Posted on 10/23/2006 8:26:52 PM PDT by Reaganesque
They're used to war around here. In 1485, Henry VII snatched the Crown just 20 miles away at the Battle of Bosworth. A century and a half later, Oliver Cromwell's troops destroyed the royalists four miles from here at Naseby. During World War II, this very field was an RAF bombing range.
But even the hedgerows and all-seeing steeples of this ancient Northamptonshire hunting country cannot have witnessed anything quite as bizarre as this...
--SNIP--
...Invented in the U.S. in 1981, paintball arrived in Britain soon afterwards and has grown into an industry where anyone can play a grown-up game of Cowboys and Indians, using an air pistol which fires Malteser-sized capsules full of water-based paint at more than 150mph.
As long as players wear masks and thick clothing, no one suffers anything worse than a bruise. The basic concept is simple: he who is the least-splattered is the winner. National tournaments can pull in hundreds of devotees and paintball has built up a solid appeal among stag - and hen - parties, pub teams, students and office workers.
But none will ever have faced a paintball gun like the one I am swivelling into position - which is just as well given that it could be lethal to anyone not protected by a thick layer of armour...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
A bigger toy for grown boys *ping*
Then, he had another idea. If the general public found it so much fun playing infantry games, maybe they would like to try out a spot of armoured activity, too. How about tank paintball?
It took a few years to perfect. Stuart eventually, found just what he needed at an ex-military vehicle sale. During the Seventies, the Army used an APC called an FV432. A handful were also built with turrets and a nasty 30mm Rarden gun.
Stuart had the guns removed and contacted Jez Smith, 26-year-old local engineer and serial inventor, to make the biggest paintball gun ever seen. Their chosen ammunition, fired by compressed air, would be paint-filled ping-pong balls.
The first attempt blasted a ball into orbit. Jez lost sight of it after a mile-and-a-half when it passed the church spire. It also sent a small potato through the sound barrier. Over time, he calmed it to a legal and relatively modest 200mph. Jez then designed a 40mm, 8ft steel barrel to slot into the turret and the company now has five. "Obviously, these aren't proper guns with rifled barrels or they'd be illegal," says Stuart, 38. "But a ping-pong ball full of liquid doing 300ft per second is lethal. That's why we operate with sealed hatches."
Tanka, tanka, tanka! (old joke)
I. AM. SO. THERE!
(begins saving pennies for a trip to the UK)
toys for boys
This is actually an assault [paint] gun, not a tank. Doesn't meet my old Armor Officer Basic definition of a tank. Has a non-traversable turret.
No, but it meets the definition of "kick-ass Christmas present". Of course, I'd have to buy two...you know to keep the bickering down to a minimum.
que up: Kelly's heroes
Oh man, I gotta get one of those.
We've got to get some of these!
This is just too cool for words ...
Hmmmm ... wasn't there a version of the M113 APC with a turret?
Kim jung ill and Ahmedinejad are currently working on paintball ICBMs. Not to worry :))
As to the classification, I'll call it a pank.
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