[ahadams]

relationship to firearms: need info about muzzleblast from the 120mm gun on the M1 Abrams tank.

starting to see press rumors elsewhere (well this was the French media, but show me the difference between them and ABC News) to the effect that

" The officers said the tank unit fired two 120 mm high velocity depleted uranium rounds straight down the main road, creating a powerful vacuum that literally sucked guerrillas out from their hideaways into the street, where they were shot down by small arms fire or run over by the tanks. "

now this sounds like a couple of upset armor officers playing the french media for the fool, but it does bring up an interesting question: if you can go deaf from the repeated muzzleblast of small arms, what does the muzzleblast from the main gun of tank do to you?

just wonderin', thanks!

[Thumper]

Arlin,

That stuff about sucking the bad guys out of their holes is obviously BS, but that main gun's muzzle blast ain't no joke. It's LOUD and CONCUSSIVE. Heavy bass, man.

Those little green boxes hanging from soldiers' left BDU blouse pocket are for earplugs. Ugly orange things, but they work pretty well.

[ahadams]

Thumper - yeah, even back when I was in we had earplugs (in little round plastic containers, not boxes), even in MI...:)

Thinking about it, I did know of one instance where they had to medical out an SFC in artillery, because he'd actually suffered some sort of neurological damage from repeated exposure to 105mm muzzle blast. (do they still use 105's in arty these days?). That's why I'm wondering if, in a relatively enclosed space, like say a long narrow alley or street, the muzzleblast from a 120 would at least cause some disorientation (in addition to at least temporary deafness).

[Thumper]

That's why I'm wondering if, in a relatively enclosed space, like say a long narrow alley or street, the muzzleblast from a 120 would at least cause some disorientation (in addition to at least temporary deafness).

I like it! The Urban Flash-Bang!

!!!!BOOM!!!!!

You mention MI...what was your MOS?

[pinduck]

Yes thats why we wore laced tight boots, I remember in Third Armour when we fired our tank gun if your boots wern't laced tight it would suck you right out of them.:D
MOS 4830

[ahadams]

hmm, DU rounds as the ultimate FLASHBANG - whadda concept!:D

MOS was 98C2LCM (simple translation for nonmil types: I drove a desk and was sometimes even paid to think! :eek: ), which I guess dates me since I heard that most of the 98 and 05 series were subsequently rolled into the 96 series.

Oh, and BTW, while I'll grant you that 98C wasn't ever exactly a 'high density' MOS I was absolutely amazed after I got out at how while I almost never ran into another 98C I ran into tons of "rangers" and "special forces" types... and it seemed like when I did meet people who claimed MI background, they always said they'd been 'black ops' types...amazing isn't it?:rolleyes:

[Thumper]

Yep...I was a 98K. 05s and 98s gone? Man...didn't know that.

You ever live in Augsburg?

[Tamara]

Oh, and BTW, while I'll grant you that 98C wasn't ever exactly a 'high density' MOS I was absolutely amazed after I got out at how while I almost never ran into another 98C I ran into tons of "rangers" and "special forces" types... and it seemed like when I did meet people who claimed MI background, they always said they'd been 'black ops' types...amazing isn't it?

Best I can tell, the Vietnam war was fought entirely by specops types, with only one truck driver, one cannon cocker and one dude manning the radios at Tan Son Nhut. ;)

[ahadams]

yo! Pinduck - I thought you guys were the ones who got to wear the combat boots with the zippers in the side... at least that was the rumor...nobody ever explained what the zippers were for...
[now there's a softball line for somebody to take a wack at!]

[ahadams]

Thumper: you're thinking GM, CM was the other side of the world - as in An Jong Ni Korea...26 months... The rollup thing was something I heard rumors of related to some further reallignment of Inscom (that's what used to be the tactical part of ASA). But like I said I've been completely out of the military side since '85 and completely out of it (med ret from civil service) since '90, so things could be very different now, who knows?

Tamara: you aren't kidding - and right on up through the '80's too, from the ages of some folks I've seen claiming to have been in SE Asia! :rolleyes: I missed the festivities as I was sitting in a training unit when our guys got thrown out of Thailand.

[Sir Galahad]

You've got to wonder if this "specops" phenomena happened in other armies. I mean, were former Wehrmacht flak crews sitting around beer halls in 1950 saying, "Ja, I vas vit der Waffen SS. Landed on Crete vit Skorzeny. Or vas dat Italy ven ve tried to rescue Mussolini?" Well, they certainly wouldn't lay claim to Totenkopf SS, though. Or maybe some former Soviet Army kasha slinger runs around saying, "Da, I was spetznaz. Used to run covert ops in Alaska planting suitcase nukes along the Alaskan pipeline. They're still there, too." Pretty soon, there'll be Iraqi falafel flingers and truck drivers saying, "No camel dung! There I was, surrounded by two American Marine divisions. Thought I was gonna die. So I says to my fellow Republican Guard comrades, "Boys, we gotta do this one for Saddam, mom, and medjool date pie!" So, I grabbed my AK and knocked out 15 M1 tanks myself. We got outta there, but just barely. I'm here to tell ya!" "But Uncle Hamid, Uncle Rashid says you surrendered the first day of the war and that you were a baker." "Shut up and go see if dinners ready you little !@#$#$%^%!" :D

[Thumper]

you're thinking GM,
Not sure, I thought an analyst was an analyst ...Field Station Augsburg was crawling with 98 Charlies.

My MOS' name was changed from 05K to 98K...same job though.

Bet you know what a chad trap is. :D

[Boats]

Well 120mm smoothbore, as impressive as it may be, doesn't hold a candle to the rifled ~75 lb HE shell and ~40 lb powder charge of the 5"/54 main guns of my old destroyer. I got caught topside about 15' from the aft main gun danger circle during a snap-fire on some 12.7 mm equipped Iranian motorboats back in '86. The gun mount's bell rings while it is moving and that was all of the warning I had.

