A tank is thirty to sixty tons of steel, optics, copper and heavy machinery, parked for good wherever it stopped. Almost all of it can be salvaged. One thing can't.
The general dangers are in Récupérer sur une épave militaire and Ammunition and unexploded ordnance, which take precedence over this sheet. What follows is the inventory.
UNDERSTAND
The one thing you don't take
Anything that explodes: shells in the hull racks and the turret basket, grenades, the smoke-grenade clusters on the turret, the cartridge-fired extinguishers in the engine bay, detonating cords — anything with a fuze or a charge. You don't touch it, you don't move it, you mark it, you walk away — the details are in Ammunition and unexploded ordnance. And the age of the wreck changes nothing, except for the worse: aged explosives become more sensitive, not less.
Small-arms cartridges are another matter. The machine-gun belts, and sometimes 9 mm rounds for the crew's weapons, are stored in sealed metal cans. They aren't explosive devices: powder and a primer, which outside a weapon burn and pop without throwing fragments the way a shell does. They can be salvaged, on four conditions: the tank never burned, the can stayed closed and dry, the cartridges show no green or white deposit and no dents, and the bullet doesn't move in its case. In a can that stayed closed, military ammunition keeps for decades; an open, rusted or flooded can, you leave. And "9 mm" isn't a single caliber: 9 × 19 and 9 × 18 look alike and must never be mixed. Read the markings on the can and on the case head, and store each caliber separately, dry, away from any heat source — see Une arme à feu trouvée.
About the weapons themselves: the main gun and the coaxial machine gun are there. This sheet describes everything around them — mount, cradle, trunnions, feed chutes, boxes, cartridge bags, turret controls, firing circuit. It doesn't describe removing the weapon or putting it back into service. That's a deliberate limit, stated once, and the rest of the inventory doesn't suffer from it.
One remark that does matter directly: a wreck still carrying its weapons is a meeting point. Others know about it, others will come back, and they'll arrive armed. That doesn't change what you take; it changes how long you stay — briefly, and never twice at the same time of day. See Tenir un lieu.
The armor itself is of no use: too hard to cut, too heavy to move, and its dust after a fire must not be breathed. Don't sand anything.
What makes a tank a one-of-a-kind deposit
Three things you won't find together anywhere else.
Heavy recovery equipment, outside and within reach, because the vehicle is built to get itself out of a ditch far from any workshop.
Optics of very high quality, protected in armored blocks that often survived whatever killed the vehicle.
Industrial-size spring steel, in the suspension, that no other vehicle carries.
ACT — the inventory, most useful first
1. Power and drive
- The auxiliary power unit. Many modern armored vehicles carry one: a small diesel engine coupled to a generator, designed to run with the main engine off, mounted on rubber mounts and built to be removed. It's the most valuable part of the whole vehicle. See The combustion engine — how it all works.
- The batteries. Four to eight very high-capacity lead-acid batteries, wired for twenty-four volts. The biggest portable energy reserve for miles around. See Les batteries and Fabriquer une lampe.
- The starter and the alternator, both very powerful. An alternator driven by anything at all becomes a source of power.
- The diesel. Often more than a thousand liters. Closed containers, stored apart, and never siphon by mouth.
- Air, oil and fuel filters, new, in the spare-parts boxes.
2. Optics and communication
- Periscopes and vision blocks. Blocks of armored glass and prisms, nearly indestructible. They let you look over a wall or out of a shelter without putting your head out. Nothing you can salvage elsewhere compares.
- The laser rangefinder and the gunsight. Housings full of optical-grade lenses, prisms, filters and mirrors.
- The thermal sight. Its lenses are made of germanium, a material transparent to infrared that you won't find anywhere else. The sensor itself is often useless without its electronics; the optics aren't. See La vision nocturne.
- The driver's vision blocks, the mirrors, the reversing cameras.
- The radios. On an armored vehicle they're modular, mounted in cradles, and come out by hand. VHF, sometimes long-range HF. See Radio, without the jargon and Building a radio receiver.
- The intercom, the headsets and the control boxes. A crew headset is hearing protection, earphones and a microphone in one tough object. For two people talking through a deafening noise or through a partition, nothing replaces it.
- The antennas. Flexible whips several meters long, spring bases, insulated mounts, and the coaxial cables that go with them.
3. Breathable air, tools and lifting
- The overpressure filters. An armored vehicle keeps its interior at a slight overpressure through a particle filter and a large activated-carbon filter. Removed intact and unused, they're first-rate respiratory protection. See Masques, filtres et tenues de protection and Air contaminé.
- The ventilation unit and its ducts, all running on twenty-four volts.
- The masks and hoses of the individual system, when there is one.
- The vehicle tools: sledgehammer, pickaxe, shovel, crowbar, axe, saw, strapped to the sides. Tough, immediate, free.
- The tow cable, shackles and thimbles. Several meters of very thick steel cable. To pull, lift, guy, cross. See Les nœuds qui servent and Les machines simples.
- The onboard jack, rams and hoists.
- Chains and slings.
4. Steel, mechanics and the turret
- The suspension torsion bars. Bars of spring steel several meters long and very thick, one per road wheel. It's probably the best raw steel you'll find in the field: springs, levers, spikes, forged tools, frames. See Fabriquer un outil tranchant and Le tranchant.
- The road wheels, idlers and bearings. Very large ball and roller bearings, often intact.
