Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
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Heh. From the "Just because I can, not because I should" files:
No doubt Bill did something similar in Vietnam, like mounting a 106mm reckless rifle or a 4.2 inch mortar, or twin LittleJohn launchers to the nose of one of his birds... Not that the Army Air Corps hasn't done something similar (scroll down to the H-model). -the Armorer
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A message from Fuzzybear Lioness:
Football star Franco Harris is one of the good guys, as the milblogs learned when this story broke.
Now he's designating Soldiers' Angels as the beneficiary of his 2009 Gridiron Golf Tournament, to be held during Super Bowl week in Tampa, FL:
If you know anyone who might be interested, there are still slots available... ;) Fishmugger? -the Armorer
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Judging from my mail, I shouldn't have taken my vacation from history that I took yesterday. In penance, I'll offer up Jules Crittenden's post on The Bulge, and this bit of US Army Signal Corps newsreel footage:
And some more stuff later on in the timeline. -the Armorer
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Prince Charles awards the Sun-sponsored "Millies" to Brit troops. Hmmm. Think Pinch Sulzberger or Rupert Murdoch will follow up with something for American troops?
Note to SWWBO - Christmas is coming! -the Armorer
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Heh. From the "Just because I can, not because I should" files:
No doubt Bill did something similar in Vietnam, like mounting a 106mm reckless rifle or a 4.2 inch mortar, or twin LittleJohn launchers to the nose of one of his birds... Not that the Army Air Corps hasn't done something similar (scroll down to the H-model). -the Armorer
***************************************
A message from Fuzzybear Lioness:
Football star Franco Harris is one of the good guys, as the milblogs learned when this story broke.
Now he's designating Soldiers' Angels as the beneficiary of his 2009 Gridiron Golf Tournament, to be held during Super Bowl week in Tampa, FL:
If you know anyone who might be interested, there are still slots available... ;) Fishmugger? -the Armorer
****************************************
Judging from my mail, I shouldn't have taken my vacation from history that I took yesterday. In penance, I'll offer up Jules Crittenden's post on The Bulge, and this bit of US Army Signal Corps newsreel footage:
And some more stuff later on in the timeline. -the Armorer
****************************************
Prince Charles awards the Sun-sponsored "Millies" to Brit troops. Hmmm. Think Pinch Sulzberger or Rupert Murdoch will follow up with something for American troops?
Note to SWWBO - Christmas is coming! -the Armorer
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires. Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute. Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is. The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now. Of course, now I have to call them UAS's, because someone got a Legion of Merit for the name change.Anyway, I call the post H&I Fires because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is Free Fire Zone.
Not by hanging stuff off the nose, anyway.
Did MAD (Mortar, Air Delivery), dropped homemade napalm, and whipsawed a sniper out of a tree with a flung fifty-round belt of 7.62, but never fired anything from the nose except for an M5 automatic grenade launcher -- and *I* didn't put it there, the Army did.
So, you know somebody *else* who whipsawed a sniper out of a tree with a flung belt of M-60 ammo?
Also, Bill, how exactly did you hit the sniper hard enough to knock him out of the tree with an ammo belt? Did you just have a quarterback's arm, or did it get thrown off of some moving mechanical part?
He finished the war with six confirmed kills, a Silver Star, and the silver leaves of a Lieutenant Colonel, and after leaving the service went back to teaching history in a high School in Moline, IL.