The two T28 prototypes underwent evaluation at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland and at the Fort Knox, Kentucky facilities up until about 1947. One of the prototype T28s was damaged by an engine fire during additional trials at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and was scrapped as a result. Needless to say, the T28 would never see operational service with the American Army. The major problem ultimately became the engine, this being very underpowered for the vehicle's operating weight and, while directly limiting basic performance specifications, serving to limit the T28's obstacle-climbing capability - a must-have quality for any tank of note since the days of World War 1. Consider that the vehicle's weight was also over the maximum limit of portable and structural bridges of the day - particularly the many old bridges across Europe - and the T28 never truly held any realistic advantage. The end of World War 2 more or less sealed the fate of "mega-tank" projects like the T28 and the German "Maus", the latter facing similar limitations.
The later stages of the T28 heavy tank development turned to the T29 and T30 heavy tank designs - these two developments being "true" turreted tank designs. The T29 mounted the same cannon as the T28 with less armor and more machine guns while the T30 was to use a larger-caliber gun (155mm L/40) with a more powerful engine (a Continental AV1790-3 air-cooled gasoline engine displacing 704 horsepower). These further developments closed the T28 program for good sometime in October of 1947. The 70-ton T29 went on to see trials but was never contracted for production. Similarly, the 72.5-ton T30 was never to see the light of day.
In 1974, the second T28 prototype was found rusting in the outdoor environment in a field at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. As the only remaining example of a T-28 tank, she was reconstituted to optimal display condition and put on display, calling the Patton Museum in Kentucky her home for many years following. As of this writing, this surviving T28/T95 is in the process of transferring to her new home at Fort Benning, Georgia. A pair of the developmental T29s can also be found at Fort Knox, Kentucky - one at the front of Marshall Bay and the other at the front of the Patton Museum. The T30 can be found at Fort Knox as well, this in front of Marshall Hall.
In effect, all three of these oft-forgotten designs serve as a window to the past - where wartime experience ushered in an age of creative thinking to seemingly impossible problems considering warfare. Despite their "failure" in the real world, these super heavy tanks should not be viewed as follies but instead serve to promote the ingenuity inherent in those involved in a true global life-and-death struggle that only a remaining few today will ever understand.
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