Aberdeen Proving Grounds test report for an AMX-13 prototype
A report in English from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, covering their initial evaluation of what seems to be an AMX-13 prototype (the report just calls it “French light tank”). Original project number is TT 2-674.
The report seems to have wandered a long and winding road to end up in the archive where I found it. It’s originally dated 1951-02-17, and mentions that the testing was done in October to December of 1950. Somehow, it then ends up in the Top Secret (“kvalificerat hemligt”, of particular importance to the safety of the realm, cannot be shown to anyone without the approval of the head of the Department of Defense) archive of the Swedish Royal Army Ordnance Administration, the Vehicle Bureau, in late November of 1951. It sits there for a few years until it’s eventually downgraded to “regular” secret and discussed at the Vehicle Bureau in October of 1958, and that’s where I found it.
The photo appendices are sadly of a very bad quality; they seem to have copied them using some arcane machine that gave terrible quality. Appendices D, E and G are missing, either because they were illegible because of said copying machine, or because they weren’t included in the archive.
Archive reference: SE/KrA/0266/002/01:H/F I/19
