Update on the Bastogne Barracks Museum

Hello everyone,

remember the Bastogne Barracks Museum post here on FTR? To give you a quick rundown: it’s a well-estabilished museum, unfortunately the Belgian army that runs it decided to possibly shut it down. A petition was made to prevent that from happening and I asked for your signatures, because there aren’t that many important armor museums around Europe.

Well, there’s an update and it is not good. The decision might be taken around Easter. By the words of the petition organizer:

“At this time not 6, but 15 bases are at stake. Handing over the base to civilians is not an option, the costs to keep the place open are too high, and the city of Bastogne itself might not be interested because of their focus on their own Mardasson museum which has just been renovated.”

Since I believe every bit of tank history is worth preserving (too much was lost already or went to private owners, never to be seen again), I am bringing this to your attention yet again: please sign the petition, it doesn’t cost you anything and it might help one museum escape from the clutches of bean counters.

11 thoughts on “Update on the Bastogne Barracks Museum”

Done.

If WG got involved (RU, EU sucks), and they said “100 gold when you sign the petition with your game email” there’d be 50k minimum.

Silentstalker on February 26, 2015 at 12:06 pm said:

Well, you know WG EU… :)
Tobi_1989 on February 26, 2015 at 1:08 pm said:

that’s actually quite good idea, maybe it’s worth a shot with WG RU.

-Small reward for participating players (well, not for me, as i allready signed the first time it appeared here on FTR)
-Great help for that poor fella Filip Willems who came up with this petition in the first place
-Nice (and almost free) WoT advertisement for Wargaming

That’s a triple-win situation…

I signed that petition when you first posted it…gotta try & save as much history as possible.

Done

It maybe could be a good thing that they close the bastogne branche of the armor museum. For the moment the situation is that they have their collection spread out over three branches: Bastogne, Brasschaat (repair and restroration) and the royal museum of armed forces in Brussels. It would be a chance to bring together the collection and make a real museum out of it. Nowadays the collection in Brussels is just corroding away, Brasschaat is only accesible with permission from the military and Bastogne is probably the best branche but too expensive to maintain. Closing Bastogne would allow for maybe a full museum in Brasschaat in conjunction with the artillerymuseum (“Gunfire”). I know Bastogne is pretty important for americans, but there are also other WWII musea in Bastogne. And on armor i think that the museum would have benefit from not having to maintain three branches spread out all over the country.

Tobi_1989 on February 26, 2015 at 1:25 pm said:

So, you’re saying closing the only part of the museum they actually maintain can help the museum to maintain its stocks?

If Bastogne gets closed for finantial reasons (as the petition says), its collection would get probably sold out or scraped, not relocated and maintained in Brussels with al the other happy, smiling tonks (which are currently “just corroding away” as you wrote)
- Duvel9 on February 26, 2015 at 5:27 pm said:
  
  Yes, i know that i am contradicting myself. The base wich houses the museum is at risque for closure because of the financial cutbacks of the governement. This is the same as for most Bases in Belgium. The fact that the museum has to close has nothing to do with less finances for the museum, but the army has except for the museum no other reason to maintain the base. The tanks in the worst state will probably be scraped but i think the rest will be transported to Brasschaat (not Brussels). At the moment there is a project in brussels to restore and improve the museum space for the armor. This project will probably go in a higher gear after the 14-18 commemerations. The museum in bastogne holds mostly unique and wwII vehichels wich aren’t just going to be scrapped. Brasschaat is a larger base and the added effect of decades of cutbacks is that they also have space. And a combination with the gunfire museum would allow for a larger museum and sharing of facilities wich would cut back on the costs. Another thing that is worth remembering is that the belgian defence minister decides over the closure of the bases and isn’t just not closing a base because there is a museum on it.

Armour museums can consume tons of cash with no expectation of ever being able to cover costs through mere viewing fees.

Bean counters don’t tend to also make decisions on shutting down camps. Someone in senior management (army equivalent) has been asked to cut costs by a very large amount and will have been asking around about the non-essential things they can do away with.

Things don’t always go as planned with cost cutting like that.

It’s not a common fact that the largest landowner in the UK is a forestry organisation which is owned by the government: http://www.countrylife.co.uk/life-in-the-country/who-owns-britain-top-uk-landowners-20178

Sometimes it makes money, sometimes it doesn’t which means the government covers the bills. Political decision was made to sell it off including the 2.5m acres it owns almost entirely as a money grab.

Gigantic shitstorm ensued because much of that land is accessible to the public for recreation so costs or not it was a suicidal policy to actually go through with it. Cue high speed backpedalling.

Back to the topic… even if there is some negative feedback on closing the museum it doesn’t amount to much and neither threatens those who make the call or changes the financial situation, a petition isn’t an offer of financial support after all. You’re asking them to keep forking out to keep it open and offering… nothing, in the meantime they need to cut costs. All they need to do is put up with a bit of harmless complaining and it’ll be done.

Duvel9 on February 26, 2015 at 5:34 pm said:

They aren’t closing the museum, they are closing the base wich houses the museum, the bastogne museum is a subsidiary of the Brussels Armed forces museum (wich has no entrance fee by the way). The Brussels museum provides the funds for the bastogne museum, but loans the buildings from the army. If the buildings aren’t sold they obviously have to close the bastogne branche and will have to relocate the hardwear. However this doesn’t mean that there are not enough funds for the museum. The museum just never owned/hired the buildings and just gets funding to maintain and restore the tanks.

