The U.S. Army plans to line Washington, D.C. streets with metal sheets to prevent tanks and other vehicles from damaging the roads during its parade next month.
The Associated Press, citing a U.S. official, reports that the Army will install several heavy metal plates at specific points in Washington, D.C. to avoid tearing up the pavement. As it currently stands, the Army is expected to field 25 M1 Abrams tanks as part of the wider parade, which will honor the Army’s involvement in every American conflict. Given that each tank can weigh 60 tons and its treads rely on heavy traction against the ground to move them along, concerns about how they could damage widely used roads have been ongoing, even before plans for this specific event were made.
The Army will hold its 250th birthday parade on June 14, with thousands of troops, 150 vehicles including the tanks and 50 aircraft involved. The current plan, according to permits and public statements by defense officials, calls for troops and vehicles to start at the Pentagon, cross the Potomac River at the Memorial Bridge, and continue down Constitution Avenue on the edge of the National Mall. The route ends at 15th Street.
Each metal plate is said to weigh several hundred pounds itself and will be placed along the parade route where armor pieces will be making turns. Per the route, those would likely be concentrated near the Lincoln Memorial, which the parade will pass by before turning onto Constitution Avenue. These are the spots where the tanks’ treads would otherwise cause the most damage to pavement.
During President Donald Trump’s first term he repeatedly attempted to have a military parade through Washington, D.C., including on the 4th of July in 2018. Those plans were postponed and eventually canceled, but local officials in Washington, D.C. and some defense officials repeatedly expressed concern over potential damage to city infrastructure by tanks. The City Council had previously said that it would bill the federal government over any harm to the roads. This spring, as plans for the 250th Army birthday parade were coming together, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a similar statement, although did not outright oppose the event.
“If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads,” Bowser said in April.
The parade is expected to cost between $30 million-$45 million, however that does not include costs such as road repair or trash collection, according to Reuters.
The vehicles themselves, as is often the case when armor is transported, will be brought to the District of Columbia area by rail, and then moved into place via truck. Other vehicles set to be in the parade include Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Strykers, according to plans obtained by the Associated Press.
The weight of American tanks and armored personnel carriers has been an issue for infrastructure in recent conflicts. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American armor and vehicles allowed U.S. forces to quickly sweep through the country, but soon left many of the streets and roads in Baghdad torn up or crushed. Although tanks were not heavily deployed in the early years of the war in Afghanistan, they began to encounter similar problems to property and roads when they arrived around 2010.
Roughly 7,000 troops will participate in the parade. Some will be dressed in era-specific Army uniforms from conflicts such as the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, while most will wear modern uniforms. Current plans call for housing the soldiers in the Department of Agriculture building and a government warehouse inside Washington, D.C.
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