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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-13-17, 03:57 PM (EDT)
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"Field Expedient"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-13-17 AT 04:14 PM (EDT)
 
My father told me this story the other day, while we were working on a project that will be featured later.

In the early 1960s, when Dad was just a kid, his parents bought the first of the several houses they would have in the tiny woods community of Oxbow. When they moved in, the house didn't have running water, which was not all that unusual in Aroostook County in those days. A lot of people had wells. Annoyingly, though, the well in this case was on the other side of a road. As you can imagine, shlepping over there for water got old pretty quick.

Eventually my grandfather decided, well, the hell with this, it's time to plumb the house. Getting a new well dug would have cost a lot of money, though, so instead, he decided to tap the existing one. To do that, he needed to dig a trench across the road to lay some pipe connecting the well to the basement. No big deal, he was a company-grade infantry officer, digging trenches was one of his core competencies. However, in order to keep from blocking the road for too long, he needed a quick way of making the required hole in the foundation wall. He didn't have access to a jackhammer, and making a hole in an eight-inch concrete wall with a hammer and chisel would take way too long.

Still! Necessity is the mother of invention, right? He had another set of tools that he reckoned would do the job, lickety-split:

1) One United States Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903A3;


Fig. 1 M1903A3 rifle (stock photo—Wikimedia)

2) A supply of Cartridge, Armor Piercing, Caliber .30, M2.


Fig. 2 Box of M2 AP cartridges (author's personal collection)

And it worked! Firing from a sandbagged prone position at the other end of the trench, Gramp was able to drill a serviceable hole through the basement wall with only a few rounds. Admittedly, the one that finally broke through the wall did go on to make a casualty of the furnace, but hey—that's what AP ammunition is for, penetrating armor and killing whatever's behind it.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Field Expedient [View All] Gryphonadmin Apr-13-17 TOP
   RE: Field Expedient McFortner Apr-13-17 1
   RE: Field Expedient Mercutio Apr-14-17 2
      RE: Field Expedient Gryphonadmin Apr-14-17 3
      RE: Field Expedient JFerio Apr-14-17 5
          RE: Field Expedient Pasha Apr-17-17 6
              RE: Field Expedient Gryphonadmin Apr-17-17 7
   RE: Field Expedient Kendra Kirai Apr-14-17 4


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