As of the present plan the Army M-60 Main Battle Tanks will "rumble through" along the roads of Washington. Each of the 24 of 'em is 60 tons of fun that will roar thunderously in their several formations.
The Army will lay steel plates weighing a couple of hundred pounds each at points where the tanks turn. The turning movement is when the tank treads grind and dig in simultaneously. One tread rotates to the new direction while the other tread goes stationary and just digs in. The rubber tips on the treads are not considered enough to prevent damage to the road surface. Indeed, it's well known that during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 American armor and vehicles quickly sweep through the countryside but left many of the streets and roads in Baghdad torn up or crushed. Mangled.
The 150 vehicles themselves are being drawn from the Sierra Army Depot in CA to be transported to DC by rail. In DC the tanks and wheeled Stryker Combat vehicles and other vehicles will be taken by truck carriers and offloaded at their parade starting point which for the M-60 MBT is the Lincoln Memorial on the DC side of the Potomac. The tanks will not cross the bridges over the river.
The Stryker and other vehicles will be transported to the Pentagon side of the Potomac and to the 4 mile parade starting point in the building's North Parking Area. The lighter and faster Stryker wheeled attack vehicles will cross Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial where the M-60 tanks will enter the parade route of march onto Constitution Avenue. This broad avenue is the normal route for holiday and virtually all special event parades.
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Pentagon North Parking area where the parade will form up and march from is at the bottom right. Higher up across Ridge Road is Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery which is the post 9/11 Iraq War and Afghanistan War Section, to include the Columbarium buildings. The long rectangle in between is the 9/11 Memorial to the 283 who were killed in the attack into the Pentagon West Front. At center front is the Pentagon Potomac River Main Entrance and its rectangular parade field. At left is I-95. This is in Arlington County Virginia. Ft. Myer is at the opposite, to our right side of ANC which sprawls vastly in that direction. Section 60 is the final section of space available at the Cemetery.
The tanks will be in their position on the road behind the Lincoln Memorial two days before the 6/14 parade date so traffic and 24 hour security will need to be controlled to include rerouting which DC residents know well. Visitors will want to see the tanks so the flow of traffic will be nil and onlooker parking will be tightly controlled given there's no parking space on this normally busy and narrow roadway immediately alongside the Potomac. The area holding the tanks will be covered by DC and US Park police, Military Police and Naval Shore Police on the ground, on the river and on Memorial Bridge.
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