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Gryphon
Charter Member
22422 posts |
Aug-28-15, 07:31 PM (EDT) |
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4. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #0
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LAST EDITED ON Aug-28-15 AT 07:33 PM (EDT) Speaking of tanks, today I learned a Fun History Fact. In WWII, the US Army discovered to its chagrin that the infantry was having serious problems communicating with the crews of Sherman tanks, because tanks make a lot of noise and the infantry's radios couldn't talk to the tanks' radios. The procedure at the time was for the infantry to radio anything they wanted the tanks to know back to base, and then someone back there would tell someone else who would radio it to the tanks.You can imagine how well that worked in actual practice in, e.g., the bocage country of Normandy. Something like that would take half an hour or more, which is not ideal when you're a tank and the message your infantry support wanted to relay to you was LOOK OUT PANTHER AT 2 O'CLOCK. The solution? Develop a radio system that the infantry and tanks could use to talk directly to each other? Noooo, of course not, that would have been far too complicated and taken too long, and there's probably some kind of rule about any military communications system interoperating that obviously. No, what they did was weld a box on the back of the tank (those boxes that belts of machinegun ammo came in were popular because every tank unit had a lot of them lying around, but they'd use anything that was reasonably waterproof) and stick a telephone in it, wired into the tank's intercom system. If an infantryman had something he thought the commander of a tank needed to know, why then he could just walk up to the back of the tank, open the box, take out the phone, and speak to the commander. (Or, knowing the American GI, ask the operator to put him through to the White House.) This... evidently worked! I like the slightly crocky but completely logical slapdashery of it. --G. -><- 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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Star Ranger4
Charter Member
2483 posts |
Aug-30-15, 11:36 PM (EDT) |
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7. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #6
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>Don't forget one other important thing at the time: Radios were not >general issue, most of the infantrymen wouldn't even have one. >even as recent as a few years ago, only elite units like the seals would have squad level radio communications. In WW2, IIRC, maybe your platoon or company commander had a radio link back to your parent unit; it certainly wasn't originally intended to provide links to other units. That was one of the things they learned during ww2, how usefull it could be for the grunts to be able to pass information such as forward spotting of artillery or look out for the panther at 2 o'clock, etc. Of COURSE you wernt expecting it! No One expects the FANNISH INQUISITION! RCW# 86 |
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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
1197 posts |
Aug-31-15, 07:36 PM (EDT) |
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8. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #4
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LAST EDITED ON Aug-31-15 AT 07:42 PM (EDT) This is not even the weirdest half-arsed pseudosolution cooked up by the Allied military in WWII, though it's probably the most successful one. We all know about B. F. Skinner's pigeon-guided missile, but the immediately-postwar British military took his ideas a step further. See, they needed a means of keeping components warm when they were buried under the ground in Germany in case of Soviet invasion. Ideas of how to do this ranged from the fairly normal (giving the gigantic landmines snuggly blankies, which is also adorable) to... well, see for yourself.EDIT: Additionally, since we're talking about the Rainbow Codes (Britain's official Department Of Weird Shit What Blows Up Good), I've recently discovered a program from the '50s to make an anti-ship nuke. Its name, randomly generated in accordance with Rainbow Code standards? Green Cheese. Make your own jokes about British cooking here. =] --- "She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards. Let's just say the original script for Chicken Run had a considerably darker ending and leave it at that. |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22422 posts |
Aug-31-15, 07:55 PM (EDT) |
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9. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #8
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>This is not even the weirdest half-arsed pseudosolution cooked up by >the Allied military in WWII, though it's probably the most successful >one.Certainly it worked better than the plan to firebomb Japanese cities with swarms of incendiary bats. No... really. (Although apart from the bats' poor IFF discrimination, that actually worked fairly well in testing.) >See, they needed a means of keeping components warm when they were >buried under the ground in Germany in case of Soviet invasion. Ideas >of how to do this ranged from the fairly normal (giving the gigantic >landmines snuggly blankies, which is also adorable) to... well, >see for yourself. Money quote: "The Civil Service does not do jokes." --G. -><- 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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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
1197 posts |
Aug-31-15, 08:25 PM (EDT) |
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10. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #9
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Yes, I considered bringing them up but, well, everyone knows about the bat bombs. Or at least I do. And I am secretly everyone. Stare into your mirror and watch me stare back. =] But yeah, between them and the Soviet dog mines, WWII wasn't a good place to be if you were an animal. It did, however, give us this picture: Which people who like dogs will presumably find less than objectionable. =] --- "She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards. i have a phobia this was hard |
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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
1197 posts |
Aug-31-15, 08:41 PM (EDT) |
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13. "RE: and a tank"
In response to message #11
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Funny you bring that up: here's a diagram from Project Acoustic Kitty, a CIA plan to bug the Russians with, well, I'm sure you can guess. Let's all be thankful they didn't go for one of the other common nicknames for cats. --- "She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards. |
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