Ropkey Armor Museum
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Ropkey Armor Museum
Ropkey Armor Museum (today, known as the Ropkey Armor and Aviation Museum) is a military history museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. History The museum is privately owned by the Ropkey family. It stemmed from the founder Fred Ropkey's interest in military history and his past career as a tank platoon leader in the U.S. Marine Corps during the early 1950s. The Ropkey Armor Museum closed July 29, 2017. Afterwards, The vehicle collection was downsized. Some pieces of the collection were distributed to other museums while the core collection was relocated by the Ropkey's to Indianapolis, Indiana. The museum lives on today as the Ropkey Armor and Aviation Museum with renewed focus given to historic aircraft and aviation history. Collection The museum collection consists of AFVs, soft skin vehicles, marine and aircraft. Other exhibits are soft-skin military vehicles, aircraft and a Vietnam war-era PBR. The aircraft include an Antonov An-2 and the unique Bell X-14B. This aircraft wa ...
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Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion County was 977,203 in 2020. The "balance" population, which excludes semi-autonomous municipalities in Marion County, was 887,642. It is the 15th most populous city in the U.S., the third-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, and the fourth-most populous state capital after Phoenix, Arizona, Austin, Texas, and Columbus. The Indianapolis metropolitan area is the 33rd most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with 2,111,040 residents. Its combined statistical area ranks 28th, with a population of 2,431,361. Indianapolis covers , making it the 18th largest city by land area in the U.S. Indigenous peoples inhabited the area dating to as early as 10,000 BC. In 1818, the Lenape relinquishe ...
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United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Marine Corps has been part of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834 with its sister service, the United States Navy. The USMC operates installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical aviation squadrons, primarily Marine Fighter Attack squadrons, are also embedded in Navy carrier air wings and operate from the aircraft carriers. The history of the Marine Corps began when two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as ...
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Armoured Fighting Vehicle
An armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked. Examples of AFVs are tanks, armoured cars, assault guns, self-propelled guns, infantry fighting vehicles, and armoured personnel carriers. Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their characteristics and intended role on the battlefield. The classifications are not absolute; two countries may classify the same vehicle differently, and the criteria change over time. For example, relatively lightly armed armoured personnel carriers were largely superseded by infantry fighting vehicles with much heavier armament in a similar role. Successful designs are often adapted to a wide variety of applications. For example, the MOWAG Piranha, originally designed as an APC, has been adapted to fill numerous roles such as a mortar carrier, infantry fighting vehicle, and ...
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ...
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Patrol Boat, River
Patrol Boat, Riverine, or PBR, is the United States Navy designation for a small rigid- hulled patrol boat used in the Vietnam War from March 1966 until 1975. They were deployed in a force that grew to 250 boats, the most common craft in the River Patrol Force, Task Force 116, and were used to stop and search river traffic in areas such as the Mekong Delta, the Rung Sat Special Zone, the Saigon River and in I Corps, in the area assigned to Task Force Clearwater, in an attempt to disrupt weapons shipments. In this role they frequently became involved in firefights with enemy soldiers on boats and on the shore, were used to insert and extract Navy SEAL teams, and were employed by the United States Army's 458th Transportation Company, known as the 458th Sea Tigers. The PBR was replaced by the Special Operations Craft – Riverine (SOC-R) Design The PBR was a versatile boat with a fiberglass hull and water jet drive which enabled it to operate in shallow, weed-choked rivers. ...
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Antonov An-2
The Antonov An-2 ("kukuruznik"—corn crop duster; USAF/DoD reporting name Type 22, NATO reporting name Colt) is a Soviet mass-produced single-engine biplane utility/agricultural aircraft designed and manufactured by the Antonov Design Bureau beginning in 1947. Its durability, high lifting power, and ability to take off and land from poor runways have given it a long service life. The An-2 was produced up to 2001 and remains in service with military and civilian operators around the world. The An-2 was designed as a utility aircraft for use in forestry and agriculture, but the basic airframe is highly adaptable and numerous variants of the type have been developed; these include hopper-equipped versions for crop-dusting, scientific versions for atmospheric sampling, water-bombers for fighting forest-fires, flying ambulances, float-equipped seaplane versions and lightly armed combat versions for dropping paratroops.Harpole, Tom"Antonovs in America"
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Bell X-14
The Bell X-14 (Bell Type 68) is an experimental VTOL aircraft flown in the United States in the 1950s. The main objective of the project was to demonstrate vectored thrust horizontal and vertical takeoff, hover, transition to forward flight, and vertical landing. Design and development Bell constructed the X-14 as an open-cockpit, all-metal (duralumin) monoplane for the USAF. It was powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet engines equipped with thrust deflectors sited at the aircraft's centre of gravity. The engines are fixed in position; transition from vertical to horizontal flight is achieved with a system of movable vanes that control the direction of engine thrust. Top speed was with a service ceiling of . The X-14 was designed using existing parts from two Beechcraft aircraft: wings, ailerons, and landing gear of a Beech Bonanza and the tailcone and empennage of a Beech T-34 Mentor. Operational history The X-14 first flew on 19 February 1957 as a vertical take ...
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VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wing aircraft and other hybrid aircraft with powered rotors such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and gyrodynes. Some VTOL aircraft can operate in other modes as well, such as CTOL (conventional take-off & landing), STOL (short take-off & landing), or STOVL (short take-off & vertical landing). Others, such as some helicopters, can only operate as VTOL, due to the aircraft lacking landing gear that can handle taxiing. VTOL is a subset of V/STOL (vertical or short take-off & landing). Some lighter-than-air aircraft also qualify as VTOL aircraft, as they can hover, takeoff and land with vertical approach/departure profiles. Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs, are being developed along with more autonomous flight control tech ...
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Military And War Museums In Indiana
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct military uniform. It may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of the military is usually defined as defence of the state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms ''armed forces'' and ''military'' are often treated as synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include both its military and other paramilitary forces. There are various forms of irregular military forces, not belonging to a recognized state; though they share many attributes with regular military forces, they are less often referred to as simply ''military''. A nation's military may f ...
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Transportation Museums In Indiana
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations. Transport infrastructure consists of both fixed installations, including roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, and pipelines, and terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, warehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots (including fueling docks and fuel stations), and seaports. Terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance. Means of transport are any of the different kinds of transport facilities used to carry people or cargo. They may include vehicles, riding animals, and pack animals. Vehicles may inclu ...
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