GEOARCHEOLOGY OF TANKS AND OTHER ARMORED FIGHTING VEHICLES IN WWI AND WWII

Armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) are armed, combat vehicles protected by armor. They include tracked and wheeled vehicles such as tanks, assault guns, tank destroyers, self-propelled artillery, armored cars and armored personnel carriers. Armored cars were utilized before WWI and tanks by midway through that conflict. Principal factors that influence the preservation of AFVs are that they are large, heavy and robustly constructed and include thick steel construction. Incapacitated, complete AFVs are prominent and are often retrieved for repair, for operation by the opposition (notably in WWI) or during, or after the conflict, for metal recycling or other purposes (e.g., testing, memorials, etc.). They are rarely preserved intact unless lost in remote locations or in swamps or rivers/lakes. Fragments of AFVs are often composed of thick steel with a high preservational potential. Only a few thousand tanks were used in WWI on the western front. There were a limited variety of types, the Renault FT being the most numerous, and all had a small operational range. Armored cars were also used on the eastern front and in the Middle East. Only one complete WWI tank has been excavated in modern times, from Flesquières in France in 1998. This British Mark IV “female” (main armament machine guns) tank was apparently buried by the German army as a blockhouse. Other tank remains have been identified using geophysical methods. In WWII large numbers of a wide variety of AFVs were used extensively in all theaters of combat. Their remains are present in a wide range of environmental settings from humid tropical in Oceania and the southwest Pacific to cool continental climate in northwestern Russia. Japanese AFVs tended to have much thinner armor than those of the other main combatants, so they corroded more quickly. Tanks have been recovered from lakes, rivers and swamps in Eastern Europe/ Russia – some were deliberately ditched, others sank after failed crossings. Abandoned tanks are found relatively intact in subaerial settings in remote areas such as the Kurile Islands and Pohnpei Island. Sherman tanks are preserved in marine environments in assault settings in Saipan and Normandy. Other tanks are preserved on shipwrecks. The large volume of production and widespread usage results in WWII being an acme of AFV preservation.