It is the place most of my movies are shot and where my son and I “play tanks“.

It has two bridges, 4 feet, and 5 feet long, a riverbed and some hills. I have one main road with several “back roads” for tanks to travel on, as well as cross country terrain that varies in drivability. Most hills have rocky bluffs on at least one side and there is a depression I call “the quarry” with rough roads into it. It also became apparent at my visit to the FRAG battle field that I was lacking in a facility to train in urban settings. I have set up a cinder block (CMU) village to correct that. As you can see in the video, more buildings and roofs are added as time permits. Everything stays out there all year, through snow and rain.

It is about 120 ft by 100 ft with a tree and some piled up brush in the center that acts like a mtn. range tanks can’t go over. The western side of the tree/brush-mountain is the more developed half where most of the pictures are taken. It has no “edge” you can drive a tank anywhere you want, but the forest restricts movement beyond the area I cleared. Some rough roads do go out into the forest a hundred feet or so to other clearings that are good for tank driving. I always picture it as Italy or North Africa in the summer and Leningrad in the winter. For modern tanks it resembles the terrain of many modern areas of engagement.

It is always growing and changing. The village grows with each free cinder block I scrounge, and I am building a form to pour concrete arch bridges to replace the wooden ones. The roads get refined with each season and the weeding never ends. Next time I can afford to rent a mini-ex, Tankland will expand some more, and get more hills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0jhcpUnI8

There is a cabin on the property but it is tiny and only sleeps 4, It does have solar power for charging tankbatteries.

Montrose is near Tankland... it is great for retired guys.

I like bridges so when I build one from scratch for the tanks it is fun to set it up and shoot pictures of it at Tankland.

The shots of the wooden truss bridge are from a photo shoot I did with my tank shelf from home. It is a 4 foot long bridge that can be moved outside for pictures but is not weather resistant. It lives inside. In the pictures it is in place of the south bridge.

The shots of the Jagd with the water running are from a photo shoot I did of another bridge I built. I dumped a 55 gal (200 l) barrel of water and shot pictures as fast as I could till the water ran out. We call this section of Tankland, Scorpion Canyon. My son named it because it sounds exotic and we did find a scorpion when we were digging there. It’s a clearing with a small ridge about 40 ft by 30 ft that sits about 100 yards from the main part of Tankland shown in the movie. Two tank roads connect Scorpion Canyon with the main part of Tankland. One is washing out bad and needs re-routing.

If someone were to bring a 1/16 scale RC tank on a vacation to western Colorado… PM me. I could help you with local vacation tips and battle you with tanks. If you can’t come to Tankland and it’s not too far, I may be able to meet you and battle where you are. From desert badlands to artic tundra, I know cool places to drive tanks around here.