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Posted on 05/15/2004 12:00:14 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Morning snopercod. Lot of hard work went into navigating in those days. No GPS and beacons for you to follow to the target.
Good Morning E.G.C.
During four years of operations, the 376th and its parent units became integral elements of the 9th, 12th, and 15th Air Forces. The Group flew 451 missions, was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations and earned 15 campaign awards. The Liberandos destroyed 220 enemy aircraft in aerial combat and suffered casualties totalling 1479 officers and enlisted personnel and 169 aircraft.
Good Morning Feather.
Morning Mayor. I really really need that coffee this morning.
The Pratt PT-6 series will do anything any WWII radial can do with much greater reliability, lower cost, and weight. Radials are as obsolete as reciprocating steam engines.
But, but, but!! Nothing sounds like a Radial engine. Watched a show on the P-51 last night. Hearing those bomber fleets sends a chill down my spine.
Morning Tax-chick. Morning Billy!
Morning Alamo-girl. Thanks for the bump.
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on May 15:
1565 Henrick de Keyser architect/master builder of Amsterdam
1567 Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi Cremona Italy, composer (L'Orfeo)
1802 Isaac Ridgeway Trimble Major General (Confederate Army), died in 1888
1810 Jacob Thompson (Confederacy), died in 1885
1819 Thomas Leonidas Crittenden Major General (Union volunteers)
1830 Laurence Simmons Baker Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1907
1845 Ilja [Elias] Metsjnikov USSR, zoologist/bacteriologist (Nobel 1908)
1856 Lyman Frank Baum Chittenango NY, children's book author (Wizard of Oz)
1860 Ellen Louise Axson Wilson 1st wife of Woodrow Wilson
1880 Otto Dibelius German theologist/bishop (Confessional Church)
1889 Bessie Hillman founder (Almalgamated Clothing Workers of America)
1890 Katherine Anne Porter US, novelist (Ship of Fools)
1891 Chief Nipo T Strongheart Yakima WA, US Indian actor (Pony Soldier)
1894 Jean Renoir French director (La Béte Humane) [or Sept 15]
1895 Charles Lamont San Fransisco CA, director (Abbott & Costello Go to Mars)
1902 Richard J Daley (Mayor-D-Chicago)
1905 Joseph Cotten Petersburg VA, actor (3rd Man, Airport 77, Hearse)
1909 James Mason England, actor (Lolita, Bloodline, Boys From Brazil)
1910 Robert F Wagner (Mayor-D-NYC, 1949-65)
1918 Eddy Arnold Henderson TN, country singer (Cattle Call, Anytime)
1921 Erroll Garner Pittsburgh PA, jazz pianist (Misty)
1922 Enrico Berlinguer Italian communist/secretary-general (CPI)
1923 Richard Avedon US, photographer (1957 ASMP award)
1926 Anthony Shaffer twin brother playwright (Sleuth)
1926 Peter Shaffer twin brother playwright (5 Finger Exercise, Equus)
1930 Jasper Johns Augusta GA, painter/sculptor (Green Target)
1936 Anna Maria Alberghetti Italy, actress/singer (Cinderfella)
1936 Donald [Anthony] Moffitt US, sci-fi author (Jupiter Theft)
1937 Trini Lopez Trinidad, singer/guitarist (If I Had a Hammer)
1947 Graham Goble Adelaide Australia, rock guitarist (Little River Band)
1949 Frank L Culbertson Jr Charleston SC, Commander USN/astronaut (STS-38)
1953 George Brett Wheeling WV, Kansas City Royal 3rd baseman (1980 American League MVP)
1953 Mike Oldfield England, composer (Tubular Bells)
1955 Lee Horsley Muleshoe TX, actor (Nero Wolfe, Matt Houston)
1967 John Smoltz Detroit MI, pitcher (Atlanta Braves, 1996 Cy Young)
1969 Emmitt Smith running back (Dallas Cowboys, 3-time NFL rushing leader)
1973 Victoria Davey Spelling Los Angeles CA, actress (Donna-Beverly Hills 90210)
1978 Krissy Taylor model
Got Snippy out of bed and we're about to leave, gonna see if I can finagle a ride on this Stuart from Mr. Greenberg.
Big tanks for the memories Armored vehicles, including one owned by Steve Greenberg of Wilsonville, go on display in Clackamas this weekend
Saturday, May 15, 2004
The next time you're crawling along a clogged rush-hour freeway, think how things might've been different had Steve Greenberg tossed you the keys to his M3A1 Stuart light tank.
Not that it has keys to toss, nor is it, at 14 tons or so, what most of us think of as light. But there's no doubt that a Stuart tank would be the ticket for forging through traffic.