Woras on February 26, 2015 at 11:45 am said:

Done.
Mistor Tank on February 26, 2015 at 12:04 pm said:

If WG got involved (RU, EU sucks), and they said “100 gold when you sign the petition with your game email” there’d be 50k minimum.
- Silentstalker on February 26, 2015 at 12:06 pm said:
  
  Well, you know WG EU… :)
- Tobi_1989 on February 26, 2015 at 1:08 pm said:
  
  that’s actually quite good idea, maybe it’s worth a shot with WG RU.
  
  -Small reward for participating players (well, not for me, as i allready signed the first time it appeared here on FTR)
  -Great help for that poor fella Filip Willems who came up with this petition in the first place
  -Nice (and almost free) WoT advertisement for Wargaming
  
  That’s a triple-win situation…
tiger61378 on February 26, 2015 at 12:17 pm said:

I signed that petition when you first posted it…gotta try & save as much history as possible.
Larzac on February 26, 2015 at 12:33 pm said:

Done
Duvel9 on February 26, 2015 at 1:12 pm said:

It maybe could be a good thing that they close the bastogne branche of the armor museum. For the moment the situation is that they have their collection spread out over three branches: Bastogne, Brasschaat (repair and restroration) and the royal museum of armed forces in Brussels. It would be a chance to bring together the collection and make a real museum out of it. Nowadays the collection in Brussels is just corroding away, Brasschaat is only accesible with permission from the military and Bastogne is probably the best branche but too expensive to maintain. Closing Bastogne would allow for maybe a full museum in Brasschaat in conjunction with the artillerymuseum (“Gunfire”). I know Bastogne is pretty important for americans, but there are also other WWII musea in Bastogne. And on armor i think that the museum would have benefit from not having to maintain three branches spread out all over the country.
- Tobi_1989 on February 26, 2015 at 1:25 pm said:
  
  So, you’re saying closing the only part of the museum they actually maintain can help the museum to maintain its stocks?
  
  If Bastogne gets closed for finantial reasons (as the petition says), its collection would get probably sold out or scraped, not relocated and maintained in Brussels with al the other happy, smiling tonks (which are currently “just corroding away” as you wrote)
  - Duvel9 on February 26, 2015 at 5:27 pm said:
    
    Yes, i know that i am contradicting myself. The base wich houses the museum is at risque for closure because of the financial cutbacks of the governement. This is the same as for most Bases in Belgium. The fact that the museum has to close has nothing to do with less finances for the museum, but the army has except for the museum no other reason to maintain the base. The tanks in the worst state will probably be scraped but i think the rest will be transported to Brasschaat (not Brussels). At the moment there is a project in brussels to restore and improve the museum space for the armor. This project will probably go in a higher gear after the 14-18 commemerations. The museum in bastogne holds mostly unique and wwII vehichels wich aren’t just going to be scrapped. Brasschaat is a larger base and the added effect of decades of cutbacks is that they also have space. And a combination with the gunfire museum would allow for a larger museum and sharing of facilities wich would cut back on the costs. Another thing that is worth remembering is that the belgian defence minister decides over the closure of the bases and isn’t just not closing a base because there is a museum on it.
Hotwired on February 26, 2015 at 2:18 pm said:

Armour museums can consume tons of cash with no expectation of ever being able to cover costs through mere viewing fees.

Bean counters don’t tend to also make decisions on shutting down camps. Someone in senior management (army equivalent) has been asked to cut costs by a very large amount and will have been asking around about the non-essential things they can do away with.

Things don’t always go as planned with cost cutting like that.

It’s not a common fact that the largest landowner in the UK is a forestry organisation which is owned by the government: http://www.countrylife.co.uk/life-in-the-country/who-owns-britain-top-uk-landowners-20178

Sometimes it makes money, sometimes it doesn’t which means the government covers the bills. Political decision was made to sell it off including the 2.5m acres it owns almost entirely as a money grab.

Gigantic shitstorm ensued because much of that land is accessible to the public for recreation so costs or not it was a suicidal policy to actually go through with it. Cue high speed backpedalling.

Back to the topic… even if there is some negative feedback on closing the museum it doesn’t amount to much and neither threatens those who make the call or changes the financial situation, a petition isn’t an offer of financial support after all. You’re asking them to keep forking out to keep it open and offering… nothing, in the meantime they need to cut costs. All they need to do is put up with a bit of harmless complaining and it’ll be done.
- Duvel9 on February 26, 2015 at 5:34 pm said:
  
  They aren’t closing the museum, they are closing the base wich houses the museum, the bastogne museum is a subsidiary of the Brussels Armed forces museum (wich has no entrance fee by the way). The Brussels museum provides the funds for the bastogne museum, but loans the buildings from the army. If the buildings aren’t sold they obviously have to close the bastogne branche and will have to relocate the hardwear. However this doesn’t mean that there are not enough funds for the museum. The museum just never owned/hired the buildings and just gets funding to maintain and restore the tanks.