Got to love the level of detail included there Gino, very sharp work so far. [tup]
Been a while since we’ve seen anything from you Gino. Nice clean work, as usual.
Rael nice work, H.A. Looks like “Honey, I shrunk the kids” stuff…
Get some more pics in here, Gino… I’m using you a s reference material and I’ve hit a stopping point… I raised the idler arm on mine yesterday and got lucky. I was able to cut behind each one enough to bend the torsion bar up about a scale three inches, rather than cut the old ones out and install a new set cut from a “DRMO’d” 113…
While you’re at it, you know how the frame goes together for the TOC extension? I’m rolling mine out, but I can’t really see how it goes together…
Hi guys, thanks for the compliments. No more pics yet. I painted it Sun afternoon (our half-day off), but haven’t had a chance to do any more on it since then.
The extension poles extend out to make the horizontal frame. The pieces that have two “L” shaped ends extend out so you have an “L” on each corner, and one set in the middle. The short poles then extend to make the legs. The bent poles go into the horizontal "L"s at the corners and in the middle to make the roof. Lastly, the long poles w/the flattened ends are horizontal supports that run the length of the structure. Hope that makes sense. Good luck on it.
I was able to carefully cut the rear idler mounts off and reuse the same ones as well.
Wow…this is good stuff—sorry I missed it earlier—gonna be a stunner when complete!!!
“Fire for Effect !!!”
great looking wor thier heavyarty. you make mine look like a derseted isand on my m577 i did last month.
“Range Control, this is Lone Star Multi-Use Range North, radio check, over?”
“Lone Star Multi-Use Range North, This is Range Control, roger out.”
Ahhh, memories. Don’t forget the 5 gallon water cooler on the right rear…
And most of our gear we kept on the right interior side. When static, we seemed to keep the left side pretty clear of personal stuff except for santeen cups or styrofoam coffee cups.
The TOC S/3 never sleeps. We always had coffee brewing nearby, even on the hottest Ft. Hood days. Didn’t even charge the brass for a cup…
[(-D] Great job!! 60
How about, (Urgent voice) “Bravo Battery 3/3 FA, this is Range Control, CHECK FIRE, CHECK FIRE, CHECK FIRE!!! Your last round was unobserved. Have your people immediately stand to the rear of the piece and await our arrival at your position, OUT!”
That was a bad day in Ft Hood 1986…
I came in in '87. Missed that day. What did the round hit?
I remember one late evening I was in the tower at Lone Star South and observed an “army type” jeep far downrange (the range was cold). I knew we had no vehicles authorized downrange, so I called Range Control (rc) on the FM and asked if they had personnell on our range. RC advised me to call them on the landline, which I did.
They advised me not to call on fm for such things in the future because what we had on the range was most likely illegal “pickers” loading up on expended munitions and they had fm radios set to the rc freq. The pickers would supposedly take the munitions to Mexico to sell and then Mexican companies would sell it back to the U.S. after remanufacturing it. This seems odd, the part about Mexico, but it’s what I was told at the time. But as soon as I had called rc on the fm and inquired if they had personnell on our range, the jeep did take off at a higher speed and was soon out of sight.
Sorry,don’t want to hi-jack the thread. 60
Yup, “Cease Fire, Freeze. Fall-in to the rear of the piece!” The worst words an artilleryman wants to hear. I was cringing as I wrote them. [:(]
Thanks for the compliments. It is coming along. Its been painted and I am adding stowage and details now. Should have some completed pics up soon.
Nothin’… As it turned out, one of the gun chiefs wanted a 155 round for himself and fired the mission dry, but called ‘shot’ to the FDC… FDC didn’t know any better since we were co-located with another Battery on that firing point and they were firing the illum… No one else noticed either, because it was kinda late and lots of illum was going downrange…
Ah yeah, “The Gatesville Gang”… They had a thing goin’ on for a while, muggin’ GIs in the field and stealin’ weapons for a while… Then there was the local cowboys who had orange 1/4 tons with ropin’ chairs welded to the front bumpers, lol… Not all of them cleared with RC before heading out around Sugarloaf…
Bet that chief had a bad day.
Think he had a bad 3 to 5…