Com-Central.net

Going thru some of my photos & stills from different personal videos, I came up with this topic idea.

The 'Oppppps' Shots (A photo of an experience inwhich some smart-ass always mutters,......'Oppps'.)

Try not to 'grab' the typical internet photos, which have circulated from sources 'unknown'.

The photo should be accompanied with discription. A minimum shold be location & date.

Enjoy,....
Don

I'll contribute to get this going,.....

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Hard to identify, huh...?




C-21, C Co 3/70 Ar, Ft Polk La (June 1990)



Being pulled out of muck, by M88



When we got mired, amid a scattering of wild yellow flowers, I was (from the gunners seat) trying to explain to my West Point Grad, Lt (Tank Commander) about the old phrase, "Never Go Where The Yellow Flowers Grow!!"

I reenforced the fact that we needed to get the hell out of the area, but I was a bit too late.

Its was the Lt who actually muttered, ......

'Oppps'

Don

Leopard 2A5(NL) at the Drawsko Pomorskie training area several years ago. We were attached to another armoured infantry company with our platoon and had to drive drom the south to the north of the training area.

It was the ''B'' tank which usually drives point with the ''E'' tank (pltsgt) as second. The new tankcommander was absolutely sure it was possible to go there. Well, see the result........

We had to go further and left him behind waiting for the recovery tank. Since all units were forming up it took a while. The tankcommander was not happy with the idea to stay here all alone. His crew also because they had to do guard duty.

It took 2 Buffel recovery tanks to pull it out and a lot of tree had to be cut down to reach it.

My former driver. He hit a 10 ton engineer truck when steering around the corner. Fortunately he was very good in the tank.

Busted Sprocket,



This happened at NTC Spring of 2001. This is my Platoon Leaders Tank. They had a GPS replaced during the rotation so she had to screen again prior to live fire. Usually Valley of Death is the location where all tanks needing to do this are sent.

I followed out in a Humvee (Since the Company Master Gunner was still a TC instead of the HQ Platoon SGT and his Platoon was sliced to the Infantry) and the LT stayed for the OP-Order. Well, some how while backing up this sprocket broke and sheared off. Not that unusual with borrowed NTC fleet tanks, previous users just did enough to turn them in so many times the proper torque for bolts isn't applied. This is the newer "lighter" style sprocket. You cannot mix the older one with it on the same hub since the bolt holes don't line up the same. Guess what we had for spares mounted to our turrets. Had to take the carrier hub off and change both. Normally not that bad but had to be done immediately. To make things worse we didn't have enough sprocket bolts and had to have maintenance bring some out, so while we waited on them we removed the track and hub. The tank had one of the newer "Resilient" adjusting links which operated on grease alone, unlike the older style which used a locking collar once adjusted. Release valve was bad so we had to remove it to let the tension off. Had everything set and ended up waiting on Maintenance. They got lost in the dark and didn't show up until late. Once they showed up we worked our ass off in the rain to get her up. Unfortunately the valve from the adjusting link got lost. Now we can't tighten up the track. Couldn't find a bolt to fit in the opening either. With the older link you could still tighten the track without grease with the locking collar, not this newer piece of crap. So now we have to travel at a snails pace cross country in the Dark under blackout conditions back to the company which is about 20 K's away. We made it just in time for SP, hopping on my tank and the LT already on his Wingman's, leaving the TC of 22 to figure out how to get 21 into the fight and me getting an abridged OP-order over the Platoon net. To top it off my crew was mad that I wasn't around, since while I was gone the LT took my tank on a recon and lost a track, then had to leave them for the OP-Order. The old T156 track was notorious for breaking once it got old, and at NTC track rarely was new. All in all a really bad 24 hours.

BTW, The LT's wingman got 21 up and running and managed to join the fight on Crash Hill. Was the only time in the 2 week rotation where we had all 4 of our tanks in the fight at once. It didn't last long, By the time we ended the exercise we were down to one tank in the platoon, 23.

Joe D