Jonathan Bernstein shares with us a large number of images of the Sgt.York under his care at the US Army Air Defense Artillery Museum at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

and now to one of these extreme stashes in order to find an ancient Tamiya Sgt. York to use this excellent walk-around.

Thanks Jon and Daren for sharing.

I feel like we should get a group build going since Jon just started his and I just picked one up a couple days ago.



Erik

Darren,

Thanks so much for putting these up. As I mentioned in my email, I'll be taking a lot more pics in the coming weeks as we get the museum up and running again.

As we've been moving the museum, I've been consolidating the archives as well. I just found several photos from the DIVAD competition of both vehicles. I may have to build the GD vehicle next!

I hope everyone enjoys these pics And if you have any questions, please feel free to pm me!

Jon

Thanks a lot for the effort Jon, hope to see more pictures .


Kind regards,Sven.

A SGT York group build would be very cool. I would be interested but it would need to begin in around March or April 2014.

How about a DIVAD group build. I hope I'll be done with the York by then and I do plan on building the General Dynamics vehicle too...

A DIVAD group build would draw more interest maybe. Does that mean it basically gets relabeled to 'anti-aircraft' group build?

Making it the DIVAD (DIVisional Air Defense) Campaign, only vehicles considered for the late 20th Century DIVAD requirement would be considered. There were five entries initially and it was whittled down to two, with Ford Motor Company's entry, the XM247 chosen as the victor. There's only one kit out there for any of the DIVAD vehicles, but if someone's feeling adventurous, it'd be really cool to see some of the other entries!

Jon

I'd say for the sake of getting more people interested we should just make it a US Cold War Air Defense build, assuming that hasn't been done recently of course.



Erik

I was working at GD (Pomona Division, Rancho Cucamonga site) during the competition and the GE DIVADS crew was based at this facility. I knew some of the team members having worked on some systems test equipment for the program, and they always kept me informed of their progress. For many years, I had a dummy round one of them gave me. One of the outside vendors that I used for machining and fabricating was contracted to build a 1/4 scale model of the tank and turret, and I watched that being built and tested as well. All of the parts were fabricated in this shop with the hull and turret being made from fiberglass with aluminum support structures. Links were cast aluminum. The whole thing was motorized and radio controlled; turret rotated and guns/radar elevated.

Anyone know what happened to the GD entry?? I left the company in 1982, and I had friends working there for a few years (my dad too) but I lost track.

wasn't this weapon system a complete failure?

Total.

However, that being said, it's a rather cool looking piece of equipment and many of us are captivated by the idea of "what if the words 'off the shelf' hadn't been in the contract guidelines?"

There were a few significant issues with the York. Firstly, there was no manual mode. The radar locked on to what it thought was a target and the crew got a "Y/N" option to engage. Not great, but the real issue was that it was forced to use an air intercept radar from an F-16 instead of a ground-based air search radar. An F-16 radar is great at 20,000ft, but at 2 ft, it's too sensitive and thinks things like soda cans and porta-potties are targets.

That, coupled with a few tests where the targets were missed and had to be command detonated for safety reasons, and an enterprising young investigative journalist by the name of Geraldo Rivera had a field with the story. Completely mis-interpreting command detonations of targets as the Army faking test results, Rivera did an expose on the York, which was the last straw. There was a congressional invstigation and the program was killed after 53 vehicles were produced and fielded to one test battalion.

Of those 53 vehicles, many have been used as targets, but there are a handful left.

Though my opinion was biased at the time, it was shared by many at GD that their version was superior to the FA. The GD used a radar system based on Phalanx and had an advantage in dealing with low altitude targets. I recall most of the team returning from evals confident that they were winning. It was thought at the time that GD didnt get the contract because they already had a big share of defense contracts with Electric Boat building subs and Dallas building F-16s (and Pomona was supplying Phalanx, Stinger, Sparrow, and Standard at the time).

For anyone wondering, here's a shot of the XM246 that competed against the York.

Thanks for posting that picture! During my employment at GD, the company artist was a family friend and I acquired a lot of copies of artwork showing the 246 in action: shooting down Hinds, loading ammunition from a German truck (one of the features of the GD design was that it used the same guns as Gepard and the ammo transfer systems were compatible), cut-aways, etc. Also had a lot of photos that I took when they would park it outdoors at our facility as well as many company photos. Lost it all during one of my moves.

So do you know what happened to the XM246 protos??

If they still exist, I'll find one! I'm on the hunt now.

Yes, if what I read in The World's Worst Weapons is accurate. But then, they also make models of the Soviet KV-2 tank and Soviet mine dogs, both of which were also unsuccessful. Also, Tamiya did make an M60A2 model, another failed military project.

You all may find this page interesting.


http://www.massimocorner.com/afv/Surviving_M247.pdf



Erik

Thanks for posting that Erik! The T249 is no longer at Aberdeen, I've got that one too.

There is/was one SGT York at the Naval Air Station at Pt Mugu, CA, hidden by some contractor-style outbuildings.

I don't remember seeing a York at Point Mugu when I was there last September, but I wasn't looking for any anti-air either.