Posted on 05/14/2004 12:02:42 AM PDT by snippy_about_it
My mistake it was a 75mm cannon.
http://www.acepilots.com/planes/b25.html
B-25G - The Big Gun
The "G" model featured a 75mm cannon in the nose, one of the largest weapons ever mounted in an airplane. After extensive testing at a secret base in California, the engineers made the idea work, but the B-25G was not very successful. While it could carry 21 rounds, aiming the big cannon was difficult, and it required a long "straight-in" run at the target. During this run, the aircraft was extremely vulnerable and could only get off four rounds. A number of B-25G's were modified by Pappy Gunn at the Townsville Australia Modification Depot, adding more machine guns and occasionally removing the 75mm cannon.
B-25H
A more successful 75mm cannon-equipped B-25, the "H" variant carried fourteen (14!) machine guns and a lighter-weight 75mm cannon. Room for all this hardware was made, in part, by deleting the co-pilot's position.
You had me wondering for a minute there. LOL
You can bet that wouldn't have been my response. LOL.
In 1950, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next twenty years. Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Arsenal's namesake: the Redstone rocket.
Triumphantly displaying a model of the Explorer 1 are (l-r): Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Director Dr. James Pickering, Dr. James van Allen of the State University of Iowa, and Dr. von Braun. JPL packed and tested the payload, a radiation detection experiment designed by Dr. van Allen.
Not shown: the van Allen belt, as the scientist wore suspenders the day this photo was taken.
Von Braun with the original Mercury Astronauts in ABMA's Fabrication Laboratory during a 1959 visit. Left to right are Alan Shepard, Donald Deke Slayton, Virgil Gus Grissom, von Braun, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra. John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter. Project Mercury officially began October 7, 1958 as the United States' first manned space program.
Visible beyond Glenn's bowtie is Professional Engineer slaving over a drafting table.
We did some work for an older couple downtown in the late eighties; Bill Neuhaus had a photo of a group including von Braun. He had been in Huntsville with the group, but of course, he hadn't been in Vietnam.
Here is the backyard of US Army EOD showing the site of the proposed swimming pool and the excavation equipment for adult and children's.
The largest and most secret project undertaken by the Third Reich consisted of 7 huge underground complexes and numerous above-ground structures code-named 'RIESE' (Giant). It includes thousands of kilometers of narrow-gauged railway lines built on the slopes of mountains for transport of tons of materials. After all the years since WWII, the question about the actual purpose of 'RIESE' still remains unanswered. Whether it was to be used as Hitler's largest military headquarters or as an underground secret weapons factory; we know that about 120 Scientists, Engineers, Physicists and Chemists were brought to this area deep in the Owl Mountains. Exactly what were the Nazis planning with Project 'RIESE'?
Ted Rall, Ted Rall, put your ear to the 75mm courtesy phone, Ted Rall, thank you.
Coming soon: Patton presents Lt. Kerry with a special award.
Now this:
Not shown: the van Allen belt, as the scientist wore suspenders the day this photo was taken.
Visible beyond Glenn's bowtie is Professional Engineer slaving over a drafting table.
Here is the backyard of US Army EOD...
Ted Rall, Ted Rall, put your ear to the 75mm courtesy phone, Ted Rall, thank you.
So many good ones today. :-)
Patton presents Lt. Kerry with a special award.
I can't wait!
Binh There
ROTFL. Great graphic, love the Commie star for eyes.
BTTT!!!!!!!
On the German nuclear weapon story, see:
http://www.luft46.com/armament/abomb.html
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_n1782_v297/ai_21281407/pg_1
Been reading about this. Glass microspheres can be added to keep the detonating area ahead of the shock wave. Call them "low density explosives". Russians developed it. MOAB uses this technology, I hear.
The Germans ran a full length cylinder of PETN or picric acid crystals compressed to maximum speed down the center of their ammonium nitrate loaded bombs for the same reason - initiating on one end blew the other off without detonation. Sort of a real long booster. As I recall (hazily) the picric acid real long booster was something like 500 pounds in the largest German bombs.
I suspect the two fuzes, one on either end, might have done the same thing.
Thanks for all the additional info and pictures Matt. Here is another example of something that is little known about in the West.
This is true. The Germans also used transverse fuses in most of their bombs. With todays technology I suspect we can make explosives behave anyway we want them to. The bomb I was talking about (44,000lb) was a general purpose bomb, therefore light cased. I would suspect the bomb also started to physically break up on impact with the ground also.
The Japanese used a lot of piric acid explosives. I think that piric acid has a storage and shelf life problem and just loves to form crystals. That can be a problem in itself.
By the way Phil, I actually do have the tail section of a Davy Crocket. We use it to grow little mushrooms in it.
Plus all the exhust fumes from all those airplanes.
Thanks for posting this 3rd/7th Marines update, Johnny! Col. C.A.Tucker's letter on the 29 Palms site was a pleasure to read, especially this part....."There are no sacrifices to remember at the end of this letter."
I'll keep your co-worker's son in my prayers for his safe return from Iraq.
The scale of some of those tunnels is amazing.
And horrific at the same time, especially when one takes into account how they were punched through the mountain.
Thanks for the info and images.
I suspect that there's still stuff down there unknown by those who wander the surface.
I.E. bodies, equipment, weapons, power generators, vehicles maybe.
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