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At one time I lived just West of Palomar Airport and at the time "Cinema Air" had a hangar there with ~15 warbirds quietly housed in a hangar there. Various private owners who maintained flyable examples. From time to time I'd hear them coming or already overhead. Sometimes a contact mechanic...

I was working peripherally in an area of aerospace when this was all the rage briefly in Aviation Week, with Yeager shilling hard for the system. It's a hard sell, upgrading existing designs when new platforms with attendant profitability opportunities are on the horizon. New sells. Upgrades...

One of my favorite "loadout" photos from our next door neighbor, Lima Co. Rangers (LRRP). From the collection of friend the late Randy White and his LCoRanger website (sadly gone). Lima and "Dirty Delta" (D/2/17th Cav, 101st Abn.) were Division assets. I especially like this combination because...

This is consistent with the picture I'm getting of TTS (on Sheridan, not M60A3) only being installed on vehicles in the 82nd, the 37AR, IIRC. The majority of them elsewhere (and maybe all of them) were not so equipped.

Interesting that you should used the word "fates". In the official records of submarine losses, more than a few are recorded as "fate unknown". This is different than having, say, a rifle company annihilated down to the last man. It's always known where a unit was engaged and usually with...

How about a 6.4 Hemi with 6sp. Less than 6,000 miles on an always garaged 13 year old car? Every conceivable option. Peripheral neuropathy is beginning to affect my pedal feel.

P-38's had twin Allison's as standard equipment. Different design than the Merlin.

The escape hatch was rendered non-functional with the VN mineplate kit. Most drivers who survived a mine strike reported being blown out of the regular hatch. The gap in the central piece of the schematic was just to clear the hatch. The main plate covered it. If you enjoyed your M551A1 (with...

There is an old video from in cockpit of one cruising about the English countryside. The Merlins were well synch'ed and could be heard moving in and out of phase in the video, which was quite long. This one I photographed at the fateful Oct. 1988 show at Harlingen, TX. She is apparently no...

More particularly, 1969 was a watershed year and some elements wanted the vehicle standardized regardless of the requirements it failed to meet because "without it our defensive posture in 'Urp would lack credibility, blah, blah..." The addition of the mine plate meant yet another requirement...

This interesting document further reveals the cavalier nature of AMC’s attitude with regard to crew protection in the M551 Sheridan. On request, an add-on mineplate kit had been developed for the M551 as deployed in Vietnam. The kit added 1400 lbs and it was concluded based upon empirical...

A .45 ACP with a still considerable 185g bullet can easily be loaded safely to 1,100 fps or ~200 fps of a comparable 10mm. I find 1,050 to be a little more reasonable but that's still 200 fps faster than hardball. With that kind of performance there is just not enough incentive to take on the 10...

There is an excellent article on the Battle of Aachen free from the online archives of Armor Magazine. Don't recall the issue but it's also described in Doubler's "Closing With The Enemy". When the M12 was sent for to reduce the formidable stone theater complex and force their surrender, the...

It gets a lot worse than that. D/2/17th Cav, 101st Abn at Camp Eagle

My "Delta Ground" unit in 2/17th Cav, 101st Abn. operated the M151A1, A2 & M151A1C with M40 RR. Completely unauthorized we moved two M40's over to M37 3/4 ton "Beeps", which was a better platform all the way around. Pics from Camp Eagle and FSB Birmingham. I'm shown in an A2 pre-mission in...

I have a RMK Model 14 and Model 16 Special #1 Fighter and they are like night and day. The 14 has a lot of heft and "chopping" potential, which the 16 Spec Fight (really the Model 16 Diver's Knife but with a full tang handguard). It is much less suitable for a chopping action, but much...

A5's as far as I know are all upgunned to the 105mm. I think quite a few went to NG units. An upgunned M48 could hold it's own against it's presumptive enemy through most of the '70's.

These were still "gassers", but with the redesigned heatshields. The 90mm was a good, old-fashioned, percussion fired rifle that was a joy to shoot. I trained on the M48A2C, which was the same vehicle, but with the excellent M17 Coincidence Rangefinder that would find it's way onto the M60...

How about the specialty gun?

I served on all those except the Abrams and they were solid vehicles for the time. The MGM-51/M551/M60A2 chain of debacles paved the way to the Abrams by demonstrating that you can't build a multi-million dollar tank for a few hundred thousand dollars, you have to go all in & plan to keep it in...