War is a constantly evolving tragedy of the human race, and when armoured vehicles first took to the battlefield, they changed the face of conflict forever. Nothing lasts forever, though, and over the years, these beasts of war have been condemned to the same fate they sent so many soldiers – the grave. Some are simply abandoned where they were switched off for the last time, some were virtually destroyed and others wait for new life. This article explores 10 impressive tank graveyards and abandoned battle vehicles across the world.
Otterburn Ranges, Northern England
The Otterburn Ranges sit in Northern England; about 23 percent of Northumberland National Park is owned by the military and used as training grounds. It’s remained a public area, most of the time, free of live firing and the final resting place of a number of tanks whose purpose is now training.
Some are nearly intact, with treads still in place and hulls only starting to show the wear and tear of the elements. Others are extremely badly damaged, with pieces of their hulls missing, guns missing and treads long gone.
Perhaps most fascinating is the history behind the area, and the start contrast that these relatively new machines create on the landscape. The area was occupied as far back as 6,000 years ago, and some of the hills that make up the terrain are Bronze Age burial mounds. There has also been evidence that Roman soldiers used their area as training grounds during their occupation of Britain, much in the same way soldiers continue to train there.
Tank Cemetery in Kabul, Afghanistan
When Soviet troops left Afghanistan in 1989 after ten years of fighting, plenty of their equipment got left behind after a 10-year war where there was no real winner. Today, dozens of rusting tanks, originally built in the 1960s and 1970s, sit outside Kabul – and some of them are being given something of a new life.
Some of the left-behind tanks that still run have been drafted into service again – against the Taliban. Afghan troops have been stripping parts from the more rundown, rusted-out of the tanks to use to keep others up and running. Their decades-old technology has proven to be something of a benefit; without the scores of electronics that run more modern tanks, fixing up the old ones requires more mechanical know-how than modern technological know-how. The old tanks have proven well suited to the mountainous, inhospitable terrain, as well; they had been brought to the area first because they could handle the extreme conditions, and it still stands true.
There’s still a very, very big problem when it comes to re-drafting the old tanks into service, and that’s simply parts. There are a finite number of the tanks left, and a finite number of parts means that they’re going to once again be left to rust in the desert eventually.
Abandoned Tanks on the Plain of Jars, Laos
This one’s pretty non-traditional when it comes to tank graveyards, and it’s not like others that have miles and miles of tanks rusting into dust. Here, there’s only a few Russian tanks that have been abandoned to fall apart where they stand, but it’s what’s around them that’s truly incredible.
The Plain of Jars is one of history’s great unsolved mysteries. Covering the fields of Laos are just that – giant stone jars. Some are relatively small, some can easily hide an adult inside, and no one knows who built them or what they possibly could have been used for. There’s plenty of theories, including a popular one that they were used to make wine in, and others like the possibility that they were used for burials, or the collection of rainwater. The only really accurate theory, however, is that we just don’t know.
Laos – and the Plain of Jars – was the site of major fighting throughout the Vietnam War. U.S. Forces dropped over 2 million tons of bombs on the area during 580,000 bombing runs. Today, it’s estimated that there’s more than 80 million unexploded devices still littering the fields, lying among the jars that have miraculously survived.
There’s also the tanks. It’s not a graveyard in the sense that there’s rows and rows of tanks, but rusted hulks – mainly of Russian tanks – sit scattered throughout the fields, beside mysterious relics that are thousands of years old. Some of the tank carcasses bear the scars of direct hits from bombs dropped from above, the same scars that mark the landscape. Most of the tanks have been stripped of all that can be removed, with their parts sold to scrap metal dealers and the rest just left where they had been abandoned.
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