Although tracked vehicles are
interesting, they can NOT be driven on the street. To get
one somewhere you need a large 18 wheel truck trailer.
2024 June discovered that
Half-tracks (
Wiki) were
made in large numbers (well over 50,000) and were in use after
W.W.II.
I remember driving my uncle's crawler tractors where you steer by
pulling levers and/or pressing brake pedels. Something that
works well at low speeds but is not at all a good way to steer at
higher speeds. Half-tracks use conventional steering wheels
and so can go fast on roads and still can go slower over open
ground.
Half-tracks went out of favor when better ways to steer all
tracked vehicles became practical.
The FMC (
Wiki)
M113 track only APC (
Wiki)
was made in San Jose at a factory that was just across the runway
from the main terminal. There were long trains of flat cars
loaded with dozens of M113s for the Vietnam war. The Wiki
page says over 80,000 were built and a large number are still in
service.
FMC got started making a spray pump used to spray fruit in the
"Valley of Hearts Delight", because of the fruit grown here, as
Santa Clara Valley was called prior to becoming "Silicon
Valley".
682902
Spraying-pump,
John
Bean, 1901-09-17, -
Close Air Support (CAS)
A-1 Skyraider
Started about the close of W.W. II
and was operational until about 1972. Single prop, triple
9 cylinder pancake radial engines ( 27 cylinders).
Much larger in person that you would think from the
photos. Also used for
electronic
warfare.
A-10 Wart Hog
Replaced the A-1 and not liked by
most of the Air Force since it's not a fighter or bomber, but
loved by pilots and ground forces. Based on a then
controversial concept of using a 30 mm gatling gun to kill
armored vehicles when tanks themselves used 100 to 150 mm guns
to kill other tanks. But the rate of fire and multiple
hits from overhead make the GAU-8 a tank buster. It's also
designed to survive a lot of damage.
Gunships
This is a concept that was
proposed during W.W. II to allow aircraft to attack a surfaced
submarine. At the time, and even today, most aircraft have
their guns facing forward. This is good for attacking
other aircraft, but not so good for attacking ground
targets. When attacking a surfaced sub the pilot had only
one chance to cause damage, after circling around for a second
pass the sub was submerged and out of harms way. By
placing the guns in the left wing firing to the left the pilot
can fly what's called a pylon turn where the wing points to a
fixed point on the ground. This way fire can be maintained
for as long as there's ammunition. During the Vietnam
conflict Gunships were brought into the inventory and were based
at first on the C-47 cargo plane (needed to carry the large ammo
load) and gatling guns pointing out the left side windows.
The early Gunships used 7.62 mm gatling guns and were not
designed for attacking armor, like the A-10. I'm not aware
of a Gunship with a GAU-8, but it would be awesome.
Wild Weasel
I'm not sure if this is a CAS
mission, but the idea is to have a fighter equipped with a
Radar Warning Receiver fly into an area
where there are enemy Surface to Air Missiles (or guns) that are
RADAR controlled. The Wild Weasel aircraft can then launch
missiles to take out the enemy ground equipment ot cause it to
be turned off, thus protecting other aircraft and providing air
superiority.
There's a movie called "First in, Last Out" that's a documentary
about how the Radar Warning Receivers were developed at Applied
Technology Inc (ATI) then on a hill behind Stanford. One
day when visiting there I parked my red
427
Cobra in the president's parking spot, but they did not
tow it away.
Surface ships
PBR
In the
movie Apocalypse
Now the
Patrol
Boat Riverine (PBR) is featured throughout the film. I
got the opportunity to ride one during fleet week in San
Francisco. Twin engines drive a water pump rather than use
props that would foul in shallow water. The jet can be
turned 360 degrees giving the boat incredible handling. On
the short "excursion" in S.F. bay I must have hit some nerve of
the boat captain and he started showing the limits of the boat's
performance, causing the fire extinguisher to pull out of it's
mounting, at which point he slowed down to a more normal
pace. The acceleration can be described as "high".
Subs are an interesting design
problem. One way to design a sub is to make it close to
neutral bouncy then use aircraft lift principles to "fly" it
underwater. The W.W. II vintage subs were about 200 feet
long, yet their hull crush depth was maybe 100 feet. So if
an early sub got too nose or tail down it may sink. Later
subs were made using stronger metals and have much deeper crush
depths. But they have a problem because many were designed
to have negative buoyancy (they sink if not going
forward). So a propulsion failure can cause them to sink.
A rouge russian sub tried to launch nuclear missiles against
Hawaii and sank in the process. This was the start of the
Glomar Explorer project built
by Howard Hughes. The Hughes Mining Barge No. 1 (HMB-1)
used to be in Pete's harbor, Redwood City, CA for many years.
page created 13 March 2004.
