I swear I saw a brief clip of an M41 tank driving through Detroit in the recent movie abo0ut the 1967 Detroit riots. Does anyone know more?

Jeez...sending in the Screaming Eagles and the 82nd airborne for riots...that's some serious crowd control!

Wow... of all places a modeling sight that this subject would come up. I was there, well sort of. I was ten. We lived in the suburbs (Birmingham, Farmington area). My dad was so concerned it was going to spread out of the city he even allowed me to sit on the roof with my .22 cal rifle (my squirrel gun) and watch for trouble. Throughout the riots I do remember seeing military vehicles driving around though no tanks. Imagine a ten year old waiting for what today would be best described as the zombie apocalypse horde coming down the street(mind of a ten year old). BTW the same perch on the roof of the house doubled as a tornado watch, less the rifle

A few years later when my dad would take me down to the Squadron Shop, you could still see all the burned out buildings. I could see why my dad was concerned. But that was then...

Cheers

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Wow... of all places a modeling sight that this subject would come up. I was there, well sort of. I was ten. We lived in the suburbs (Birmingham, Farmington area). My dad was so concerned it was going to spread out of the city he even allowed me to sit on the roof with my .22 cal rifle (my squirrel gun) and watch for trouble. Throughout the riots I do remember seeing military vehicles driving around though no tanks. Imagine a ten year old waiting for what today would be best described as the zombie apocalypse horde coming down the street(mind of a ten year old). BTW the same perch on the roof of the house doubled as a tornado watch, less the rifle

A few years later when my dad would take me down to the Squadron Shop, you could still see all the burned out buildings. I could see why my dad was concerned. But that was then...

Cheers

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Shouldn't be altogether surprising, not all our soldiers were in Vietnam in the 1960's. I was reminded of my Squadron book about the M41 tanks, and these were the only times the M41 could be said to be in action in US military service (outside of show of force deployments, exercises, etc.) There were enough riots and other violent incidents in that era so US forces outside of Vietnam would certainly have been engaged.

Didn't they use M41's at the East German stand off in 61'? They stood head to head with big Russian T -55's? I may be wrong...can anyone confirm? Just curious..

Jeez...sending in the Screaming Eagles and the 82nd airborne for riots...that's some serious crowd control!

I still live in the area and work in Detroit) since 67'of a tank dislodging a sniper from the second floor of an apartment building by putting a round into it, don't know if it's true or not . . .

Similarly, I volunteered to deploy to New Orleans post Katrina. I am in the California Air National Gurd. We deployed with about 200 people in my unit's KC-135s. We carried M16A0s but had ammo we couldn't use because it was for the A2. We patrolled for two weeks in and around the airport in NO. The 82 AB came a week later. Because of the restrictions on active duty in the US, the 82 could only carry ammo for their sidearm. They all wanted to see our M16s because they were brand new from the crate and had very low 00 serial numbers. I heard later they were turned in for destruction because it would cost too much to convert them to A2 standard. Our armorers put safety restrictors on them so we could only fire them on semi after a few days. That was a tense couple of weeks. The people of NO who had lost everything wanted out and they were given one way rides to any city who would take them. There weren't any riots but the people were tested every day. Disorganization ran rampant. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Regards,

Eric

Edit: I forgot the whole reason I started writing this! The airport was covered with every sort of military equipment, except for those with tracks. I was able to get a few photos. Mostly LMTVs and HMMWVs but there were a few quads. Most of the equipment arrived by air. There was also a constant stream of helicopters in four approach lanes constantly bringing rescues in. I saw almost every type that could carry a stretcher being used. There were a lot of Navy birds, CH-46s and CH-53s. At one point as a -53 was landing the downwash blew stacks of stretchers hundreds of feet across the airport. Aircrew were telling us they had to sweep ammo that was left behind out of their birds by people who were told not to take firearms into the airport. I've often thought some of this would make for interesting dioramas.