I’m sure Ive read that bomber crews would often fill the milk bottles before dropping them…….

I doubt the many of the bottles ever had milk in them at all :dev2:
A relative of mine was around a number of PBY crews, and had several stories about “alternetive bombing techiniques” involving the belly gunner and various bits of debris, 5 gallon fuel tins, grenades 😮 ect.

Matt

long range air surveillance radars are still pretty huge. Youd need even bigger trucks than are used now to have them stabilized while driving. Furthermore, you’d have to have preplanned stretches of road made for them to drive on, which would seriously lower their mobility, as enemy could eliminate lots of directions where the radar could move to.

Without AESA, it’s not happening 😉 I’ve driven a few rigs on the scale that you are talking about, and I agree about the huge difficulties in stability vs. mobility. Now, if one could mount a capable AESA on a HeMMT with some hydraulic stabilizers, a hop-scotch method might be possible, the off-road capacity would be a must in my mind.

Even the guru’s of highly mobile radars, the Doppler on Wheels stormchasers, still haven’t figured out a good way to radiate on the move. Having seen some of thier innovations, the military might want to take some notes 😉

Matt

Ok, this is getting wierd. Garry, Arthur, G-man,(sorry, not even going to attempt that name 😉 ), myself. Is there anyone here NOT left handed???

Matt

While accuracy gets mentioned a lot I think a lot of the problems with accuracy for the AK have been the quality of ammo made. For a very long time the AK was seen as a sort of SMG by Soviet Authorities where close range high rate of fire AKs would suppress the enemy while the harder hitting rifles (SVD) and MGs (RPK and PKM) would do the actual killing… along of course with artillery and direct armour support.
It seems quality control for standard ammo has improved and accuracy is improving. The Gun expert of Soldier of Fortune magazine in the 80s and early 90s was some guy named peter k Kolikas or something and when he tested the AK-100 series in 5.56mm using Belgian ammo stated it was as accurate as any M16 variant he had tested out of the box. Accuracy on the range is also not the same as accuracy in the field. When those paper targets start shooting back and you have to run a few miles with full kit training really tells.

Having an assault rifle that can hit heads at 600m is nothing… in real combat with camouflage, with noncombatants around the place, and with targets that move from cover to cover you are not likely to get shots off at targets more than 200m away unless you are fighting in the desert… or arctic tundra… or open prairie grassland in which case an M14 or SVD makes rather more sense. Make it barren mountain and you are looking at 338 Laupa magnum or 50 cal rifles, 23mm cannon and recoilless rifles of various types and brands.

I’ve noticed that handloaded ammo seems to help the AK more then my other long guns, though it still lags behind the rest. That being said, I really can’t make an apples-apples comparison, as it’s the only example of type I have.

I generally use mass produced ammo, anyway. The ability to drop a round in a coyotes eye at 100 yards makes no difference when a body shot does the business on it.

Matt

I suppose that the 17 Apollo capsules and their loss rate make them a non-operational statistic anomally too, eh??? Numbers don’t tell the whole story. We built what we needed, when something better came along or the situation changed, we built something else.

Matt

I a
– where to put the weapons? – there is not enough space even for two big range missiles inside, hanging outside would affect badly the aerodynamics.

Pull out the recon gear, replace it with missiles.

Matt