"For years, this tank was sitting out here with post-war modifications, the wrong paint job, the serial numbers weren't right," Thompson said. This time, however, the museum and the National Guard went all-out on fixing the Jumbo's appearance. This year was the Jumbo, which was already restored partially in 1986. It obviously lived to tell the tale.ĭoug Thompson, curator of the museum, said the Jumbo restoration came about because the Camp Ripley base will-every few years-allow the museum to pick a military vehicle in its collection to be restored. The particular Jumbo sitting in front of the museum still has the scars on the bow of tank where it likely took a direct hit from a German cannon, and scars on the right side where it apparently took shrapnel from indirect artillery fire. tank columns because it could soak up all the hits if the column was ambushed. The resulting 42-ton monstrosity was favored as a lead vehicle in U.S. So designers created the Sherman Jumbo, with much thicker armor than the garden variety Sherman. The standard M4 Sherman was produced in droves, but it was also destroyed in droves by German armored vehicles, like the Panther and Tiger, with better armor and guns. Army: its tanks simply weren't as effective as their counterparts in the German Wehrmacht. They were intended to help solve a simple but devastating problem facing the U.S. Along with other Sherman Jumbos, it was introduced in the latter days of America's involvement in WWII. The "Jumbo" nickname comes from the fact that the tank is big, even by tank standards. The M4A3E2 "Jumbo" Sherman tank sitting in front of the Minnesota Military Museum building is one of only eight that exist in the entire world. CAMP RIPLEY-A piece of 70-year-old war machinery that helped American tankers beat the Nazis at their own game in World War II recently received a face-lift at Camp Ripley.
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