Salvaging four old targets from Gavle shooting range

Everything started the winter before, at the Solna Military Collectors Fair, where we had brought pictures of our restored tankette model 37 (strv m/37).
-"I know where there is one of those," one at that time to us unknown visitor said.
And as we thought that we knew the approximate whereabouts of all the remaining m/37s we became simultaneously sceptical and curious.
Oh, yeah, really, we thought, but naturally we replied politely "Ah, that is interesting, can you tell us some more?"

And to make this story a little shorter; we went up to check, and he was right, to our delight there were not one but two m/37s and in addition to armoured cars!
Moral: Don't ever think you know everything!

The all-wheel driven hooklift truck is our workhorse

In spite of the hooklift truck being able to drive on all wheels, it is not really extremely adapted to cross country driving, but we have no problems whatsoever in driving to the closest objects.

Admittedly, the undergrowth was considerably more dense now than during our recce in the spring, but what matters most is obviously what loads the ground will carry, and that was no worse now than before.

Without heavy equipment one stands quite helpless engaging in activities like this; the objects weigh several tons and they have sunk into the ground over centuries -- nothing to be budged by hand. Luckily, we could borrow two all wheel drive hooklift trucks from our (in 2004 still existing) regiment P10.

First on the agenda was to get the tankette loaded in order to get some room to work on the armoured car. This involves, naturally, some digging, the earth is not readily giving up its grip since many decades... But eventually we are there; the bed is placed in front of the tankette, it is towed onto it, strapped down and then the bed is hoisted onto the truck.

The armoured car is a slightly tougher nut to crack, it won't roll, and gives a rather unstable impression, so we decide to lift it up on a bed that we first place on the ground.

With a proper mix of respect for forces involved and an unquenchable enthusiasm we got started. It took a little longer to get it onto the bed since the hook of the truck cannot be traversed, so the lift has to be performed in steps.

Then we had time to look at the other two objects, another armoured car m/31 and a tankette m/37. They stood a bit further out into the woods and were considerably more complete; not as many curious people had found their way out there to pry away souvenirs. Though their inaccessibility was also the reason that they would be harder to salvage. We quickly realized that the next salvage operation would be something completely different than the walk in the park we'd just pulled off...

The second weekend, later the same autumn

The second weekend, when we planned to collect the two more remote objects had us working harder. To begin with, there was no road to the location. Ideally, we'd loved to have either a sizeable russian helicopter or a truck with a 700 m crane.

Obviously, we had neither. We had a (Swedish army) crosscountry truck model 40 with a small hoist and again an all wheel driven hooklift truck, but the latter would hardly manage to get to the spot. Which meant we had to get the wrecks to a driveable track. We needed machinery again, and we needed to get that to the location of the salvage.

Heavy preparations

First on the agenda was to recce a way to the objects. To go through the forest the shortest possible way was almost instantly rejected as impossible. There was, however, another possibility; there was a roundabout way, which, some decades ago could have been classified as a narrow track, but which since had been all but overgrown. It was also blocked by a substantial (man-made) mound of earth -- now nicely integrated into nature as a good little hillock.

Thanks to our local beneficiaries we could borrow chain saws and a bulldozer. And last but not least, we were a dozen enthusiasts looking forward to working like mad an entire weekend.

Now we could start by using chain saws to get to the first obstacle -- the little hillock. In dealing with this mound of earth, the bulldozer was indispensable. Without it, we'd still be digging. However, it wasn't of the very latest design, and thus rather difficult to manage, so the entertainment value of this operation was substantial -- at least for those of us not in its driver's seat, desperately tugging at a dozen levers.

With the hillock out of the way, and a further couple of hundred meters of road cleared by the chain saw people (well, we took turns a bit!) we installed chains on the wheels of our cross country truck and drove it to the site. Now, at last, we could start on the real work!

The second salvaging operation commences

At a first glance, it ought to be "piece of cake" to lift the old model 37 onto the cross country truck, but it seems to have sprouted proper roots, and it takes a while just to get the slings underneath. Apart from that, the hull is crammed with rubbish. The minute crane is not even nearly capable of the load. A smallish excavation gets under way.

With the tankette relieved of as much weight as possible and then some we just managed to hoist it onto the truck. Then it was a good while and a large amount of branches before the truck could manoeuver round on the increasingly muddier slope.

Meanwhile we search in the closest vicinity for parts belonging to both vehicles, and we find an abundance, in particular both tracks for the model 37. We want to salvage everything we can.

The armoured car was a couple of sizes up on the tankette, and to get it onto the cross country truck was out of the question. There was only one way, and that was to drag it out. After having cut a couple of young trees which had grown up through the frame, and carefully turned it about, we can start towing...

As can be seen on the image above, the wheels were stuck, and further, they did not slide easily over the ground either, since remains of the rubber furrowed deeply into the ground. Also, dusk was not far away, so we were beginning to feel the lack of time. We kept going until a while after darkness, but at a point when the armoured car got stuck and we couldn't make out one another's hand signals, we called it a day.

The following morning, we used yet another resource and had the cross country truck alternately push and lift, while the tractor pulled. This did the trick, so even if it was a bit complicated to coordinate both drivers, it was a surprisingly smooth operation.

Before we could leave for home, we had a stiff job washing the mud from two days off the equipment that we had borrowed.

Driving home was not much to mention -- except possibly that a slight sense of anxiety arose from time to time, since the height of the armoured car where it stood on the hooklift truck made the overall height very close to the 4.50 m which constitutes "free height" in Sweden.

Today, the tankette model 37 (or AH-IV S as its original CKD designation is) has its home in the Czech Republic. It was the pictures from this salvage operation which had the museum in Prague become interested in bringing home one of those vehicles. And eventually, that turned out to be two tankettes which traveled to Prague. But that is another story.

Read more about how the tankette above traveled to Prague in conjunction with their Tank Day 2006, or about the Czech restoration.

We would like to express our enourmous gratitude to Södermanlands Regemente, FMCK Gävle, Gästrike Militärhistoriska Förening, Gävleborgsgruppen and to all enthusiastic volunteers who worked these days without any demands for compensation.