Attex 8x8 Military Trainer History

[Tankguy]

A bit of background for those of you fortunate enough to have acquired one of these. I was assigned to the Armor and Engineer Board in the early '70's after tour in VN. The "Armor Board" was a Ft. Knox-based tenant command of Test and Evaluation Command of the Army Materials Command. The 8-Wheeler Attex you have was intended for, and subsequently used (briefly) by the Armor School for the Basic Armor Officer's Course to teach budding young armor officers the basics of actual tank maneuver at Ft. Knox at platoon level. The vehicle was intended as a cost savings measure because it's useful to actually direct the movements of the tank to a trained driver in practicing coordinated movements in the field (and, insert joke, it's a heckuva' lot safer than turning a 2nd Lt. lose with an actual M60A1, the main battle tank of the time). The test project ran in '72 or'73 (I was there two years and on some 20 test projects, so it all runs together almost forty years later). The vehicles went into service shortly there after, but only for a couple or three years (by which time I had ETS'd).
Support for the Armor School was from the 194th Armor Bde. at the time, but that was for the actual tank operations. The drivers of these vehicles were generally trained tankers, like myself. Certainly during the test program.

If someone wants to restore one to the condition pictured, it would be OD with "Test Operation" stenciled on the side, and the bumper number would be (vehicle right) "TEC<triangle>EBD" and on the vehicle left, a three digit vehicle number. Sorry, I don't recall those.

Pictured is a group of the vehicles practicing the standard "herringbone" maneuver on a Ft. Knox tank road.

[lewis]

Welcome aboard tankguy!!!

That is some great historical info. Love the pictures. I think these are the first in-use pictures of these machine that i have seen. Thank you for brings this to the site. I do not have a tank trainer but enjoyed you information. Hope our paths cross one day.

Your are correct about the Butter-Bars

[LarryW]

Welcome tankguy!!!
I am so excited to run into someone who has drove one in use. I actually have a wanted ad on craigslist for people who have drove one or now anything about them. Nice information.
Wow, 4 machines all together!!!!

Thanks so much!!!!

[Tankguy]

Unfortunately, I don't have any useful "mechanical" information as test vehicles were usually supported by the civilian vendor during the test phase, or by Armor Board mechanics trained by them. I doubt one of these would have represented much of a challenge to the tank automotive mechanics that staffed the Board, which was "resource rich" in stuff like that. Anyone familiar with Heard Motor Park, the big facility behind what has been (until recently, since the Armor and Cavalry School is moving to Ft. Benning under BRAC) the armor center HQ on what was 7th Ave. (now Spearhead Div. Ave, or something like that)...that was the site of the Armor Board...all restricted area then, of course. I think they store MILES gear and stuff there now.

I don't have any draft TM's or anything like that, either. I lost interest in all that stuff for about thirty years until I came "back to my roots".

I do recall they would go like stink with one person aboard. Cross-country testing was done at what was known as Carpenter Test Area on the NW side of post adjacent to the Ohio river behind Cullen Maintenance Facility.

[George]

Hey Tankguy,

Nice to meet a real tanker on the site. I'm a bit of an armor enthusiast myself.

Your pictures are great!

Welcome to 6x6World.

[Tankguy]

If you think the 8-wheelers are cool, we also tested the XR-311. Only four wheels, but with three engine combinations, the largest being the Chrysler 360 c.i. V8. There are a few in private hands, two of them belonging to a wealthy industrialist/collector in Japan, who sent me this pic as he had restored it in Armor Board test markings. Only 15-20 were ever built.

[Mike]

Hi tankguy, welcome to the site and thanks for posting that. I moved your post to a new thread just for better visibility in searches. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy seeing the pictures and reading your comments.

[Tankguy]

Hi tankguy, welcome to the site and thanks for posting that. I moved your post to a new thread just for better visibility in searches. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy seeing the pictures and reading your comments.

Fine by me...

I'm not otherwise involved with ATV's apart from the "big clanky kind" in another life (and having owned a few jeeps). I stumbled on this site while doing searches for items that I might have been involved with back on active duty and this was one of them. I enjoyed seeing the pictures that a couple of the members here have posted of their "salvaged" Army Attexs'. That's how I came to have a number of images of retored XR-311's as well. Most of our projects related directly to tanks, their equipment, etc. and for the engineer guys, their stuff (which was tested by guys with engineer MOS's). All the armor/cavalry (ground) was performed by us after Aberdeen did their "laboratory" type testing. Some projects are more fun than others and this was certainly one of them.

[Don]

Thanks for posting the pics and information Tankguy. I've never seen any pictures of the trainers in actual military use. Way cool! I had one of these a while ago but it was really in rough shape (when I had it).

[Tankguy]

One misconception about this vehicle that I'd like to clear up, based upon some of the statements in various threads....the vehicle was not intended for training tank crewmen, such as drivers. Each vehicle had a trained driver that acted under the direction of a "vehicle commander" and the exercise was for various officers-in-training to learn how to direct and coordinate the movements of multiple vehicles, as they would as a Platoon Leader. This usually meant from 5-10 vehicles in armor operations. These vehicles were just to learn the basics of how to form up in columns, lines, circles ("laagering up") into Night Defensive Positions, Herringbones, etc. which can more difficult than you might think when you're simulating doing it from a tank by radio and intercom to the various elements. Since tanks are necessarily loud and large, you can't just yell at your element across TC hatches...inter-vehicular commo is by radio and within the vehicle by intercom, and these were so equipped. A particular trainee would work to see how efficiently he could get his brood into various formations that had been studied on paper, but while reading maps and negotiating real terrain, just without the 54 ton "real thing", which is hideously expensive to operate and any accidents tend to be serious.

These also drive nothing like tanks. The only tanks that used laterals were WWII era Shermans and a few others of that generation...and the then current M113 Armored Personnell Carrier. Tanks of this era used what is called a "T-bar" for steering, so the Attex was unsuitable even for this aspect of training. Apples to oranges thing. It's just about coordinating the maneuver element in cross-country and road bound operations.

Tank training for crewmen was always done on real tanks, and perhaps with a "turret trainer", which is a cut-away real turret with all the components operable so others can see inside what crew 1 is doing. Today, they use very sophisticated simulators before you even get near a tank, but in the '70's, the only way to train was ON a tank. You were doing live fire by the second week of AIT...they didn't fool around. Systems were nowhere as complex as today, however.

[jerseybigfoot]

Great write up Tankguy.

[JoeMeg]

Yeah, thanks Tankguy! Allways fascinating to hear "the rest of the story". Joe.

[George]

Very cool.

[jpswift1]

I was astonished after reading this thread! I can't believe I didn't see it when it was posted almost a year ago. Thanks so much for the information on these, Tankguy. I owned one that I bought from Don and then I sold it to Hydromike who restored/rebuilt it. Again, amazing thread and thanks for providing us with that excellent history of these machines!

[Joe H]

Thanks so much for the great information, My Grandfather used to handle the service and tech training on the tank trainers for ATV Manufacturing and can remember him lugging his toolbox through the airport to go Fort Knox. He always brought us some cool gifts home, I even got a real Army uniform once!
And thank you for your service, you are a great American sir.