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Me in the Army |
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Gunnery |
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Who doesn't like firing big guns??? Going to gunnery, for me, was the
highlight of our training. "Steel on Target" might have been a
cheesy way of getting the troops riled up, but for me, it worked! I
started out on an M60A1 tanks, which used a searchlight at night to
illuminate the target. Later on, we were upgraded to the M60A3,
with its thermal sight and improved computer system, and gunnery changed
forever. With the new tanks, they upgraded the ranges at Graf... we
shot on the one below (112) before it was even done. |
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We went to gunnery in Grafenwohr, Germany before they were even done being
built... |
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In the earlier ranges in the qualification process (8 "Tables" had to be
passed to qualify), the tanks are stationary... before the days of the
M1, and its 1000+ degree exhaust, we left the ammo behind the tanks...
not exactly safe, even with the M60 tank! |
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In Baumholder's Range 30, they'd present all the targets to you when your
run was done... and you got to do a mad minute if you had left over
machine gun ammo. It made for some pretty cool pictures...
They stopped doing that after a while. They stopped with the
ammo boxes behind the tanks, too. |
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The controls of the M60 A3 looked awesome at the time... on my first
gunnery, I was a driver, for the second, I was the gunner, and was a
VERY good gunner... I shot more than 900 (out of 1000) points on
average, only getting in the 800's once, on my first run as a tank
commander. |
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I worked as a "TCE" - Tank Crew Evaluator - and later as a Master Gunner,
so I spent a lot of time in the towers of a lot of the ranges. |
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Night gunnery is just awesome! |
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The M60's were clunky, slow, noisy and rattly, and at times you couldn't
make them hit the broadside of a barn, but they had character that
somehow didn't make it to the M1's and M1A1's... there was something
that just said "Tank" about them. |
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Sometimes, I got to do some "Combined Arms" training... to the left, a Tow
streaks across the image towards the target (you can see it flying on
the left edge of the picture). Below, an M109 shakes the ground
after launching a round at its target. |
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The arrival of the M1A1 changed everything as far as gunnery went!
The ranges that were rebuilt for the M60A3's were rebuilt again for the
improvements brought on by the increased accuracy, distances, and speed
of the newer tanks |
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The M1 was heavier than the M60. We used the same tow bars in the
"early years", and they broke from time to time, sometimes with
spectacular results... this was an AWESOME wreck! |
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The targets we shot at were scaled representations of what the real
vehicles looked like as a silhouette. |
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Again... Getting to fire the cannon and machine guns was an awesome
thing...
On the above photo... I don't know what happened with that one
bullet... I have no idea how it could arc like that... it may have
bounced off the top of the tank, or something, but it sure is weird. |
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Not much beat the opportunity to fire the main gun! |
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The picture on the left was taken as each tank fired in sequence....
It looks like a volley fire, but it actually was each tank firing one at
a time at a hard target. The picture below was sent to me... simply
amazing! |
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