Picture of the day

Ganderite said:
^ A great airplane. Barely fast enough to kill you.
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Incredible aircraft. It landed more like a mosquito setting down.

I flew on one of those in Brazil, on the Negra River, a couple of times.

Huge balloon tires for landing on gravel/mud flats, with an enormous load of cargo/passengers.

On one occaision the barge I was going to was anchored in the middle of the river, to keep it safe from pirates and grounding.

There were huge mud flats on each side of the river, with cut grass growing on them, in clumps.

The pilot, an Iranian without a nation, landed that plane on one of the flats.

Bit of bouncing on the clumps of grass for maybe 75-100 meters and it came to a full rest about 10 meters from the river's edge, where there was a boat waiting for me and the gear I had brought.

I stepped off the ladder, onto the mud and sank up to my armpits.

The tail wheel had disappeared into the mud and the fuselage was resting on the mud.

The pilot was pretty adamant that I get my gear out of the plane ASAP, so that the tail wheel didn't get hung up, so they threw down a rotten tarp, and all of my gear, including a black market M60/ammo on top of it.

Then without any other message, he revved up the engine, until there was enough air flowing to lift the tail and took off in less distance than he landed in.

Left me there, in the warm mud, with the leeches, snakes and crocodiles, without any concern.

The guys in the boat, just got on the oars and slipped the boat across the soupy muck, to pick up the gear first, then me.

I had to take a lot of ribbing over that one for the rest of the trip. A couple of the deck crew would look at me with big smiles on their faces and wave their arms, making all kinds of noise. They thought it was a great joke. Nice guys though, very friendly and always seemed to have a jug of Chuchaca handy for a wee snort on a cool evening.

They brewed that stuff from green immature coconuts in a barrel stashed in their quarters. Used the juice from mature coconuts to get things fermenting with the natural yeasts. A batch took about three days, when they would cook it off. They had to be careful not to let it ferment to long or it quickly turned poisonous.

Those deckhands had been making the stuff for fuel and drinking, since birth and were experts.

Never once even felt a trace of a hangover. Very potent stuff.
 
HuskyDude said:
qNnankr.jpg


How the US army shipped colt 1911 pistols in WW2
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Actually, that is how the U. S. Army put them into long term storage.
 
Ganderite said:
^ A great airplane. Barely fast enough to kill you.
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Actually, not even fast enough to kill you.
The published IFR engine out procedure is to pull the control column all the way back and wait.
There is no stall speed. It just goes into a mush at below 40 knots and descends at quite the survivable rate.
You only have to hope there is no Khrushchovka apartment block in your glide path.
 
22 January 1943 near Stalingrad, Maxim Passar of the Hezhen ethnic group, a sniper of the 71st Guards Rifle Division, ensured the success of the regiment's offensive by destroying heavy machine gun crews from a distance of 100 meters. He died in that action. I was 19 years old. In just one year of combat, he had confirmed 237 German soldiers killed with his rifle.

BUsUyVo.jpg
 
collector67 said:
PEM sniper rifle?
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Yup.

That fellow is small, his rifle is almost as long as he is tall, without the bayonet.

It's hard to tell from that pic, but the rifle appears to be in almost new condition.

Yes, it's obviously a posed pic, for publication to the masses.

I've never seen an "issued" Mosin 91/30, that hasn't gone through an FTR, that isn't beaten to hell.

The sniper rifles were usually well taken care of, but the way they were used and the conditions they were used under, were extremely hard on the exterior finishes.
 


Major Erik Bonde smokes a cigarette after being shot twice in an ambush during the Congo War in Jan 1961

After being rudimentaraly patched up he returned to the ongoing fight beside his fellow members of the Swedish UN Mission
 
Canadian Sig said:
I've seen one guy hit who was surprisingly the same. Open hole with very little blood. I guess it depends on what the round hits
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The bullets didn't penetrate into his lungs, or he definitely wouldn't have been smoking that cigarette.

Maybe from ricochets? 9mm rounds from a long distance???

I took a 7.62, 123 grain bullet in my left lower leg, right up against the Tibia.

I remember feeling a heavy "bump" on my leg as I was running up a dirt bank and a sharp pain, that lasted for an instant, but didn't have time to check it out under the circumstances.

About a half hour later, when things had settled down, my lower leg felt like someone had hit the shin with a hammer.

No blood at all, barely noticeable hole in my pant leg and when I lifted up the hem to check out the leg, there was what appeared to be a dark bruise with a lump in it.

The bullet must have been "hot" when it entered. The entry hole was sealed over and the bullet was lodged tightly up against the bone.

The fellow that acted as a medic, made a little cut with his knife, over the bulge and squeezed the bullet out like a pimple.

That really hurt.

The bullet had bits of flesh on it, that were not coming off, even though the bullet was still completely intact. It wasn't bright and shiny, like you see in the movies. It was almost black and the tip was bent to one side.

I don't think that I was the first thing that bullet hit. I believe it hit a branch or maybe the dirt bank before it hit me.

Whatever, that fellow with the hole in his arm and chest still had both of those bullets in him when that pic was taken.

I'm surprised the bicep muscle in his left arm wasn't bunching up and causing extreme pain, similar to a charley horse.

As for his chest?? Maybe lodged against a rib??

I'm willing to bet that hurt later.
 
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