Armor demil for importation to the USA?

[Greg]

For the life of me, I can't remember where I saw mention of it...

Seems that I remember someone importing an AFV or similar had to not only demil the guns, but also had to have some of the armor pulled and replaced with mild steel plate?

Does this ring a bell for anyone else?

GregInVista
1963 Steyr Puch Haflinger

[dgrev]

Greg

You may be confusing this with a vehicle that came out of
Germany (or with the Herr Flick Panther confiscation - which
has gone quiet, anyone heard anything?).

Under German law, all armour must be cut at strategic places
such that Police with standard issue sidearms can shoot any
or all crew.

Owners are allowed to weld sheet metal back in to blank
the holes.

Also, demil in USA often involves chunks of armour being
cut out, even for museum vehicles. From what I have seen,
this was applied sometime in the post-Vietnam era so
applies to such as M47, M48, M60 etc.

Regards
Doug

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[International Movie Services (IMS Ltd.)]

It took me two years of dealing with the US State Department to obtain permission to export a British "Saladin" armoured car from the USA to Canada. The cannon had to be demilled, but I challenged them on cutting holes in the hull and won. Recently a Canadian owned "Peacekeeper" has been sold into the USA from Canada and apparently required no demil, and a local collector has imported two ex-Australian Centurion main battle tanks from Idaho to Canada without any demil except the guns.

I have never been clear on what regulations are enforced and which ones are ignored in the interest of common sense?

I attended the Littlefield auction and witnessed buyers from around the world bidding on Artillery and Armoured vehicles. Has anyone done any follow up with Auctions America regarding whether there were any export problems?

FYI I could find no-one in the US or Canadian State Departments that were willing to assist or indeed knowledgeable about the import/export regulations. It seems to me that it is truly a "hit or miss" situation?

Ian

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[International Movie Services (IMS Ltd.)]

It took me two years of dealing with the US State Department to obtain permission to export a British "Saladin" armoured car from the USA to Canada. The cannon had to be demilled, but I challenged them on cutting holes in the hull and won. Recently a Canadian owned "Peacekeeper" has been sold into the USA from Canada and apparently required no demil, and a local collector has imported two ex-Australian Centurion main battle tanks from Idaho to Canada without any demil except the guns.

I have never been clear on what regulations are enforced and which ones are ignored in the interest of common sense?

I attended the Littlefield auction and witnessed buyers from around the world bidding on Artillery and Armoured vehicles. Has anyone done any follow up with Auctions America regarding whether there were any export problems?

FYI I could find no-one in the US or Canadian State Departments that were willing to assist or indeed knowledgeable about the import/export regulations. It seems to me that it is truly a "hit or miss" situation?

Ian

From: Greg

Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2016 4:34 PM

To: Military Vehicles List

Subject: [MV] Armor demil for importation to the USA?

[dgrev]

Ian

The export of the ex-Littlefield vehicles went round and round in
circles for quite some time. It did eventually happen.

There are a couple of specialists who handle this sort of thing.

As they are doing AFV/Weapons export/import for a living and
even they have hassles it is probably the least unpleasant route
to use one of them, probably the one with the best track record.

Obviously they are not cheap. I have heard that there is a fixed
fee and then a value added fee (eg. something like 5% of total
amount = export, handling, vehicle price)

Regards
Doug

On 3/01/2016 11:34 AM, International Movie Services (IMS Ltd.) wrote:
> It took me two years of dealing with the US State Department to obtain
> permission to export a British "Saladin" armoured car from the USA to
> Canada. The cannon had to be demilled, but I challenged them on cutting
> holes in the hull and won. Recently a Canadian owned "Peacekeeper" has
> been sold into the USA from Canada and apparently required no demil, and
> a local collector has imported two ex-Australian Centurion main battle
> tanks from Idaho to Canada without any demil except the guns.
> I have never been clear on what regulations are enforced and which ones
> are ignored in the interest of common sense?
> I attended the Littlefield auction and witnessed buyers from around the
> world bidding on Artillery and Armoured vehicles. Has anyone done any
> follow up with Auctions America regarding whether there were any export
> problems?
> FYI I could find no-one in the US or Canadian State Departments that
> were willing to assist or indeed knowledgeable about the import/export
> regulations. It seems to me that it is truly a "hit or miss" situation?
> Ian
>

> *From:* Greg <mailto:czec...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 02, 2016 4:34 PM
> *To:* Military Vehicles List <mailto:mil...@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* [MV] Armor demil for importation to the USA?

>
> For the life of me, I can't remember where I saw mention of it...
>
> Seems that I remember someone importing an AFV or similar had to not
> only demil the guns, but also had to have some of the armor pulled and
> replaced with mild steel plate?
>
> Does this ring a bell for anyone else?
>
> GregInVista
> 1963 Steyr Puch Haflinger
>
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[International Movie Services (IMS Ltd.)]

