M5 High Speed Tractor.
Posted on 08/25/2015 9:36:58 AM PDT by rey
Edited on 08/28/2015 4:48:42 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
FAIRFIELD
(Excerpt) Read more at pressdemocrat.com ...
M5 High Speed Tractor.
“Those balsa tanks never really worked well.”
But they were so much cheaper to make and ship!
(I’ve read a lot of military history and some of it is terrifyingly close to being this absurd.)
There’s “Hello, Kitty” AR-15s, someone needs to paint-up a “Hello, Kitty entrenching tool”.
Looks like one of these:
Concur. M4 high-speed artillery tractor.
The M6 had an extra set of bogies/ road wheels in the middle and was considerably longer.
We generally climbed on our M48s and M60s from the front, the glacis [front] armour plate being nicely sloped for that, and the gun tube, if not reversed in travel lock, making a handy handhold for pulling yourself up.
Yeah, I've ridden on a frontal armour slope before, coaching a rookie driver. But under motor pool/wash rack conditions and speeds, not out in the field so far as I can recall.
Another no-no: standing on top of the turret, from which a slip or fall can result in a broken neck or back, whether you land on the back deck, on your back across the main gun tube, or alllllllthe way to the ground. I went off the back deck of an Israeli M48 in 1973 and that was bad enough. It also tempts snipers and the other peoples' AT gunners.
We did have a newbie try to mount an M60 from behind once [please...the joke lines are WAY too obvious there] and being short on handholds back there, stuck the toe of his boot into the track end connectors figuring they'd lift him up a bit...while the tank was moving. Which they did. And when the track came to the drive sprocket, it squished the front half of his foot like a rosy red grape. DOC!
About one fatality or permanent personnel casualty a year, like I said.
I can get it in there for you.
Well, actually....
A dummy Sherman tank under construction by 6 Field Park Company, Royal Engineers, in the Anzio bridgehead, 29 April 1944"
The swine! [Actually, a pretty nasty weapon, for somebody who knows how to really use one.]
WOW! Those guys are strong! Can those Ranger girls do that!?!?
I have crewed on a Tiger. A Tiger I, to be exact.
In the early 1970s, the Spanish still had 5 Tiger Is and a pair of King Tigers, and had stripped the Is to keep the Konigstigeren operational. At the time the Israelis had re-engineered some Shermans captured from the Egyptians in the 1956 and 1967 wars with 500HP Cummins Diesel engines, and the Spanish were hopeful that something similar could be worked out for the five parts queens. Or, maybe, all seven.
NAPCO Industries of Minneapolis/Plymoth Minnesota was involved, and was trying to work out something using a Detroit Diesel engine used in light locomotive applications. Several German civilian employees of the US Army Ordnance tank repair shop at Mainz, Germany, who had -ahem- previous experience- with Tiger I/II maintenance were hired on, and a few US Army treadheads with an inclination for that sort of mischief were added to the stewpot, of which I were one, having turned in Army 2404-7 improvement reccomendations on the M48 and M60 tanks, as well as a couple of major rework ideas about the M114 Command/Recon Vehicle.
My understanding is that one tank was actually rengined with a Diesel, but I'm not at all sure with which setup, and I don't know how successful it was. I got out of the Army [first enlisted tour] in May 1970, and never did get to drive a Tiger II. I think they were also having ammunition supply problems, some artillery techs from the Spanish Santa Barbara Arsenal and ammo production facility frequently pestering us and getting in the way. Or possibly, they just wanted main gun ammo compatability with the US 90mm gun M47 tanks they were receiving as US military assistance aid at the time.
But I got to drive a running Tiger I, and have since. Motor starten!
We'll see how they do with the rear takedown with strangle.
Don't sell the Ranger chickies short too quick. There used to be some Special Forces wives *sort of* attached to SFOD-Delta, ostensibly to give the guys cover when posing as tourists or globetrotting businessmen. Some of those girls knew their way around the happy end of a .45 Ingram M10 SMG pretty good.
Of course the current RangerGals ® have already had their presence and faces compromised. Ooops.
Needs one of these on it.
The toys of the wealthy...
never a good idea to get tanked at a picnic
I understand the Spetznaz guys keep the edges of theirs well-sharpened.
My first flight instructor flew Me-110s during the war.
DANG!
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