Dateline 1979, Germany. A Troop, 3/7 Cavalry is on maneuvers at the military training site at Hohenfels... a handsome and studly young tank commander removes the shoulder holster containing his Army .45 and hangs it from the turret roof near the loader's station. It'll be safe there whilst negotiating the cross-country target acquisition course!
Now imagine if you will, gentle reader, the pendulum effect of a heavy pistol suspended by a leather strap from the turret of a 52 ton M60A1 tank- when in the course of the aforementioned exercise the tank is traversing rough terrain and our hero is desperately manipulating the commander's override turret control to engage close range targets... all in a days work for the Cav! But somewhere along the line physics and gravity overcome the precarious hold of the leather holster strap on it's mounting and the pistol falls!... and becomes intimately engaged with the gear mechanism which rotates the turret... the 16 ton turret... which requires a powerful motor to drive said gear... which consumes and ejects a .45 pistol with all the disdain of yer cousin Bubba spitting a sunflower seed.
Sheesh... this cost me $54, the Gummint cost for the WWII Remington Rand-made .45. A chunk of money for me at the time; I was an E-5 and making 450 monthly- and then the bastids wouldn't let me keep it! I wanted it for a conversation piece, ya know- like, "Hey looky what some dumbshirt did to this here gun thingy!!!" but the bean-counting sumbirtches insisted it was still US Property even after they stripped the dinero from my miserable stipend.
The M16 I crushed two months later cost me $174 and they wouldn't let me keep that, either. Bastids.
Now imagine if you will, gentle reader, the pendulum effect of a heavy pistol suspended by a leather strap from the turret of a 52 ton M60A1 tank- when in the course of the aforementioned exercise the tank is traversing rough terrain and our hero is desperately manipulating the commander's override turret control to engage close range targets... all in a days work for the Cav! But somewhere along the line physics and gravity overcome the precarious hold of the leather holster strap on it's mounting and the pistol falls!... and becomes intimately engaged with the gear mechanism which rotates the turret... the 16 ton turret... which requires a powerful motor to drive said gear... which consumes and ejects a .45 pistol with all the disdain of yer cousin Bubba spitting a sunflower seed.
Sheesh... this cost me $54, the Gummint cost for the WWII Remington Rand-made .45. A chunk of money for me at the time; I was an E-5 and making 450 monthly- and then the bastids wouldn't let me keep it! I wanted it for a conversation piece, ya know- like, "Hey looky what some dumbshirt did to this here gun thingy!!!" but the bean-counting sumbirtches insisted it was still US Property even after they stripped the dinero from my miserable stipend.
The M16 I crushed two months later cost me $174 and they wouldn't let me keep that, either. Bastids.
of the Cold war 
at this time.
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