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Felix

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Felix

  1. Reminds me of the two Florida linemen blocking each other.
  2. He might have killed her but she wasn't a very sympathetic person so that may have had something to do with his acquittal.
  3. I agreed it was a good no call. I also found it interesting that the closest ref was he one who was standing next to Terry when the technical was called. He looked super surprised when she called it. I think it was a make up call.
  4. Especially when you play so may games on the West Coast. With a 2.5 hour game I might be able to stay up to the end. Getting old sucks.
  5. Felix

    LBGTQ

    Just put him on ignore. Something broke in him a few years ago. He used to be someone whose posts I respected. You'll feel better if you don't have to read his disingenuous snark.
  6. My biggest issue with the current trend of broadcasting to "sell" the sport. We never get replays of controversial calls or non-calls. The announcers are relentlessly positive about the calls and the officiating with one or two disagreements allowed per game it seems. There is no neutrality in any broadcast because the networks and the leagues are partners. I hate it.
  7. George Washington was the President of the Constitutional Convention so this is not an incorrect statement. He generally stayed out of the wrangling but he ran the meetings, if you will, so he did technically oversee the creation of the Constitution.
  8. Pretty sure that was an M1A1 with 120mm main gun, but the 105mm on the M1 and M1IP could definitely kill them too. Maybe not through a berm though.
  9. Got called recently and went down to the cattle call. Judge came in and gave us the spiel asked for anyone who really needed to not be there. Ten or so went up and gave their story's. He released them all. Time to get down to brass tacks and start the selections process. Defendants attorney approaches the bench. Prosecutor called up. Whispered conversation. Judge clears to court room and asks us to wait in the hall. Thirty minutes later they call us back in and release us. Defendant fired his attorney and went back to jail. Judge said it was the second time he had done this. Counted as having served so won't get a criminal one for a while I guess.
  10. Yeah know issue with most Soviet era tanks. Because of the small turrets and later the auto-loaders they had very limited main gun elevation so if you had the high ground you could shoot them and they couldn't shoot you.
  11. Knew a guy like this. One day I came to work and realized I hadn't seen him in a while. Turns out he was just sentenced to 25 years for Tax Evasion. Sole breadwinner for his family. Wife and six kids. Brilliant IT guy. That was about ten years ago. I think about that knucklehead sometimes and wonder if his family is ok.
  12. We're probably learn more by monitoring any emissions from the balloon and taking pictures of it than they learn from sending it.
  13. Just watched three big ass limbs break off of two of the cedar elms outside my home office window. I trimmed everything back from the house a couple of years ago when I got a new roof, thankfully. This sucks.
  14. Best gunner I ever saw, bar none. Do you have any idea how hard it is to win a Battalion Gunnery Cup if you aren't the Battalion Commander? Those dudes are usually crewing a tank with the battalion master gunner on the gun, an E-6 driving and an E-5 loading.
  15. We each got to fire 5 rounds in AIT before we ever hit our units. Each man. Now these are training rounds, which is also what we shot in gunnery qualification and training. Training ammo is slightly tuned down from war shots. I don't remember the exact numbers but muzzle velocity for war shot Sabot was like 1400 meters per second, while training sabot was closer to 1200 mps but the projectiles were also aluminum instead of DU so the ballistics were very similar. When we fired war shots, which was far less often you could tell the difference. The training ammo is easier on the tanks.
  16. Tank primer #2 - Gunnery AKA The most fun you can have with your clothes on We trained on this all the time. It was our primary mission. Placing steel on target. I'm sure it's pretty much the same now, but we shot a full crew gunnery qualification at least once a year, sometimes twice depending on where you were deployed. This consists of multiple engagements both stationary and moving against armor, both moving and stationary, and infantry. We also spent at least an hour a week in simulators fine tuning our crew interaction, fire commands, etc. The M1 is so good at putting steel on target, you have to almost try to miss once you know what you are doing. We could hit targets out to 4000 meters, but most engagement was under 2000 meters. Training standards in my day were 6 seconds from target identification to target destruction while stationary and 8 seconds moving if I remember correctly, but most crews trained to a 4 or 6 second standard. By the early 90s we were no longer using daylight optics as our primary sights. Thermal was primary for all weather and light conditions because they were so effective. Vehicles GLOW in thermal sights in any weather, day or night, fog, smoke, hot, cold, desert, snow, forest, whatever. Troops are smaller but also stand out against background temp. A typical firing engagement against enemy armor would begin with the Tank Commander (TC, duh) using his TC override handle to point the gun to the target he's evaluated as the most immediate threat. For example a stationary tank is considered a greater threat than a moving tank. Obviously a tank is a greater threat than a BMP or troops. He would then issue