Army Revives Antiques
That sounds like Big Army is bringing back horse-drawn field artillery, doesn’t it?
Well, not quite. The Army is reviving some of the weapons systems it discarded in favor of newer, more ‘glamorous’ stuff, upgrading the old with new materials and functions and training incoming troops to use MANPADS, which the newbies have never heard of.
The Army is reviving the MANPADs and other “antique” weaponry – “antique’, meaning anything in use before some in the current crop of troops were old enough to get out of diapers. Now they’ll make friends with upgraded old stuff and get a newly-created MOS into the bargain.
What went around is coming back around. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just because it’s last year’s model, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Army News
The Army isn’t the only one. The air force at Hill AFB in Utah is using 50’s technologies and procedures to hot refuel F-35’s.
https://www.hill.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1894193/gunfighters-use-1950s-tech-on-f-35-for-a-huge-win/
Thanks for that tip!
My pleasure. It’s like i tell my kids, sometimes the old ways are the best.
So done asked the right question: “how do we turn around planes faster?” Versus “how do we make the existing process and tools work faster?”
“dumb” systems and “analog” comms are going to make a comeback in the age of unlimited cyber attacks.
Look for a return to manual fire control, beale wheels, and WrM forumulas!
Welcome back to the future!
Hey, FILM photography (which never really left us) is returning to the market. Eastman Kodak has, under much demand from film shooters, released a new and very updated of Ektachrome, everyone’s favorite slide film, and labs are very busy processing film and printing prints or mounting/scanning slides.
Ektachrome has a generic blue tint to it, I never liked using it that much.
To me Kodachrome was the best. I always used Kodachrome 64 and Paul Simon even wrote a song about it !!!
I have hundreds of slides that were culled from the thousands that I shot while I was stationed in Alaska.
I look at those pics and think to myself, “I had to be standing right there to take that shot”.
It was the US Army Alaska that put me in all those places and I am still grateful for that opportunity…
And absolutely AMAZED that I got out of there with an Honorable Discharge…..
Thank God for Guardian Angels !!!
There is some rumor/speculation about reviving Kodachrome. But this new Ektachrome leans away from the blue and more toward a natural red tone, which was Kodachrome’s advantage over E-6 film. I shot both.
Back in the beginning of my illustrious career, in the early 1960s, Ektachrome was broken into two types: E-2 and E-3. One was for artificial light, such as flash bulbs and indoor lighting, which tended to be bluish, and the other was for outdoor light, e.g., sunshine, which leaned toward yellow. Later E-4 leaned toward yellow, and early E-6 in the 1970s also leaned toward yellow. If I wanted to shoot plants, I found that Kodachrome and Fujichrome had better renderings of green and red than Ektachrome.
This new version of E-6 is supposed to be better balanced in color renderings. So we’ll see how this works out.
I’m just sorry I sold my F100 and my F4. I thought the romance was over. But I can get them back. They’re available in various places again.
Kodachrome was awesome! The colors were so bright and deep. I have slides using it and they just POP!
Bring it back! I just might go back to film!
I actually have a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree in Photography. The year was 1998, so not as far back as you, but definitely film. [A brief aside: at that time, people were just starting to digitally manipulate photos for their presentations, but everyone still shot film.] My favorite go to camera I own is a Super Speed Graphic 4×5 – I love that thing! I also have a couple of Yashica twin lens cameras. Favorite camera I ever got to use (when I worked at a pro-foto store with rentals) was a Mamiya RZ-67. I obviously like big film!
I still have my 4cx5 Calumet view camera and my Mamiya C330. My Nikon F2 needs a new battery for the meter, but I can always eyeball the exposures.
Can’t hack it if it doesn’t have a computer! I work in the IT field and welcome that change. And while we’re at it, please bring back buttons, dials, and knobs. Can’t beat haptic feedback!
Now, if they will just get rid of the rooneyguns and go back to a proper 1911…
Amen to that.
… or at LEAST a .40 …
Before SgtBob comes along and trolls this post, turning it into hand-to-hand battle over which type of film is best, I have a couple of things to say.
First off, just bring back the 30mm M163/M167 Vulcan ADA guns and be done with it.
Second, The “Slew to Cue” (ASI of E2) mentioned in the linked article is a requirement to draw SP (Superior Performance) pay for Whiz Wheel®™ Operators./smile
Well, Cripes. Just re-read my comment and should have had Mea nother Culpa of coffee (H/T to Hondo) before hitting the “Post Comment”./smile
So, strike 30mm, insert 20mm.