"They'll get up to 35 or 40 miles per hour," Greenberg shouted over the rattle and rumble of its Continental 7-cylinder radial engine. "I've had it on the road once or twice and it's fun -- I've driven it up Broadway a couple of times."
Both times during sanctioned parades, we should quickly note.
Greenberg lives in Wilsonville where he runs a tree service, but his tank is on loan to the Oregon Military Museum at Camp Withycombe in Clackamas. For which his neighbors are probably just as glad, although were I an evildoer, I know that one of my main criteria in choosing future sites of evildoing would be the absence of armored vehicles.
The upside is that Greenberg won't have to bug his buddy with the flatbed to help move the tank out to the museum for Saturday's 7th Annual Living History Day.
The early-WWII era Stuart will line up with a later M4 Sherman tank, an M18 Hellcat tank destroyer and the army's current main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. "They're all bigger than my tank," says Greenberg, "but the M1 dwarfs it -- it weighs about 100,000 pounds more than mine."
Entirely unsuitable for heavy traffic, plus the mileage is atrocious -- three gallons to the mile, which makes the Stuart's mile-and-a-half to the gallon seem like hummingbird sips. But it's not all beer and skittles aboard the Stuart.
"It's a five-speed transmission and it's hard to shift," he says, pointing to a large lever that sprouts near his right shoulder. The later M5A1 Stuart had twin Caddy V-8s and an automatic transmission. Luxury, indeed.
But neither was roomy -- four guys somehow wormed into a space where machinery intrudes on every side. At tune-up time, there are 14 spark plugs to change and one expert advises hoisting out the engine to reach the inner row. And that long crank handle bolted to the back fender is for turning the engine -- all 670 cubic inches of it -- before starting from cold, so oil trapped in the lower cylinders doesn't bend a rod.
But what the heck. Greenberg has his own tank, and how many people can say that? And it arrived on his doorstep mostly correct and complete, which is something that Staff Sgt. Mark Stevens can't say about the Oregon Military Museum's Type 95 Japanese tank.
Stevens led us on a tour of the building where his National Guard crew maintains and restores old military vehicles such as the 1918 Liberty Truck, much of which they built by scaling from photos. The Japanese tank will be a bigger job: for years, it had been a target on a Nevada bombing range and is rusted, twisted and gutted, with its engine in the next room and no turret or upper deck visible.
"We got two of 'em," says Stevens, "One was quite a bit better than the other -- this is the good one."
Hercule Pinerow or Hemlock Holmes?
IFR=I Follow Railroads
I WANT/REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED ONE!!
Nothing says move it or lose it like armored support!
Back tonight. The (evil) Bush economy is sooo bad I got mandatory overtime...again.
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Good morning to you! Here's another!
B-24..B-17 Comparison
A comparison between the B-24 Liberator and the B-17 Fortress is perhaps inevitable. The Liberator was slightly faster than the Fort, carried a heavier bombload and could carry it farther and higher than the Fort. It was slightly more maneuverable than the Fort, and was much more adaptable to other missions. On the debit side, the Liberator was harder to fly, less stable, and much more difficult to hold in the tight bomber formations that were mandatory in the European theatre of operations. The Liberator was not capable of absorbing nearly the same amount of battle damage that the Fortress could handle. Any sort of solid hit on the wing of a Liberator was generally fatal, the high-aspect ratio Davis wing often collapsing and folding up when hit. In comparison to the B-17, there are relatively few photographs of Liberators returning home with half their wings shot away or with major sections of their tails missing. The Liberator was not very crashworthy, a 'wheels up' landing generally causing the fuselage to split into two or three pieces, resulting in a complete writeoff. In contrast, a Fortress which had undergone a 'wheels-up' landing could often be quickly repaired and returned to service. When ditching at sea, the Liberator's lightly-built bomb bay doors would often immediately collapse upon impact, the interior of the aircraft quickly filling up with water, causing the aircraft to sink rapidly. In spite of the Liberator's defects, Eighth Air Force records show that B-17 operational losses were 15.2 percent as compared with 13.3 percent for the B-24,which meant that a crew had statistically a better chance of surviving the war in a Liberator than in a Fortress.
From a B-24 web forum:
If you look at a B-17,B-29 the a B-24, one will notice the spacing in the planes rivets.
B-17&29 has close rivet patterns.....while the 24's had large spaces between .
The B-24 flexed excessivley due to this...especially the tail section in flight.
The 24 having a smaller lift profile in its wing area needed to fly with its tail stepped higher than the fuselage in flight....this reduced fuel consumption dramatically.
A 24 flying in stepped format ....upon losing step profile would drop back quickly in flight speed......spacing intervals were critical.
Yea!!
I used to wonder how it could be so difficult til the Foxhole readers explained it, now I know. :-)
Good morning EGC.
Thanks Godebert. Good to see your father's jacket hanging in the Foxhole again.
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