Only fully consolidated in 2018, most don’t know of the U.S. Army Armor & Cavalry Collection, though it is the largest assembly of U.S. armored vehicles and the second-largest international armored vehicle collection in the world.
Located at Fort Moore, Georgia, the collection has more than 265 historic vehicles and 66 anti-tank weapons. It contains armored vehicles, foreign and domestic, from World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War and today.
As part of the U.S. Army Center of Military History and its Army Museum Enterprise, the Armor & Cavalry Collection Training Support Facility, which houses the collection, preserves the heritage, history and artifact collection of cavalry and armor, both in horse and mechanized forms. It also educates and tells of the branches’ history, helping inspire armor and cavalry soldiers.
The collection continues to evolve in several ways. Curators continuously gather artifacts and archival materials. They also support future combat vehicle development by assisting research and development and combat development offices that are investigating vehicle designs. The collection’s reference library, which contains records, historic documents and lessons learned from past combat operations, also is a valuable resource.

80-Year Saga
But gathering the vehicles, equipment and documents to accomplish this mission didn’t happen overnight. The saga began over 80 years ago.
While regimental museums have come and gone, a formal teaching collection for the Army’s mounted branch wasn’t created until the end of World War II. Then, leaders at the Armored Force School and Replacement Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky, began capturing lessons learned from the war to better prepare for future conflicts. In September 1945, the Armored Force School, now known as the U.S. Army Armor School, formally began consolidating captured enemy armored vehicles and equipment scattered across the Army.
Over the next two years, these historical pieces were combined with other U.S. artifacts and officially established as the Armored Museum of the Armored Forces School. The museum was dedicated to Gen. George Patton in 1949 and named the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor. In 1963, it was recognized as an official Army museum by the Center of Military History. More equipment was added as instruction to Armor School students continued.
The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act moved the Armor School to Georgia’s Fort Benning, now known as Fort Moore, and combined it with the U.S. Army Infantry School to create the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence. With this reorganization, the Patton Museum’s contents were mostly moved to Fort Benning in 2011 and stored until facilities could be built. (The General George Patton Museum of Leadership, containing many of the general’s personal items, remains at Fort Knox and supports U.S. Army Cadet Command in training future Army leaders.)

Needed Expansion
With the move, the original intent was to raise funds to build a facility that would be gifted to the Army as a turnkey armor and cavalry museum. All that changed when the Army decided to build today’s Training Support Facility to house its vehicles, equipment, armor- and cavalry-related artifacts, reference library and restoration equipment and facilities.
In 2018, an existing training compound at the Armor School was turned over to the Armor & Cavalry Collection, and construction began on its main exhibit building. The indoor exhibit area comprises more than 100,000 square feet, while the Armor and Cavalry Conservation Center next door has an additional 96,000 square feet housing over 9,000 artifacts, the Armor Restoration Shop, the collection’s reference library and administrative offices.
As the collection’s complex was being developed, the downsizing of Army forces and installations in Europe drove the Center for Military History to evaluate its many historic vehicles and equipment there. At the same time, the Center for Military History was downsizing vehicles and equipment at many Army museums in the continental United States.
This was a golden opportunity for the Armor & Cavalry Collection, an opportunity that justified the transfer of many historic armored vehicles and associated equipment to Fort Benning and the collection, with the largest number coming from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Many of these vehicles are now in the exhibit area, while others are being restored or awaiting restoration.

Exhibits Grow
Today’s collection spans the history of armor and cavalry, and includes many extraordinary vehicles such as World War I’s Mark VIII tank, the first U.S. tank co-produced with America’s allies; World War II’s German Tiger Tank 712, one of that war’s most feared tanks; and the M26 Pershing, a hero of the Korean War, to name but a few. The collection continues to expand, with recent additions such as Task Force 1-64 Armor’s A11, the M1A1 Abrams tank that was first into Baghdad at the 2003 start of the Iraq War.
This expansive and growing facility has much to offer to Maneuver Center of Excellence students and visitors to Fort Moore. Each week, hundreds of Army tankers, cavalry scouts, Bradley Fighting Vehicle crew members and armor officers explore the collection to learn about the armor branch’s history, from its earliest days as the Continental Light Dragoons of the American Revolution to today’s mechanized soldiers serving around the world.
Two classes are offered to soldiers in Armor One-Station Unit Training at Fort Moore. They receive an initial session early in their training focusing on the armor branch’s history, customs and traditions. A second class during the later stages of that training takes trainees through the history of armored fighting vehicle development with a focus on their specific platform. Additional time is allotted for familiarity with foreign vehicles.
Working with local U.S. Army Forces Command and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command units, the collection’s staff continues to refine the program of instruction for course and unit training, leader and professional training and staff rides.


Visitors Encouraged
Although the facility housing the collection is designed to support military training, it attracts other visitors, too. It hosts thousands of military history buffs, tank and armor enthusiasts and researchers. It also draws groups from elementary school through college, veterans’ organizations, Boy Scouts and industry partners wanting to deepen their understanding of history, mechanized technology and tactics development.
As an added benefit to the Army, such visits encourage recruitment and better the public’s understanding of the Army and its heritage.
In 2023, the collection had almost 15,000 visitors. In 2024, that number is estimated to have grown to about 20,000. Clearly, managing such an extensive facility, providing instruction and hosting visitors requires an extensive team and related support resources.
Maintaining almost a brigade’s worth of vehicles, plus the collection’s facilities, is the responsibility of only three staff members—the director, curator and restoration curator. Their tasks would be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish without a large, dedicated volunteer force. Primary volunteer support comes from the National Armor & Cavalry Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit that recruits and trains volunteers to assist in restorations, exhibit creation and community or public outreach events.
Although the collection is funded by the Army to house, manage and preserve its artifacts, little is left for restoration and improved exhibits, and the foundation provides critical assistance.
With so much to offer, the collection is worth a special journey for anyone interested in military history and combat systems design. For more information on visiting or volunteering, contact the National Armor & Cavalry Heritage Foundation at www.armorcavalryheritagefoundation.org
* * *
Robert Cogan is the curator of the U.S. Army Armor & Cavalry Collection, Fort Moore, Georgia. He medically retired as a captain after serving 10 years as an armor officer. He deployed to Iraq.
Col. Michael Hamilton, U.S. Army retired, served 26 years as an armor and acquisition corps officer before retiring in 2002 as the program manager, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Program Executive Office Aviation. He then entered the defense industry as a vice president for DRS Technologies Inc. before founding his own corporate strategic planning consulting company. He graduated in 1976 from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.