Musta had a Vulcan, a Duster and a Wart Hog rolling around like three BBs’ in the empty space between my ears and while my brain was thinking 20mm, my fingers took the average size of them and typed 30.
Thought I was having a senior moment for a minute there with the 30mm …
All you Jeep fans with the giant Jumbo Gumbo tires and wheels should take a hard look at the jeep in the photo.
Tall skinny NDT tires on narrow (4.5 inch) 16 inch rims. This how you get the axles up off the ground. Lift kits do not do that. The bigger the tire the more likely you get stuck. The more unsprung weight the more likely you break something.
Look at old photos of Model T cars navigating mud roads.
And put the damn lead back in gasoline so we can have radial engines again.
Yup. My 55 CJ-3B can go anyplace my 09 Rubicon can. It can’t do it as fast or comfy, but the cool factor of putti-putting past big, lifted, stuck trucks is priceless.
The CJ3B? I’m currently working on a ’47 CJ2A with a Hurricane Engine from a ‘3B!
And FTR it has a fake hood scoop to accommodate that engine.
Lol I was just about to ask how it fit!
Got a ’73 CJ-5 as a project to do one day.
I would dearly love to see SHORAD return with a vengeance. The only the Army has now for short range is the Stinger and Avenger with everything else relying on HIMAD Patriot systems. Patriot is stupid expensive and the HAWK can still do that mission. HIMAD solved. Now the solve SHORAD, bring back the Chaparral missile system with an upgraded/updated carrier and merge it with Sentinel radar. Put the SHORAD systems back into their own BNs and remove them from the HIMAD BNs. Now, SHORAD is solved.
See also: https://www.army.mil/article/162389/Short_range_air_defense_back_in_demand/.
To counter UAVs.
“SHORAD return with a vengeance.”
Let’s go old school. Quad 50 turret mounted on an up-armored M54 series 5-Ton.
Let Ma-Deuce take care of those pesky UAVs./smile
GAU-19B would be mo’ bettah, IMO … and the 5-ton can pull the trailer full of ammo for it.
Don’t forget about Duster. Everything is new again.
A very wise shipmate of mine with 50 years of naval service told me once that if I wanted to be on the “cutting edge” that all I needed to do was revive programs from 50 years ago.
Damn! I guess he was right!
Is that General Roosevelt in the pic? The hero of D-day?
I have no idea who it is, but it’s an antique!
Do believe that is Teddy Jr. He was an older man, did wear glasses and the jeep has the single star of a BG. Seems like I remember reading somewhere that his jeep/and/or call sign was Rough Rider.
You teased me Ex with the lead line about the Horse drawn Field Artillery. Would it be 12 pound Napoleons or Parrot 3″ ordnance rifled? I will hide my disappointment.
The 12-pounders. They required a team of 12 horses to pull the gun carriages.
The search engines say yes, Mustang. Another pic, if the link works.
https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.eyfKVYGXQ-xvQvuOsmgdKgHaJa&w=157&h=199&c=7&o=5&dpr=1.25&pid=1.7
So do we go back to a heavier cartridge for the riflemen (6.5 or 6.8 mm) and a lighter carbine/pdw for others?
Seems like the M4 is too much compromise doing too many things.
No. Go with a smaller cartridge with a hitter load. The goal is a body count and with more use of cutting edge body armor. I would go with 5.7 or 4.6. Both punch current body armor easily. Or keep what we have and train more on heads and hips instead of center mass.
Sorry. Hotter load.
Downrange performance requires mass and momentum. Those little bullets do poorly when the range opens up a bit. They shed energy fast.
Super velocity small-bullet loads chew up barrels, right at the throat, ruining accuracy.
Riflemen are often called upon to engage the enemy -way- out there, like the MG trying to emulsify your squad. That is one of the reasons we went to a heavier 5.56 round.
Are folks coming out of Afghanistan firefights saying “give me a rifle with less range and lower down range performance”?
Also, if you have to shoot someone 2-4 times to get them to stop trying to kill you, your 50 percent increase in ammo load is a net loss in capability. Even a 100 percent increase, at that ratio, is a loss.
We could get an M4A1 in 7.62 NATO…
Stingers! (Could we at least buy some new ones? Shoulder-fired SAM technology has advanced, you know… )
It’s not the launcher, it’s the missile that is the tech. The latest Stinger missile that I know of has a “rossette” scanner that literally makes it fire and forget. Up until I retired the only I fired was the old block 2. If you know difference between the Chapparal missiles basic and “smokeless” and later the Foxtrot, you will understand the comment.