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Texas Military Forces Museum — Field Scavenger Hunt

Maxine's printable field hunt. Bring a pen. Bring your phone (for photos). Check off items as you find them; write short answers on the page. Bring this back so it can go in the trip scrapbook.

Texas Military Forces Museum — Field Scavenger Hunt

Maxine's printable field hunt. Bring a pen. Bring your phone (for photos). Check off items as you find them; write short answers on the page. Bring this back so it can go in the trip scrapbook.

Companion to: tx-military-forces-museum.md

Visit date: ______________ Weather: ______________ Gate cleared by: ______________ (must be before 3pm)

1. The Headliners

The museum's greatest hits. Start here so you have easy wins.

  • Find Rommel's hat. Capturing unit: ______________ Date/place: ______________
  • Find the Twin Sisters cannons display. Did the original cannons survive? Y / N What does the placard say happened to them? ______________
  • Find the Choctaw code talkers section in the 36th Division's WWI gallery. Year: ______ Number of code talkers named on the exhibit: ______
  • Sit in the F-16 cockpit trainer. (TripAdvisor says this is the single most-loved exhibit. Your turn.) Done? ☐
  • In the Lost Battalion gallery, write the name of one POW survivor: ______________
  • Find one primary-source document in the Lost Battalion gallery (a letter, a diary page, a telegram). Who wrote it? ______________

2. The Armor Park Time Machine

Walk it in chronological order. Fill in from the placards. This is the tank-evolution story as a single readable timeline.

  • M4 Sherman — years in service: ________ main gun caliber: ________ mm
  • M48 Patton — years: ________ main gun: ________ mm
  • M60 — years: ________ main gun: ________ mm
  • M1 Abrams — years: ________ main gun: ________ mm
  • MGR-1 "Honest John" rocket — find it. (Trivia: first US nuclear-capable surface-to-surface rocket; 10–30 kt warhead.) Length on placard: ________ ft
  • UH-1 Huey helicopter — what era / war? ______________
  • One artillery piece you didn't know was here — what is it? ______________

Bonus pattern-spotting: how does the armor slope change from Sherman (1944) → Abrams (1980)? More sloped or less? ______________

3. Captured from the Enemy (Great Hall)

The German equipment Texas units brought back. Slow down and look closely.

  • Hetzer (German tank destroyer) — note three visible design differences vs. the Sherman parked nearby:
  • SdKfz 251 half-track — find the Africa Corps camouflage markings. Sketch or photograph them. Any visible unit insignia? ______________
  • Kübelwagen — what civilian car is this the military version of? ______________
  • One captured German artillery piece — caliber on placard: ________ cm Name: ______________

4. The Old Stuff (Pre-1903)

Most visitors blow past this section. Don't. The museum opens with 80 years of Texas militia history before there even was a National Guard.

  • Find the Stephen F. Austin colonial militia (1823) display. ☐
  • Find a Texas Rangers artifact from the frontier-defense era (before they were a modern police agency). What is it? ______________
  • Find a Mexican–American War (1846–48) item. What is it? ______________
  • Find a Spanish–American War (1898) item. ☐
  • Civil War check: find anything about Texas units in the Civil War. How does the museum frame it — heroic / neutral / critical / something else? Your call: ______________

5. The Post Itself (Camp Mabry as Artifact)

Walk-in and walk-out observations. Camp Mabry is 130+ years old and a working military base — the buildings are the exhibit.

  • Find a WPA-era native-limestone structure on the post (a wall, gate, drainage channel, covered walkway). Any visible 1936–1940 date stones? Y / N
  • Find Building 1 (Headquarters, original brick + wood porch). ☐
  • Photograph Building 6 (the museum) from outside. (Trivia: it was a 1918 WWI mess hall, bakery, and kitchen — you are now eating museum exhibits in it.) ☐
  • Spot the National Register Historic District plaque or any reference (district added 1996; 30 contributing buildings). ☐
  • Count how many obviously historic (pre-WWII) buildings you can see from the parking lot: ______

6. Find These Three Specific People

This one is harder — you'll need to actually read placards.

  • Find any reference to Brig. Gen. Woodford H. Mabry (the camp's namesake; Adjutant General of Texas 1891–98). Where in the museum? ______________
  • Find one named soldier in the 36th Division gallery and write down their name + hometown: ______________
  • Find one Choctaw code talker's name (1918, 36th Division): ______________

Back of the page — free response

Best thing I saw today (a paragraph):

One question I still want to answer (be specific — the museum won't have answered everything):

One artifact I'd photograph for my adventure page, and why:

One thing the museum got wrong, oversimplified, or left out (don't be shy — go for it):

Designed to print to a single sheet of letter-size paper (front + back works; landscape prints cleanly too). Bring a pen and a phone. Bring the sketchbook — a Sherman or Hetzer in profile is the classic drawing problem.