Doug:
If you have the contact info for these specialists I would like to add it to
my database. One of the saddest moments at Littlefield's was to witness the
fresh torch destruction of much of the breech mechanisms and other
associated parts which happened just BEFORE the sale! The 57mm (six pounder
anti tank gun; Australian made), was simply butchered. It still sold for
mega-bucks! I have one that shoots, but IMHO there is no way that it could
ever leave Canada? I have two Bofors and a 90mm AA gun, plus items like a
couple of Leopards and eight M75s. When I pass on, I imagine there will be
another Littlefield's event?
At least I won't be there to weep!
Regards,
Ian

--------------------------------------------------
From: "dgrev" <dg...@iinet.net.au>
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2016 5:11 PM
To: <mil...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [MV] Armor demil for importation to the USA?

> email to mil-veh+u...@googlegroups.com.
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[sho...@brick.net]

no...ITAR regs have changed.....

--

[sho...@brick.net]

That was simply dumb...and did not have to happen..

[dgrev]

Jon

> That was simply dumb...and did not have to happen..

What wasn't dumb about that whole event?

What about the 88mm that also got hacked.

Actually, the whole thing would make an excellent case
study of "how not to go about an......"

Regards
Doug

[sho...@brick.net]

True Doug.......very true.....everyone out there was an expert......I only wish Jacques had thought of these issues before hand. those guns could have been handled totally differently.  Sad, Sad, Sad.....

 

I have so many questions......and there is no one that can answer them.....

 

Jon

[dgrev]

Jon

Indeed.

He would no doubt be horrified how it all turned out.

To give him his due, he did set up a trust and must have
thought it secure.

But look how that went.

At the end of the day, when any one of us passes on, despite
anything we set up, however water tight legally, our control
stops immediately.
Then add in lawyers, real estate agents and auctioneers and
it becomes that old saying "best laid intentions...."
===

Sobering thought eh?

===

How many times have so many of us chased parts and vehicles,
to be constantly refused a sale? "I am going to restore
that one day its worth a lot of money" (usually coming out of the mouth
of an 80 year old), whilst the family sits and listens with smug looks
on their faces no matter how high a price you offer?

Then find out later that the old chap has died, family scrapped "all
that crap" 2 days afterwards and got peanuts for it......

Regards
Doug

[Greg T]

Gents, thanks for the clarification. My memory isn't as reliable as it once was, if it ever was.

Greg

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[Andy Hill]

Canada sold a bunch of M113C Lynxes in Germany, and a bunch of Leopard 1A3 MBT hulls less turrets a number of years ago.  For demil, the Lynxes had to have about an 16” square chunk of the aluminum armor cut out in a key place (yet the pieces were tossed back in the vehicle and included in the sale), and the ex-Canadian Leopards had to have about a 28” x 20” square cut out of the front glacis plate hull armor cut out, which was actually plated over with mild steel by the Canadians before surplusing to qualified buyers.  They even painted the patches to match (because they’re polite to a fault )

There are something like three 6” thick binders of demil regs for this and that and the other thing out there (we have a set at work), but things change, and it seems that enforcement organizations start implementing draft legislation changes as soon as they’re a sure thing policy-wise, despite the fact all the formalities of signing etc. and official dates-of-implementation haven’t been fully realized.  That’s come up a few times lately in a positive fashion.

What’s a bit strange is that they have the demil policies on the books for...say...M113s, but destroy them all utterly anyway.  Initially the demil regs were just meant to ensure that the *designed* offensive capability of the item was rendered...castrated...but they seem to have moved on from there into Alice’s topsy-turvy world beyond The Looking Glass.  To be honest, recent ITAR revisions have made a lot of sense (and a pat on the back to those who pushed them through), but if I have any complaint at all it’s that they just didn’t go far *enough* to exempt legacy systems of collector value, nor did they take a giant, pensive step backwards and make a real-world assessment of some of those legacy systems and the real-world likelihood of their employment by our current foes if released upon the surplus market (which is in the order of nil, seeing as there’s so much relatively modern, non=demil, Russian equipment out there for the asking anyway.)

As an aside, the Littlefield thing was a travesty without equal.  Hopefully it’ll serve as the poster child for what *not* to do in future, though, as others have said, once the driving force is no longer driving...it’s typically up to people who couldn’t care less about anything other than $$$.  I have a feeling Jacques’ wife had been a ‘hobby widow’ for many years and couldn’t wait to be quit of it all once he’d passed...which is mostly why we got what we got.  IMO at any rate.

 

 

 

From: Greg

Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2016 4:34 PM

To: Military Vehicles List