Picture of the day

sail32 said:
I bet none of the people in the open when the nuclear anti-aircraft went off are alive to day.

Canadian troops were sprayed with Agent Orange at Gagetown in a Vietnam War period test.
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The Genie missile with nuclear warhead was only live fired once in testing. We need to put ourselves in the time when it was deployed. What's worse; a flush of Soviet bombers penetrating the continent to release high yield nuclear bombs on numerous population centers or collateral damage from a comparatively low yield air defence system?

Oh yes, Agent Orange was bad. The genesis of the idea was defoliation to expose guerilla forces in a jungle environment. It worked, but probably didn't have much impact on military operations and the consequences have been horrible. I have a friend who was serving in Gagetown and who was involved in field trials with it. He is still fighting throat cancer as a result of his exposure to it.
 
bush1 said:
I still have the Medicine Man patch as I was an AE Tech on the Voodoo in the late 60's. The pilots had "One O Wonder" and the weapons officer / navigator had "Scope Wizard" on their patch. The backseater was commonly called a GIB which was slang for guy in back. The stick in the back seat controlled the radar and missile aiming and not the aircraft.
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Ah yes, "One O Wonder" is the other one I've seen.

When I was at Comox, it was Voodoos, Neptunes and Albatrosses. (Albatri?)

Here's a picture from the early 80's at CFB Comox. As some of you know, Comox doesn't get a lot of snow, but when it does, it's really heavy, wet snow...

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And an unrelated story: while my ex was working on base at the one of the messes (sergeant's I think) one day, it was considered enough of a big deal that when they got both Arguses flying at the same time, they actually got on the base PA system and announced it!
 
I had a work mate that once was employed by a crop spraying firm in the US. He was adamant that agent orange was used by the company as a weed killer/defoliant. Employees were not provided training or adequate safety equipment for handling it. That's why he quit and came across the DMZ.

sail32 said:
Canadian troops were sprayed with Agent Orange at Gagetown in a Vietnam War period test.
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Sharps '63 said:
I had a work mate that once was employed by a crop spraying firm in the US. He was adamant that agent orange was used by the company as a weed killer/defoliant. Employees were not provided training or adequate safety equipment for handling it. That's why he quit and came across the DMZ.
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Might have been 2,4-D, one of the ingredients in Agent Orange. And so, often associated with that rather unfriendly mixture.
 
Roundup is currently the herbicide/weedkiller of choice with massive quantities used in agriculture, especially for weed control and to desiccate wheat and canola prior to harvest. Its pretty amazing to see how weed free that crops are compared to what we experienced years ago before so-called chemical farming. Yields are very high, but the uptake of Roundup in our foods, and its effects on the body, are the subject of much debate.

Farmers can get pretty blasé when handling this stuff. One thing is for sure, the chemical industry is the clear winner.
 
Duker said:
Roundup ,Glyphosate generic name is completely biodegradable .Without it your bread would be very much higher in price
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I think I would rather pay a bit more for my bread then ingest a known cancer causing agent like Glyphosates. (PS if it's biodegradable, why is it showing up in the water tables under farms that us it?)

Sorry for the off topic comment.
 
Good pic of the ME109 in Swiss colors. The Swiss were the recipients of hundreds of aircraft from all combatants during WWII. Many of them were pristine. All sorts of reasons were claimed for diverting to Switzerland including lack of fuel and extreme damage. The Swiss had a lot of airmen/soldiers from all nations involved in WWII in their camps. It seemed very few of them wanted to leave, even when bordering nations offered to take their men back. That's the rumor anyway.
 
Behold the majesty of the Gun Carrier Mark 1:

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Also apparently a bus and a freighter, too.

[youtube]fF4oEpv9JgM[/youtube]

Forty-eight Gun Carriers were built (two similar machines were completed as Salvage Tanks), the majority of them by Kitson & Co at Leeds, by July 1917. In France, they were used far less for carrying artillery than ammunition. The vehicle was designed so that the 60pdr. gun or the 6in, howitzer could be fired from it, although from a practical point of view only the 6in. howitzer could be used in this way: These weapons were employed in this fashion at night on a few occasions and achieved some tactical success, but the Gun Carrier companies were eventually converted into supply companies and carried other supplies as well as ammunition. When transporting a medium gun or howitzer, sixty-four rounds of ammunition could be carried or, without the weapon 130 rounds, or approximately seven tons of supplies. It was estimated that six Gun Carriers with their combined crews of twenty-four men could carry a load which would otherwise require 1745 men - the only practicable alternative form of cross-country transport.
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purple said:
The Genie missile with nuclear warhead was only live fired once in testing. We need to put ourselves in the time when it was deployed. What's worse; a flush of Soviet bombers penetrating the continent to release high yield nuclear bombs on numerous population centers or collateral damage from a comparatively low yield air defence system?

Oh yes, Agent Orange was bad. The genesis of the idea was defoliation to expose guerilla forces in a jungle environment. It worked, but probably didn't have much impact on military operations and the consequences have been horrible. I have a friend who was serving in Gagetown and who was involved in field trials with it. He is still fighting throat cancer as a result of his exposure to it.
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Here is the video of the test where 6 men were standing directly under the blast.

According to his obituary the photographer Akira Yo####ake died of a stroke in Oct. 2013 at the age of 84. He had 3 children, 4 grand children and 3 great-grand children.

(apparently CGN thinks his name is a bad word)
 
So, during WWII, Germany gave Bulgaria a few hundred armoured vehicles (Panzer IV's, Stugs, a few Jagdpanzer IV's) to fight the Soviets. Didn't end well for the Bulgarians, but they still had a number of them left after the new boss's moved in.

The Soviets threw in a few hundred surplus T-34's, and the whole shebang was semi-buried along the border with Turkey as a Sanford and Son-esque version of the Maginot Line.

As time passed, the Bulgarian army essentially forgot all about it, until a Jagdpanzer IV got dug up by relic hunters and shifted on to the collector market (smuggling a vintage tank destroyer out of a country onto the antiques market takes a certain amount of chutzpa).

Since about 2007 the Bulgarians have been tracking down the emplaced armour and digging them up. Most of it is getting cut up for scrap metal value, but some are going to museums, and given the shaky state of the Bulgarian government finances, a certain percentage seem to be "disappearing" after being retrieved.

Interesting slideshow/video of some of the pieces:

 
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