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FYI, tomorrow night's Myth Busters episode on the Discovery Channel was partially filmed at Jacques Littlefield's place. They used his Aussie M113A1 FSV and I think his M551 Sheridan. I believe they filmed it in April or May of this year so what you see vehicle wise is current. Just a head's up for those who maybe interested.

Hey Chris, do you know what myth it involves?
sr

- SHAWN

Hey Chris, do you know what myth it involves?
sr

Gav!nosity? Swiminess?

I say the tail end of the episode,

They interleaved two phone books (Large ones) and were demonstrating how much force it would take to pull them apart. IIRC they were able to withstand about 8000 lbs of pull. All in all a let down. I was hoping for more armor content or even maybe a myth about tanks.

Joe D

so no armor myths.... bummer. so why did they even use the vehicles to begin with? why didnt they just use some big CATs or big rigs or something...
but, to date they havent done any armor myths.

well, if you know any tank myths, send them in. the mythbusters say like viewer input, etc. they have done other "military myths"...
ha, they do some dumb stuff, they had done that finger in the end of the gun barrell thingy!...

remembering back, at one time, for the "Jaws" movie myths, they used an M113.

Shawn,

The one I did see that I thought was not needed was where a soldier throws himself on a grenade to protect his buddies. Was done based on the movie myth scenes. If they just did a little historical research (past and present) they would've known it's a fact. They used "Buster" to demonstrate how the human body would slow down the fragments to make a grenade much less lethal. The last 3 MOH recipients earned theirs that way (Posthumously). Last one IIRC was a Navy SEAL.

One myth I'd like them to try is "Vacuum Loading" of 105mm Cannon. What would be more along their lines are contesting the feats accomplished in the movies like "Rambo" or "Battle of the Bulge".

Joe D

- Joe_D

Shawn,


One myth I'd like them to try is "Vacuum Loading" of 105mm Cannon. What would be more along their lines are contesting the feats accomplished in the movies like "Rambo" or "Battle of the Bulge".

Joe D

Impossible on the M1 M68 gun. I loaded on the M-1/IPM-1, in the early days. Lap loaded 2/ ammo door open insured 3-5 sec reloads till the rack was empty.

Loved those old days
Don

- Joe_D

Shawn,

One myth I'd like them to try is "Vacuum Loading" of 105mm Cannon. What would be more along their lines are contesting the feats accomplished in the movies like "Rambo" or "Battle of the Bulge".

Joe D

What is 'vacuum loading'

Bob asked:

What is 'vacuum loading'

The concept is a loader holds a round over the breech area before the gun is fired, after it recoils back and starts to return into battery, the breech opens, kicks out the shell casing, breaking the obturation, and the bore evacuator removes the smoke/ residue. There is enough vacuum to just lay the round on top of the breech and it'll suck in. Mind you, you have to do this immediately after the breech opens and while it's still moving into battery. The TPDS-T round was about 38 lbs and could be easily man handled to do this. It was also a much shorter round. All the other training rounds were too long and heavy to try. Best conditions to do this were when the tank was stationary and firing at targets generally level to the gun. TTXII was one time but back then we also would do the "Mad Minute" in Graf at the end of gunnery. We'd load up all the left over rounds and they'd present targets until it was all gone. Seen a tank fire 16 rounds in less than a minute. Any how, I've always wondered if it really was vacuum loading or just adrenaline that made the round go in so easy.

As Don said cannot be done in the M1 because the Safe/Arm switch is part of the shell deflector. The loader has to wait until the gun goes fully into battery and push it forward. This puts the gun in safe and moves the deflector out of the path to load. After loading he has to pull it back to arm the gun.

Joe D