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SFC_Jeff_Button · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:22 pm Post subject: Sinking Fast

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This is what happens when 60+ tons slides off the raod into a drainage ditch of "god only knows" what. I don't know the lapse in time between pictures but I imagine this was no fun to pull out and even less fun to clean out.

C_Sherman · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 590

Hi all,

Pretty sure that those aren't in the same sequence, or of the same vehicle. This sort of thing happened too often while I was in Iraq. We had it happen to M1s, Brads, and even HMMWVs. Most were recoverable, although at least one soldier died when he was trapped in the driver's compartment of a slowly sinking M1.

The problem is that the canals are not lined, and the water table is often not very deep. The roads (just trails, really) are built right alongside the canal. You can drive across the road a hundred times without problems. Then some small thing will happen: a tiny change in the water level in the canal, the humidity changes, etc.. Under the road will become saturated with water, and the bearing capacity drops to near zero. The road surface looks exactly the same, and there is usually no indication that the road has changed. The next heavy vehicle along will hit the slop, and in they go. Then, sitting in the saturated muck, they will continue to sink and efforts to self-extract will just churn up the mud more and make it worse.

The solution is to back off to (hopefully) solid ground and yank it out with an M88...or two. God bless the recovery crews!

C

SFC_Jeff_Button · Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:50 am Post subject: Re: Sinking Fast

I hear ya, I found those pics at StrangeMilitary.com, so I dont know who or where this was. I've spent two tours is Korea and the roads are very narrow and things like this happen more often than you would like. And the smell!, esspecially in August is putrid.

Roy_A_Lingle · Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:43 am Post subject: Re: Sinking Fast

Hi Folks!

It's possible both photos are of the same vehicle. Sometime not to long after that happien, a group of about five or six photos were on the internet showing the first vehicle from a number of different positions as it slowly sank into the water.

If I remember right, the second photo was taken sometime later, after the crew removed the machine guns.

The primary reason that vehicle went into the drink was because it was the second or third tank in the colume and the driver was tracking the vehicles in front of him. Something a good track driver does to reduce the chances of hitting a land mine. The problem with doing that is be very careful when doing in soft ground. The lead vehicles break down the soil and the follow on vehicles break through.

Old lessons learned the hard way, a long time ago.
Sgt, Scouts Out!

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