I live not far from this Illinois National Guard base:
http://wikimapia.org/11269397/Illinois-National-Guard-North-Riverside-Armory

A number of hummers, trucks, trailers are stored here and I noticed they don't seem to have noticeable markings. Are National Guard vehicles typically unmarked, or would markings be taken off with the idea of their going to a different unit?

From my experiance vehicles assigned to a specific unit are marked for that unit. Vehicles stored for training or use by mutiple units will not be given specific bumper codes.

My tank company organic wheeled vehicles all had bumper codes for the division batalion and company number. We also marked the home station tank as well.

Hope this helps some what. My info is somewhat dated I retired in 2003.

Tom

toms pretty much on it... bumper codes are the only thing that ID a vehicle in the army ground inventory unless its something special.

I noticed that the National Guard unit you indicated is an Armory.

I'd guess that most of these vehicles haven't been assigned yet, especially if there seems to be quite a bit of them.

Also - being an Armory, most of the Armory's working vehicles probably aren't tactical vehicles and probably just look like commercial vehicles - box trucks, vehicle trailers, tractors, etc.. At least that's what Springfield Armory is like. The Armory actually makes stuff - like Springfield makes some sort of air-conditioned repair trailer - so the place is littered with parking lots full of equipment, but most just getting ready to be shipped someplace.

Even here in Fort Leavenworth - very few tactical vehicles, but those that are here are here because they are part of a reserve center or national guard unit that is housed on or near the Fort. For Fort Leavenworth - the closest thing you get to a military vehicle is white 15 passenger vans and Chevy Charger military police cars.

I'm just a Navy squid that happens to teach a few classes at the command college at Fort Leavenworth - so I only know what I see, I may be totally off (likely!).

Bruce,
National Guard units are posted/stationed to facilities called "Armories." This is where the drills and/or musters in cases of emergency. HTH.
Regards,
Georg

Frenchy, no disrespect but you are not ENTIRELY correct. It varies by geography. For example, most of the vehicles in the are where I drill ( Camp Edwards MA) are stored at our UTES site.. (unit training equipment storage). The vehicles are from all different kind of units, but are stored at this location because it is a central repair facility. The armories around us do not keep more than half a dozen pieces of equipment. Having said that.. if you get more than 50 miles away from Camp Edwards, you will see the units keeping custody of their pieces as you stated.

Ah, I guess you're right now that I think about it. I was thinking of actual armories, I was also not recalling correctly, it wasn't Springfield armory, it was Rock Island Arsenal. This navy guy is all ass backwards. Arsenals are what I was thinking of. Sorry for any confusion.

Just my 2 cents- I don't know how correct my observation may be, but our local Army National Guard is an Engineer Unit. From what I see that's parked in the parking lot are Hummers, 6x6s with conventional cargo boxes, a couple of Road Graders and several 4x4 Front-End Loaders. Once in a great while, (flooding, etc.) we see these guys handling emergencies, and quite well at that... Our local Army National Guard facility has always been referred to as an "Armory"...

Besides my 32+ years serving in the SC Army NG, for the past 14 years I've also worked full-time as a Project Engineer in the Construction & Facilities Management Office for the SCARNG. I think I have the following correct, but someone please correct me if not.

With that said, EACH of the 50 States and (and the territories, too) do things differently or their own way.

In general, MTOE or TDA units are assigned to "Armories". The Army Reserve units use "Reserve Centers", but both are essentially the same type of facility, just that Armories are owned by the State they are in, while Reserve Centers are owned by the Federal Government (US Corps of Engineers for Army property). Densely populated states usually have more Armories (GA or NC or SC), while more rural states (such as NM or NV or AK) utilize Multi-Unit Reserve Centers that are sometimes located on the same training site as a UTES or MATES. Directly correlates to population density and nodes in a state.

In my experience, generally most tactical Tracked Vehicles are stored and used at either a Unit Training and Equipment Site (UTES), or a Maneuver Area Training Equipment Site (MATES). The UTES are usually smaller training sites with smaller sets of vehicles for some of the inventory in one State's NG units, while MATES are larger with more vehicles for possibly multiple States' NG units. An example of a UTES is the one at the McCrady Training Center on Fort Jackson, SC for the SCARNG, while the UTES at Ft. Stewart, GA, used to have part of the tracked vehicles for the 218 HSB(M)/SCARNG and the 48 SIB(M)/GAARNG.

Besides the fact that keeping most tanks, IFVs, APCs, tracked howitzers, MLRSs, etc. at the Training Area where they could be used with minimal transportation and environmental impact, they also are consolidated for more complicated and intensive maintenance requirements for these types of high technology equipment.

Some (1 or 2) M1A1 Abrams, M2 Bradleys, etc. were temporarily moved to an Armory to allow the NG Soldiers there to conduct training while at monthly drills instead of having to travel to the UTES or MATES. The one or two tracks usually were hooked up to some type of simulator system to allow static training, but there are training suites to allow for this, too.

Other tracked vehicles, most of which are the "Funny Farm Equipment" used by the Engineers, are usually kept at the units' Armories because they are 1) easier to maintain, 2) usually have transportation assets organic to the unit, 3) are also needed for supporting the State during Emergencies such as Hurricane or Tornado Recovery Operations.

HTH. And, yeah, I'm an ENGINEER!

You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me ?

H.P.

Funny Farm Equipment??? never heard of that one before Sir! LOL...HQ Camp Edwards, Facility Engineers. 12E or 21E or whatever they call it this year!