- The track links and pins. Hardened steel, by the hundred.
- The track pads: thick bolted-on rubber blocks. Soles, insulation, shock absorbers, seals, flooring.
- The shock absorbers, the springs, the heavy bolts.
It's one of the finest mechanical assemblies on the vehicle, and nobody is interested in it, so it's always still there.
- The traverse mechanism. A very large ball or roller slewing ring, worm drives, reduction gears, toothed sectors, handwheels with fine gearing. Industrial-quality gearing, in large sizes: a winch, a lathe, a grinder, a mill, a hoist. See Les machines simples and Assembler.
- The traverse and elevation motors and actuators, twenty-four volts, with their brakes and limit switches.
- Cradles, trunnions, bearings and counterweights: forged and machined parts, ground shafts, bearing bronze.
- The feed chutes, flexible jointed metal belts, and the weapon's ammunition boxes — once empty, they're among the best watertight steel containers there are. See Ammunition and unexploded ordnance.
- The cartridge bags and bins, thick canvas and sheet metal.
- The firing circuit: shielded wiring, relays, contactors, solenoids. Solenoids are powerful electromagnets that can be reused to operate just about anything remotely.
- The electrical slip ring between hull and turret: a part that carries current to something that turns endlessly. Rare, precious, irreplaceable for a wind turbine or a motorized winch.
5. Living space, textiles and small gear
- The seats and their foam, excellent insulation in large volumes. See Building an emergency shelter.
- The compartment heater and its fans.
- Camouflage nets, tarps, covers, tie-down straps.
- The external stowage boxes, metal and watertight, and what's inside them: rations, blankets, spare parts, jerrycans.
Very long runs of high-temperature sheathed wiring, waterproof connectors, fuses, relays, contactors, bulbs, headlights and lamps with their glass, gaskets, hoses, sheet metal, engine grilles, the vehicle kit, handheld extinguishers, jerrycans, rags, grease, paint.
How to remove things
The minimum toolkit
Open-end and socket wrenches in both metric and imperial sizes, an adjustable wrench, locking pliers, cutting pliers, flat and Phillips screwdrivers, hex keys, a hammer, a cold chisel, a crowbar, a hacksaw with spare blades, shears, a utility knife, and a can of diesel or oil to use as penetrant. A strap, a pulley and a rope for anything heavy.
The six rules that keep you from ruining everything
Photograph or sketch before you touch. An assembly goes back together with a picture, not with your memory.
Mark connectors and hoses in pairs with a marker or tape before separating them. Two minutes that save three hours.
Keep the hardware with its part, in a bag taped to it.
Loosen instead of forcing. Diesel or thin oil in the thread, let it work, then give the bolt head repeated sharp blows instead of pushing steadily: vibration breaks rust, force breaks the bolt. No torch on a wreck.
A stubborn bolt gets bypassed. Saw, chisel, or cut the sheet metal next to it. The part is worth more than the bolt.
Support it before undoing the last fastener. A heavy part that falls breaks whatever it hits and whatever was holding it.
On an armored vehicle
The batteries come out first: disconnect the negative, tape both terminals, and carry them out with two people. They weigh thirty kilos each.
The auxiliary power unit sits on rubber mounts, held by a few bolts, a fuel line, an exhaust and a wiring harness. Disconnect and cap the fuel, unplug the harness connector by connector, then strap it before the last bolts. It comes out through the hatch designed for it, not by force.
Periscopes and optical blocks come out whole, with their housing. Never open a sealed optical block: you'll let moisture in and it will fog up for good. Store them wrapped in cloth, not loose.
The radios come out of their cradles with quarter-turn locks or an extraction lever. Unplug before you pull: a torn-out socket makes the set useless.
The overpressure filters sit in a box with a bolted lid and a gasket. Take the gasket too. Cap both openings of the filter as soon as it's out, or it keeps working with nothing to do and soaks up moisture.
The torsion bars are under load as long as the vehicle rests on its road wheels. Lift the hull or remove the road wheel first, or the bar snaps back as it unwinds. They come out from the side once the suspension arm is off.
The track pads come off with two bolts per pad, track slack. Slacken it with the front tensioner, not by cutting it.
The external tools sit in eared clamps or spring hooks, often painted over. One blow of the chisel on the clamp is enough.
ADAPT
The tank burned. The inside is lost and dangerous: unstable ammunition, dust, split batteries, cracked optics. The outside is still fully usable — that is, the tools, the cable, the pads, the torsion bars and the jerrycans. Particle mask and gloves.
The tank is intact. Do the whole outside first. The best return is outside and takes no risk at all. The inside is only worth it for the auxiliary power unit, the batteries, the radios, the optics and the filters — and only if nothing suggests there was a fire.
You're looking for a way to communicate. Radios, headsets, intercom, antennas, coax. That's where an armored vehicle beats every other vehicle, by far.
You want to forge. Torsion bars, track pins and links are quality steel in quantity. See Fabriquer un outil tranchant.
You're thinking of sleeping in it. One night, for lack of anything better, and insulated from the metal. An uninsulated steel box is freezing at night and an oven by day, it condenses, and it can be seen from far away. It blocks the wind, that's all.
The vehicle is on military ground. It's never alone and never on clean ground. Stay on hard surfaces and existing tracks, and don't cut across fields. See Ammunition and unexploded ordnance.
There are human remains. You stop right there. Note the place, leave anything personal, and report it if you can.