"CHUNK! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" That and some continual ringing was the last thing I heard well for about a week. I even had time to jam in some -30db ear plugs that were always string attached to my cover. The blast wave made me nauseated and it made my teeth hurt through resonation, but that was about it. Sucked out of holes. . . .:rolleyes:

The smell of that much smokeless burned off and hanging in the air is kinda heavenly though.:evil: There isn't a French journalist alive who has ever seen a shooting war before unless he or she was embedded with the French component of the "left hook" in '91.

[ahadams]

Thumper: while that's true for regular Charlies (almost used the old term 'straight' charlies, but that was back before we had to worry about the 'don't ask don't tell' types, when straight didn't have anything to do with sexual orientation...) once you got a language identifier the rest of your Army career was predictable...overseas to assignment A, back to the states, overseas to assignment B. back to the states, repeat endlessly with little or no variation.

yeah I know what a chad trap is, and I also come from the end of the carbon paper era - you can do some amazing things with carbon paper and a little ingenuity!:D

Boats: I've heard stories about those things, but I gotta say that handling powder charges in bags would give me the willies, even without the noise hazard!

[Intune]

I've been on the tank end (19E) of a whole bunch of 105mm sabots. Never been on the other end of one. I am blowing the b.s. whistle on this one. No way, no how. Now, with that said, I surmise that if the discarding part of a sabot round came zinging through a wall/window of the house that they were camping in (grenade?) there is no telling what a scared person might do. :what:

I have been within 15ft and to the side of a tank cannon going off without plugs on. "On the waaay!" from inside would have been a clue to most troopers. Not pleasant and it will remove headgear.

[Al Norris]

ahadams wrote:
MOS was 98C2LCM (simple translation for nonmil types: I drove a desk and was sometimes even paid to think!)
You army guys always had more designations than I could throw a stick at!

My MOS was 2533, radiotelegrapher. This was phased out shortly after I got out of Comm School (gee, wonder why?), and thereafter they only trained standard 2531's (voice radio operators).

Anyway, I was with a 155mm arty unit. We shot M109's, those self-propelled jobs that looked (at the time) like a super tank! Every so often, it was my turn to stand perimeter guard. The burm was usually 50ft in front of the gun line...I say usually, because there were two places where the burm was only 10ft out! There was no difference in the volume of the BOOOOM!, regardless of which foxhole your were in. It was all extremely loud! The real difference was when the gun-bunnies didn't seat the round properly...the result was a shower of burning powder (and usually a short round)!!!

My only claim to fame was that we were stationed off finger three of hill 55. I got there about a month after Carlos Hathcock had left (if ya don't know, don't ask). Never knew him. Never knew about him. Never mingled with the boys of the 1st Marines that were on the other side of the hill from us.

Tamara, I'm one Jarhead that is proud of who I was and what I did. I don't need to make up stuff about spec-ops.

[John G]

Sir Galahad, that's some funny camel dung!:D

[Ed Brunner]

The 175mm gun has more blast than any other artillery I have been around. I don't know about the 120mm.

A USMC friend told me years ago thar I was the first Army guy he ever met who wasn't SF in Viet Nam.

[ahadams]

Al Norris: we got more numbers, because there's more of us than they are of you. While I saw a few Marines in training [I was tdy to Goodfellow AFB in TX in '76 when the base commander woke up one morning to find FLY MARINES bumperstickers all over the F-86 he'd had brought from the AZ boneyard and mounted on a pedestal outside his office...none of us Army guys saw nothin'... we swear!;) ] Your guys were even thinner than ours were on the ground once I got out in the real world.

Did work around a few Navy CTI types...they all sorta kept to themselves though.

Intune: interesting point about the sabot. what sort of velocity/range did the pieces of the sabot have when they separated from the projectile?

[Ed Brunner]

The difference between a Fairy Tale and a War Story? A fairy tale starts with Once upon a time and a war story with Now this is no camel dung.:evil:

[ahadams]

Ed's got a good point there, although technically your BS meter should go off the scale on just the words "there I was..." I mean, have you ever met anyone who talked like that when they were serious??

[Boats]

Modern (new construction since the 60s anyways) naval guns use metal cased powder charges and eject them onto the main deck. The last of the silk powder bags in active service were aboard the Iowa class battle wagons.

5" naval guns are rather like revolvers. My first GQ station was in the fwd powder mag. When we were shooting, we'd load powder charges in a powered loader that revolved to reveal a new opening to charge. A shell was loaded similarly. The shell and powder were then elevatored to the gun where the shell would be powered into the breech, followed by the powder cannister. It is quite hands off after the initial loading in the mags.

[Al Thompson]

Arlin, the sabots are deadly to a pretty good distance. IIRC, the danger zone is a 45 degree cone centered on the tank's muzzle out to about 400m. May be closer..

[Sean Smith]

I ran into tons of "rangers" and "special forces" types... and it seemed like when I did meet people who claimed MI background, they always said they'd been 'black ops' types...amazing isn't it?

Ain't that the truth? :rolleyes:

I met a guy who talked about being an "ex-ranger" all day long. Turns out he went to the school all right, but washed out. If there weren't a bunch of people around at the time I would have been tempted to whack him night in the ruts. Loser. :barf:

Me, I was a 35D, then a 35E. I always liked the Brit slang for MI types: "Green Slime." :evil:

[ahadams]

Sean: that's why intelligence professionals often refer to ourselves as being or having been part of "the worlds *second* oldest profession"! hadn't heard the 'green slime' before though - I had days like that! :D