Danville, Virginia Tank Museum

[DRW-FJ40]

I?ve been wanting to visit this museum for years and finally, my boys and I went. It?s about a 3 hour tour from home and not only is it the largest private tank collection in the world but it also houses the largest indoor RC tank battlefield in the world. We planned our visit to coincide with one of the RC tank battles.

This is a must see if you?re in our neck of the woods, like heavy artillery, road side attraction type museums and RC.

It?s a very professional operation but there are certain things you just won?t see in a public museum? such as the curator riding around on an adult tricycle with a rgb rocket launcher.

A lot of really cool and rare heavy artillery but the holy grail of the collection is this WWII German Mk. 4 Panzer model "H", one of four know to exist in the world.

The collection consists of 115 tanks and numerous other odd and assorted items including Eva Braun's evening dress (Hitler's Mistress). I took way too many pictures to torture you all with but here are a few of my favorites:

For some reason, it never occurred to me the obstacles associated with this type of collection in private hands. Wonder if the feds are keeping tabs on this guy?

He said 98% of his collection is completely functional and he has ammunition.

20K Kiloton nuclear war head... I didn't ask if this one fell into the 98% category.

The RC battle field is right in the midst of it all. 6000 sq. ft. It's modeled after WWII France. Tanks were mostly Tamiya, all 1:16 scale with the MFC units & inferred battle systems. Mostly guys from the East coast U.S. but they had a few from overseas... one guy from Singapore. They had a real nice work area to go with the battle field & you can see a 1:1 Vietnam era Huey Cobra Helicopter in the background

 

[Wrencher]

wow very cool!!! not sure in Canada they would let any of it be functional. I know the local museum in our town had to remove all its fire arms. don't remember the reason why but I remember thinking it was stupid.

the RC battlefield is awesome. big enough you could almost have RC air support and artillery HAHAHA.

 

[luke1983]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Honger]

The tanks... the guns... the nuclear warhead... and then that RC Tank Battleground. Amazing!
Did you see any tank battles? Were they pretty entertaining?

 

[DRW-FJ40]

wow very cool!!! not sure in Canada they would let any of it be functional. I know the local museum in our town had to remove all its fire arms. don't remember the reason why but I remember thinking it was stupid.

the RC battlefield is awesome. big enough you could almost have RC air support and artillery HAHAHA.

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing!

The tanks... the guns... the nuclear warhead... and then that RC Tank Battleground. Amazing!
Did you see any tank battles? Were they pretty entertaining?

Thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it. We did plan our trip around on of their "battle days" and yes, it was entertaining. They use a Tamiya inferred battle system. If a tank get's hit once, a red light lights up on top of the tank and the electronics slow down. If it get's hit again, the system shuts the electronics down for a period. Really looks like fun and the tank guys were real nice, even let my kids drive them a bit.

Here are a few more pictures.

Assuming mom doesn't come, they had lots of fun things for kids to play with:

It was fun to see real versions of some of the models we've built. Patton M48 & half-track:

Another cool thing that you wouldn't see in a public museum is that there were a few tanks in the process of being restored. People would volunteer to restore one and they'd just take it apart right there in the museum and work on it.

I don't even remember what this was but it looked like it would hurt if it hit you.

 

[DRW-FJ40]

Next time, we'll have to coordinate with one of the "extravaganza days". Here is a video. be sure and watch the flame thrower demonstrations starting at 2:00. Makes me want a flame thrower for sure... yea... feds are keeping tabs on this guy.

 

[Honger]

I want a flame thrower now too... way cool! Those things have amazing range.
That video falls firmly within the category of "things women don't get"... running over cars and boats with tanks and flamethrowing purpose build wood structures. =)

 

[generis]

Hah! This is now on my list of places to visit when I come to see Virginia and people therein. What a fun 'man' place to visit!

 

[luke1983]

I showed my 6 and 4 year old boys this thread and they now want a flame thrower and a visit to the Tank Museum. As much as i'd enjoy both I had to explain that neither was going to happen any time soon!! It's a long way from North Lincolnshire to Virginia and a flame thrower?! Just no!

 

[DRW-FJ40]

I want a flame thrower now too... way cool! Those things have amazing range.
That video falls firmly within the category of "things women don't get"... running over cars and boats with tanks and flamethrowing purpose build wood structures. =)

That list could get long... showed my wife a picture of a Porsche 918 Spyder... on my mid-life crisis wish list... and she thought it looked "silly" and would prefer a Volvo... I don't get it. Is a 918 Spyder just not the most bad-a$$ looking piece of engineering you've ever seen?

Hah! This is now on my list of places to visit when I come to see Virginia and people therein. What a fun 'man' place to visit!

You be sure an' stop in when ya come down... I'll make sure the outhouse is workin' an all. Bring Dana and I'll clear out the two holer up the holler.

I showed my 6 and 4 year old boys this thread and they now want a flame thrower and a visit to the Tank Museum. As much as i'd enjoy both I had to explain that neither was going to happen any time soon!! It's a long way from North Lincolnshire to Virginia and a flame thrower?! Just no!

Yea, mine are now 4... almost 5, 8 and 10 and we're a little over two hours away... no brainer... it was a huge hit. You may be a ways from the tank museum but you guys have all those cool miniature village places... I wanna go there.

 

[irishman]

That's a cool museum.
It's on my list of places to visit too!
Everybody wants a flame thrower now!

 

[DRW-FJ40]

Well reading back through this thread, I can see that a lot of you all would like to visit the tank museum... Don't do it!

It will impact your RC truck budget... at least it did mine. My middle kid, Miles, asked for an RC tank for Christmas. He's 8 so he's starting to question the logic of a fat jolly old elf flying in a sleigh but he sat on Santa's lap and told him he wanted an RC tank so he could do one of the battles in Danneville.

Long story short, The Tamiya tanks can be pretty expensive. This is a Heng Long 1:16 RTR tank. There are quite a few options but basically, plastic gears, metal gears, steel gears, metal tracks & drive wheels & AM or 2.4 radio. I purchased this at RC Dynasty in Canada for $140 US$ shipped. It's the most basic with the exception of an upgrade to metal gear box. It has an AM radio, has all the functions of the Tamiya except for LED light flashes from the machine gun.

It comes just molded in flat green & looks surprisingly good and has a lot of pieces to attach & an unpainted driver and decals. We chose to paint the whole thing and weather it.

To battle at Daneville, We'll have to invest in an inferred battle system (out of the box it shoots air soft BBs).

 

[DRW-FJ40]

We went back to Danville... This time with a tank. The gear box that comes with the Heng Long tanks is cheap junk. They come with plastic, metal or steel gears and I upgraded to metal but the box housing the gears seemed to be the weak link and once it gets torqued, the gears don't mesh and it's not rebuildable... so I got an "ultimate gearbox II", Thick aluminum housing, steel gears, brass bushings... it arrived the day we left... fortunately, the cheap hotel we stayed in had a soldering station in the bathroom.

We did have some security issues at the door.

But once we got that straightened out, it was battle time.

We also took the opportunity to visit VIR, Virginia International Raceway. It's only about 20 minutes from the Tank Museum and completed the weekend nicely

and they had real race cars!

 

[DRW-FJ40]

Back to Danville this past weekend for the Oak tree Grand Prix. This was a motorsports Lalapolooza weekend. Porsche GT3 cup racing, Maserati Trofeo, Lamborghini Trofeo, Continental Tire sports car challenge, GT Lemans and GT Daytona. Wonderful weekend of GT racing in Virginia at VIR, Virginia International Raceway.