Back in another life time ....
I was a Tank Commander , I started as a loader and moved my up to the top hatch . As a loader , Gunner we did some pretty ah , well , fun things .
When at last I had control of a nice re-con M41 tank , and Uncles Sam's blessings to fire @ will ... we did :>)
We were on training exercises and were drawing simulated small arms fire from a ridge about 400 yards away . We were supposed to fire blank rounds back . Great fun every one thinking we had beat the other side. The judges were off on the side lines in the Jeeps observing the maneuvers .
. Every one hated to fire the tank blanks as they were such a mess to clean up after wards. Usually a 2 day exercise to get the soaking , swabbing , wire brushing , soaking swabbing , you get the picture. Just plain hard work to impress a few visiting dignitary's .
Smoke hand grenades came in a nice hard cardboard cannisters . You would peel off the tape, open the canister , pull out the can , Pull the pin and lob it by hand . Wonderful colors of which I no longer remember the significance of . There was Red , Purple , yellow and green as I recall.
We fired off one blank round , it seemed to encourage the fellows on the hill to come charging down toward us . ducking behind large rocks and bushes .Firing there M1's with blank rounds.
In a moment of brilliance I decided to stuff a smoke round in to the blank tank round .
The loader was afraid to try it as he thought it would go off in the tank.
I unwrapped the smoke canister , pulled the top of container off , pulled the pin with the lever still in the bottom half of the container . stuffed it in the blank tank round , loaded it . Climbed back up to the Commanders hatch , Using the remote control elevated the tube to max and fired it off .
The results were spectacular , as the canister left the tube , the can fell off the smoke round , the lever flipped , purple smoke arc'd it's way up the hill in a beautiful rotating spiral .
The charging troops turned tail and went charging back up the hill ducking for cover behind trees and big rocks.
Encouraged the loader grabbed a yellow smoke canister loaded it up , the Gunner felt he could do a better job and fired it off .
The observers in the Jeeps were waving there hands , jumping up and down . We thought they really liked the display and followed up with a green smoke round . By the time it reached a full spiraling arc , the troops were gone .
We won the battle .
I almost got "Court Marshaled .
I guess the observers did have a few legitimate concerns .....