his fire command to the gunner "Gunner, Sabot, Tank" is an example. Usually the preferred ammo is already loaded at the beginning of the engagement, but this assumes the gun is empty. Loader then loads announced ammo or simply takes the main gun off safe and declares "Up". Simultaneously the gunner announces "Identified" to let the TC know he has the target and lays the main gun on the target. If the target is stationary, he then announces "lasing" and the range comes up simultaneously on his sight and the TCs panel. If the target is moving he "drops the lead" by quickly releasing the control yoke as the computer uses turret movement and range to calculate lead. TC quickly determines if it's a valid range (sometimes if there is intervening terrain you can get a bad lase) and if he determines it's good announces "Fire". After lasing the fire control computer will use the range plus a bunch of other factors like temp, humidity, gun barrel temp, ammo temp, elevation changes, and a myriad of others to adjust the reticle and the gunner simply replaces it center of mass and announces "On the way" and pulls the trigger. Big boom follows, spent casing is ejected and breach stays open. On the 120 mm the casing is designed to burn up and all that comes back is the butt plate of casing with a longish metal rod so it's easy to get rid of. Loader then waits for next fire command to determine ammo needed and uses his knee to trigger a switch to open the ammo doors, pulls the required round, drops it butt down, rotates it over and rams into the breach which then closes. The above process repeats as needed. This doesn't cover machine gun engagements or other types of ammo or vehicles, but you get the idea. CSB when I was in Korea as a PFC, I was the driver on the tank the won the Battalion cup for gunnery. Our gunner was an absolute wizard. On our first moving engagement the main gun hydraulic cylinder blew so the gun just dropped to it's lowest elevation. Turret still worked so as the gunner lined up, the TC just put his foot on the breach and pushed it all the way down and as it slowly came back down (it was very well balanced) our gunner would fire as it came down onto the target. We hit 4 targets like that on the move with no stabilization or computer range adjustment. He used the back up sight with a graduated reticle and used the TCs estimated range. Shortest target we hit was at 1100 meters and longest was around 1350 m. I doubt seriously I could have done that with any amount of practice. TLDR, If the Ukrainian crews are as motivated as they seem, a brigade of NATO MBTs will absolutely roll through the Ruskies like crap through a goose, killing everything they see at ranges the Russians won't be able to comprehend.
  17. Little primer on tank maintenance from a former tanker. Battlefield maintenance is surprisingly easy due to the power pack being a self contained unit that can be pulled from the vehicle in a matter of minutes by trained mechanics. We could typically pull and replace a power pack in about an hour if we had to. The whole pack is then sent back to the maintenance depot and repaired there by specialist mechanics. In my day a typical battalion maintenance depot would have one additional power pack available for every 10 in operation with a constant rotation as they are repaired and cycled back into vehicles. Track replacement was similar with so called combat rolls available for operations where an entire track was delivered in roll, so that a tank could literally drive off of a bad or broken track onto a new one. You didn't really drive, you were pulled by an M-88 repair track. Suspension maintenance could and was mostly done by the crews themselves up to and including replacing torsion bars and road wheels. So drive train and suspension work is pretty simple even under bad conditions. We replaced power packs and track in the field all the time and unless conditions were really bad we usually didn't lose more than a couple of hours of operational time doing it. Turret maintenance is a different story, but most of that is electronic or hydraulic in nature. Computers could be replaced and calibrated in a matter of hours, but then required bore sighting and test firing. No biggie and standard stuff for all crews. Hydraulic issues or turret stabilization issues would generally require depot level maintenance but with good PM were pretty rare. Battle damage, of course, is a different animal but a well established maintenance unit can do wonders and can do it fast and not too far in the rear. Also something I haven't seen discussed. The Abrams is a multifuel vehicle. They use JP now but in my day we ran them on diesel. Smoke generators, holla! Pour raw diesel into the exhaust and you can make some serious smoke. I'm not sure how much tuning is required but we were trained that in a pinch you could put just about any fuel in that bitch and she'd run. I'll try to answer questions, but my last model was the M1A1. I saw a demo M1A2 before I got out but they weren't deployed yet.
  18. I logged on just to comment on that. Happened right in front of the ref. Clearly a dangerous play, he undercut him well after he was in the air and instead they get advantage? That ref should be permanently banned after the game. There is no excuse for that.
  19. Gee that looked really tough from 3 feet away.
  20. It's not his best one for sure. He seemed pretty chill but I suspect that's his general "schmoozing donors" face.
  21. Oh I get it. Let's just say that the conversation involved someone very, very high in Belmont. A guy in a burnt orange suit if you will. I was keeping my poor ass head down just hoping for a future invite.
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