Swords into Ploughshares. (With Sword of Stalingrad digression)

Discussion in 'Postwar' started by von Poop, Sep 10, 2007.

  1. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Proto-Pots:
     
  2. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  3. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Plenty of Tankish/Jet firefighting devices here over the years, but I don't recall artillery/AT guns.
    This thread seemed like roughly the right place.

    Work of artillerymen of the Central Military District during the liquidation of a fire at an oil well in the Irkutsk region
    TsVO gunners ensured the liquidation of a fire at an oil well in the Ust-Kutsky district of the Irkutsk region, which arose due to the depressurization of fountain fittings at an oil well.
    Shots from the 100-mm Rapira anti-tank gun delivered from Samara by military transport aircraft, the military personnel cut the fountain fittings of a burning well at night from the smallest possible distance - 180 meters with jewellery precision. This helped to establish blowout preventive equipment to further seal the well and eliminate the fire.

     
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  4. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

     
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  5. idler

    idler GeneralList

    Re: the oil well, you wouldn't think they could hit anything with all that whip from the barrel. It's always good to see the power of this stuff instead of the puff if smoke you get in the films.
     
  6. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Quite different than ceremonial 3" M5 ammo

     
  7. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Thought the same. Incredibly violent.
    Though I was also kind of surprised (pleased) they still have carriaged 100mm AT guns to hand.
    No idea if it was a slightly relic piece, but not a thing you think of in modern armies.
     
  8. idler

    idler GeneralList

    An ATGM might have been a problem at that range. And I'm not sure how Wombat would have fared.
     
  9. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Bombing the Torrey Canyon wasn't exactly a success.
     
  10. idler

    idler GeneralList

    What it brought to mind for me was the D-Day disjointing of Belgian gates with AP so they could subsequently be flattened by the tanks. With the oil well, I assume they were trying to chisel off a section by the same method.
     
  11. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

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  12. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  13. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

  14. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

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  15. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

  16. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Not quite 'Post-this-particular-war', but I think fits the theme.

    javelin..jpg
     
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  17. Quarterfinal

    Quarterfinal Well-Known Member

    At school, our quite enlightened history master used to provide us with typed notes produced on a cyclostyle machine, commonly used before photocopiers.

    upload_2022-6-18_13-21-37.jpeg

    Interestingly, these notes always required monetary values in Sterling to be typed as ‘Pounds’, rather than making use of a £ symbol. However, when covering the rise of the Nazis, symbology for the SS and where appropriate, umlauts, were curiously readily available.

    This was because his typewriter had seemingly been sourced, in modern parlance, from the former Gestapo Headquarters in Hamburg. It was, he added, “useful for work”. He never explained what that might have been.

    A fair example of the swords-ploughshares idiom, perchance, but the typewriter pictured was not our teacher’s (an Adler brand, I vaguely recall). The one here was that used by Derrick Sington in Bergen-Belsen, for the recording of war crimes evidence etc after the War. It is now displayed in the Museum of Military Intelligence, albeit more prominently than it once was:
    upload_2022-6-18_13-23-25.jpeg

    Very arguably something turned from a force for evil into a force striving for good. The typewriter is sometimes displayed with its cover, on which is attached this interesting ‘chit’:

    upload_2022-6-18_13-25-14.jpeg

    Whether my history master’s machine ever bore such an label, I will never know, but I can see why “acquisitions” in a place like Bergen Belsen might have been as strictly controlled as they could be.

    Also interestingly, our teacher claimed - and plausibly - to possess a pair of Himmler’s spectacles. They were very occasionally displayed in class, but only to emphasize the context of the enormity of awfulness with which they were associated.

    I recall we viewed them as a macabre curiosity and might have shied from holding them, even if permitted. Perhaps this chimes with some of the ‘killer cardigan’ research undertaken by Professor Bruce Hood at Bristol University, possibly of interest:
    Would you wear a serial killer’s cardigan?

    The glasses were sold after our master’s death, with sufficient provenance to satisfy the long established local auction house. I see that the same - or other sets - have reappeared at other sales overseas.

    By pure coincidence, another set of Himmler’s spectacles is also held in the Museum of Military Intelligence, part of the Noakes bequest.

    I would have liked to have met Derrick Sington, to get a real insight into his War; the sum of his parts suggesting more than that precised at:
    D A Sington – Old Wellingtonian Lodge no. 3404 – Masonic Lodge

    This, for example, does not mention his contribution to “The Goebbels Experiment: a Study of the Nazi Propaganda Machine”, first published in January 1942 and his evident association with Arthur (or George or Lord) Weidenfeld, who was then (also?) working for the BBC external services:

    upload_2022-6-18_13-27-9.jpeg
    Propaganda - Better To Tell The Truth? Orwell's Question

    and I presume rubbing shoulders with the likes of Richard Crossman, of PWE and subsequently Assistant Chief of SHAEF’s Psychological Warfare Division, amongst notable others.

    The typewriter, like the pen, may be mightier than the sword, indeed.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2022
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  18. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    a modern take
    Made from confiscated guns in the USA

    [​IMG]
     
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  19. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    GOSH!
     
  20. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Jacque Cousteau's RV Calypso.
    Former lend-lease minesweeper to remarkable research ship.
     
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