Any body see Mariens tank school on Discovery channel tonight? Its was very good program.Never seen it before myself. Lot of good info for those who dont know.
I didn’t see the show, but I sure trained a lot of jarheads to be tankers at the Armor School at Ft. Knox back in the seventies.
The Marines still have a detachment here at Ft. Knox. I get to see the tank school every day. Heck, I go weeks without leaving the base.
I watched the program tonight and thought it was a good show. I just wonder why Discovery waited so long to put it on t.v.? The History Channel had on a good show last friday night about the Challenger I and 2. It was on the Heavy Metal friday show.
They where a few jarheads on the program.hihi I thought one guy was going to get killed from the 120mm recoil. Sargent had to keep telling him it was going to knock the crap out him. LTC. Rob got any story of the recoil getting anybody?
Trainees got hit every so ofthn. Usually it was a glancing blow without to much injury. However those that forgot to put the breachblock handle back up or moved directly in the way of the recoiling breach the injury could be severe. Most trainees didn’t have a problem staying out of the way after they saw the gun recoil once!
I watched it tonight too. I had seen parts of it before, not sure when though. It was pretty cool, especially the live fire!!! It was also interesting to see the reality of war hit the guys, Cant help but think now, some of em if not all, are in Iraq.
It’s been on the Fmr Discovery times Channel (now the Military Channel)… off and on for well over a year
I personally got injured by a recoil once. Had a hydraulic leak erupt just seconds before the round was fired and the case ejected into the shell stop plate and asbestos cloth so hard it shot straight forward and hit my knee after two rebounds. Put me in a brace for two weeks and still hurts pretty badly when the weather changes.
BTW this was on the old M60A3. Prolly wouldn’t happen like that with the small casing from the 120mm M1A1 I would think. Ask one of the current fellas about that. I only made it up to the M1 and IP before ETS.
One of our lieutenants in D “Dragon” Co. (we called them Draggin’ A$$), left his arm over the TC’s scissor guard. Recoil broke his arm. He was one of those “branch detail” officers. This is when they commission you into a certain branch (his was medical service corps) but they must serve their first 3 yr tour as a combat arms officer to gain leadership experience. He was sort of a fish out of water.
Myself and a master gunner (E7 arrogant as he could be) were in the turret (XM1) qualifying trainees on the tear down and reassembly of the breechblock. On the 105 mm weapon, you were given 12 minutes to complete the task and perform the firing circut test. Well, this E7, he decided that instead of following the step by step instructions provided, that he would demonstrate a shortcut to the trainees. Over my subtle objections he went ahead and skipped the step (breech block crank stop-forward) to show the youngsters how quickly he could drop that 120lb breechblock.
The guy stuck his finger in the firing probe hole, and since it wasn’t locked, nor hooked up to the come along, that ol’ breech block fell out of there like a guillotine, and you guessed it, his finger ended up on top of the slipring.
I won’t go into the mess on all of our fatigues due to arterial pulsation, but I’m sure you get the idea, four of us in and on top of a tank turret and all. We got him to the medics and off he went to the hospital. I policed up the errant digit and got a cup of ice from the bug juice cooler and sent his finger behind him. Alas, to no avail, it could not be saved. I was young and callous in those days, I sort of laughed at the guy as he (pale as a sheet) was loaded into the meat wagon. Imagine my horror three months later when he reported to our company, as my Platoon Sergeant!!!
Steve
This is a rerun documentry, It came out last year somtime.
I thought it was older than that. I seem to recall that Sept 11th occurred during filming.
Your absolutely right, I just remember seeing it last yr. sometime. It’s old anyway[:D]
I have not seen the documentary , ( Wish I did ! ) . I have instructed on numerous tank driver courses , using the Leopard C1 , and C2 . It’s fun teaching people how to drive , and maintain a MBT. I taught my ex-wife how to drive a Leopard , as well as the M-113 . She is a good , aggressive tank driver . ( Considering her course was done in an afternoon. ) But she’s German , so I think there is some kind of " connection ", between her and the tank . LOL. But yet her favorite AFV , is the M2/M3 Bradley , I still haven’t figured that one out yet !
Frank
" PERSEVERANCE "