial vehicles with support of the armor branch. In order to do so, much of the captured enemy material is sent specifically to the ordnance test ground (Aberdeen) in order to test US Armor’s vulnerability and test US weapon’s effectiveness against enemy armor. When the war ends, the ordnance branch is in control of the majority of captured enemy material and the US prototypes. This collection forms the basis of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds collection which is added to over the years with other captured and test platforms before BRAC in 2005. No funding was allocated for a museum as they were seen as technical representations rather than historic artifacts (a thought carried through to today).
When BRAC occurred, the Aberdeen collection is divided up to various Army museums. Some (like the Elephant) went to upgrade the Ordnance Museum’s collection while much of it was sent to Fort Benning to serve as the Armor and Cavalry Collection (notice I didn’t say museum-it sounds like that plan is on indefinite hold due to $$$$). The current plan is to use the historical collection as a way to educate Armor and Cavalry Soldiers during their training at Sand Hill and serve as a technical reference for the Army. The Army itself has no desire to make a museum as it still sees them as technical reference as opposed to a historical artifact for the public to observe.
Source: Conversations with Len Dyer (Armor and Cavalry Collection Curator) From Hoof to Track by Roman Jarymowycz