Missile Move

[flashbucks]

This weekend we (New Mexico Museum of Military History - NMMMH) move a Vietnam era demilitarized SA2 surface to air missile and launcher from its long term storage area 40 plus miles to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History for permanent loan and display. Unfortunately the M52A2 was inop so the move was made with and M35A2. The first stage was to move the launcher/missile to my front yard on Friday (a 10 minute drive from the storage area as we would not have access to the storage on Saturday morning. The neighbors came out in force to take a look and take pictures. We chose Saturday morning to make the trip with the lease amount of traffic. We used the M35 as the lead vehicle with a follow up car with red and blue emergency strobes. Since we were only traveling at 35 mph we didn't need someone rear-ending the rig while texting. Once we got the rig out of the divots it was in, we never saw low/low again. Starting from a dead stop in 2nd/low worked just fine and 4th/high gave us all the top end the launcher wanted. Successful transport to the new home. Gregg Here is the local news link: https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/new-mexico-nuclear-museum-receives-rare-soviet-missile/

 

[Mullaney]

This weekend we (New Mexico Museum of Military History - NMMMH) move a Vietnam era demilitarized SA2 surface to air missile and launcher from its long term storage area 40 plus miles to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History for permanent loan and display. Unfortunately the M52A2 was inop so the move was made with and M35A2. The first stage was to move the launcher/missile to my front yard on Friday (a 10 minute drive from the storage area as we would not have access to the storage on Saturday morning. The neighbors came out in force to take a look and take pictures. We chose Saturday morning to make the trip with the lease amount of traffic. We used the M35 as the lead vehicle with a follow up car with red and blue emergency strobes. Since we were only traveling at 35 mph we didn't need someone rear-ending the rig while texting. Once we got the rig out of the divots it was in, we never saw low/low again. Starting from a dead stop in 2nd/low worked just fine and 4th/high gave us all the top end the launcher wanted. Successful transport to the new home. Gregg Here is the local news link: https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/new-mexico-nuclear-museum-receives-rare-soviet-missile/

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I had to snag a few pictures out of the video to add to your presentation.



THANKS for the pictures!

 

[flashbucks]

We had a great time and a lot of prep work to get the system ready to move. We had planned to replace the tires on the original rims but found that they are the exact dimensions as M54 5 ton wheels (both bolt circle and center hole dimensions) so we replace them with 4 tire and wheels we had at the museum. Definitely made life easier not having to mess with the Russian split rims. Thanks for adding the extra pics.

 

[Guyfang]

When I was at Ft. Bliss in 1985, a good friend of mine told me that after the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis turned over to the the U.S. Gov, several captured SA-2 Systems. They were taken to Bliss, to the Air Defence Board, and kept out of the sight of the unwashed masses for testing and evaluation. Could be where it came from?

 

[flashbucks]

Thanks for the info. I will pass it on to our Historian and let him do some more research. Gregg