Picture of the day

Dame Vera back in the day. Apologies for the grainy pic. Australians, I assume?

iu
 

Reminiscent of the YB-40. A B17 modified to carry extra defensive armament for formation defense . About 2 dozen a/c modified but program was halted as the mods detracted from performance such that they couldn't keep pace with the bomber streams. They were also relegated to obsolescence with increasing numbers of fighter escorts.
 
A situation where the enthusiastic use of advanced profanity is not only warranted, but required:

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"It'll be fine" said the Commander. "We've driven over flimsier peasant architecture than that. Roll on, Dieter..."
 
The 106mm on a "shoot and scoot" jeep mount wasn't guaranteed a long survival. There was a huge firing signature and no protection meaning a quick displacement to avoid retaliation. It was an 800 metre weapon at best.:eek:

Leopard 1? A tradeoff of armor protection for speed and agility. We pretended they were good to go up against the Soviets in NATO for 15 yrs. Then Gulf war 1 came along and suddenly it was too risky to put them up against Iraqi T72s.:sok2
 
The 106mm on a "shoot and scoot" jeep mount wasn't guaranteed a long survival. There was a huge firing signature and no protection meaning a quick displacement to avoid retaliation. It was an 800 metre weapon at best.:eek:

Leopard 1? A tradeoff of armor protection for speed and agility. We pretended they were good to go up against the Soviets in NATO for 15 yrs. Then Gulf war 1 came along and suddenly it was too risky to put them up against Iraqi T72s.:sok2

A lot of bravado when it comes to military equipment, only one way to find out what it's really like.

Grizz
 
The 106mm on a "shoot and scoot" jeep mount wasn't guaranteed a long survival. There was a huge firing signature and no protection meaning a quick displacement to avoid retaliation. It was an 800 metre weapon at best.:eek:

Leopard 1? A tradeoff of armor protection for speed and agility. We pretended they were good to go up against the Soviets in NATO for 15 yrs. Then Gulf war 1 came along and suddenly it was too risky to put them up against Iraqi T72s.:sok2

I happen to have a good deal of experience with both the Leopard 1 AND the T 72-M1 tanks and hence I can, and will, call you on your belief the T 72 was the better of the two.
 
I happen to have a good deal of experience with both the Leopard 1 AND the T 72-M1 tanks and hence I can, and will, call you on your belief the T 72 was the better of the two.

I didn't say the T-72 was better. My point is that both the Cdn govt and the military spent years playing an ornamental role in Europe and then declined to send 4CMBG to Iraq for political reasons and also claiming that our equipment, incl Leo 1s, weren't up to the mark. I was involved with contingencies for the Gulf War, one of which looked at the possibility of acquiring M1 tanks because of concerns about the capabilities of the Leo 1.

I think we should and could have participated in a "come as you are" basis. Everybody else in NATO did. We played it safe with a naval and CF18 presence while others went in to do the heavy lifting. Watching us weasel out of this was a very demoralizing experience.
 
I didn't say the T-72 was better. My point is that both the Cdn govt and the military spent years playing an ornamental role in Europe and then declined to send 4CMBG to Iraq for political reasons and also claiming that our equipment, incl Leo 1s, weren't up to the mark. I was involved with contingencies for the Gulf War, one of which looked at the possibility of acquiring M1 tanks because of concerns about the capabilities of the Leo 1.

I think we should and could have participated in a "come as you are" basis. Everybody else in NATO did. We played it safe with a naval and CF18 presence while others went in to do the heavy lifting. Watching us weasel out of this was a very demoralizing experience.

There is a very good paper on line “ Missed Opportunity, Operation Broadsword “ , about the plan to send the Canadian brigade stationed in Germany to the Gulf War , it goes into great detail about what was being organized to send the brigade , but as Purple mentioned, there wasn’t the stomach politically, the thought of casualties sent Mulroney and his gang into stalling , procrastination, and then in the end , cancelling any Canadian ground forces participation
 

Years ago on an m113a1 driver's course, we were driving around in the training area in a short convoy of carriers. The lead carrier being driven by the trg. cadre driver, had some of the staff and trainees standing in the cargo hatch opening. There was a swampy stream we had to ford. Not wanting to miss a great opportunity the cadre driver gunned it, so the glacis/engine hatch/trim vane slammed into this icy cold swampy stream at speed. A cataract of black swampy stream water could then be seen floating as if in zero gravity and seemingly devoid of the passage of time like a massive intelligent squirming amoeba from outer space. You could observe it describing a rough arc up and then down & back right on top of the cargo hatch opening. At that pt. it seemed like we reentered normal spacetime as the massive jelly like blob of swampwater exploded into a hundred thousand black drops, sticks, & lumps of rotting organics all over the shocked squaddies, the water pouring in torrents down the sides of the carrier and into the cargo hatch opening. We laughed our heads off! The cadre driver was also well pleased.
 
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