Finally Some Good News

Deserter's conviction reinstated!

I can't believe this shit is still going on, nice to see resolution happening.

MS-HEAT

Gun Stats assumes that both shaped charges are the same size!

So you calculate them from the published penetration in millimeters, which comes out as half as much as a single stage, then double that damage.

A normal HEAT round that punches 900mm will do 6dx12(10) cr ex linked 6dx5 cr ex.

An MS-HEAT round that punches 900mm calculates at 6dx6(10) cr ex linked 6dx5 cr ex.

If the target is protected by explosive, reactive armor MS-HEAT does the listed damage as if the ERA wasn't there.  If it not protected by ERA, then double the listed damage. 

Silly me, I've been finding out the penetration of the precursor charge and main charge then adding them.

For example, the PG-29V fired from the RPG-29 will penetrate 900mm RHA, but only 750mm it it's protected by reactive armor.

So that means the precursor charge penetrates 150mm on its own.

I've been showing this as 6dx2(10) cr ex follow-up 6dx10(10) cr ex linked 6dx5 cr ex.

It comes out the same on RHA, but penetrates better when there's ERA than the rules as written. 

Slaved To The Gun

Some write ups comparing the fire control of the M60A3 and M1 make it seem like there's no reason to use the M1 fire control system.

Both are fully stabilized.

Both use laser range finders.

Both have wind sensors.

Fruit, fruit.  Tits, tits.

The M1 computer has more processing power and does the job faster, but it doesn't make a big difference when the time choke-point is the loader. 

The gun is slaved to the sight.

What this means is when I'm tracking a target and stab the lase button, my view, and the crosshairs stay on the target and the turret shifts.

But what makes the M1 system better?

In a word, integration.

The M1, and it's fire control computer, were designed together.

The M60's system is an add-on that had to work with existing hardware and that makes it a bit clunky.  This article gives a decent description. 

RPG Pen

If you look closely, you'll see a small hole under the smoke-grenade stowage box.

We had a HEAT round battle carried and we were pieing the corner of an alleyway when we got hit. I thought they got a 1:1mil shot down our gun tube at first.

I was the loader. My gunner and TC both got peppered pretty well from the blast and I caught a bit as well.

Gunner got medevac’d to Germany because of the flash burns to his face. “Ruined his modeling career” as he put it.

The hole in the sponson box was actually from an earlier rpg attack, but it hit sandbags in the box and never detonated.

The small hole at the lower left side under the smoke grenade box is the entrance hole of the one that did us in.

Plt Sgt had me digging in the hole with needle nose pliers trying to get something out when Col. Robert Abrams (our Brigade Commander at the time) walked up and said “what the fuck are you doing?!?” Good times.”

-- David S

The write up explains it's an M1A2SEP.

That makes the side turret DR 1,580L.  1,147mm RHAE v HEAT.

For a heat round to penetrate that it needs to be, at least,  6dx15(10) cr ex, for the average hit to penetrate.  6dx9(10) cr ex can penetrate with a max-damage roll.

The PG-7VR warhead can penetrate 900mm of RHA with its tandem warhead.  At first you think it cannot, but the damage roll is based on an average where all the dice roll 3.5.

I'm not showing all my work here, read the rules and it's clearer. 

6dx4(10) cr ex follow-up 6dx8(10) cr ex linked 6dx5 cr ex; which is treated as a single 6dx12(10) cr ex attack if there is no reactive armor.  On average it penetrates DR 1,260L

So, DR is doubled for laminated armor vs HEAT.  3160.

Divided by the armor divisor of 10.  316.

Divide by 12 to find out if we can penetrate with this round, if it's more than 36, no.  26.3333.

The PG-7VR, on a good roll, can penetrate the turret side of an M1A2SEPv1.

This GURPS.

Same Logic

Public opinion is against Flock and other similar camera systems.

To the point that the local sheriff canceled their contract with both Flock and Axios.

Governor DeSantis banned them from FDOT right of ways.

But the press is publishing lots of articles like the picture above.

It seems very much akin to saying that since the Nazis MUST have killed a few people who deserved it, then The Holocaust is completely justified.

Some of the nearby county's sheriffs are not getting the message the public is sending and are saying that they will continue using Flock cameras that are placed on private property.  I think some of them have been running unopposed for so long they've forgotten they're elected officials and subject to the opinions of their constituents.
 

Who Would Win

I've noticed that the Soviets had better guns and thicker armor than the NATO nations until relatively late.

NATO didn't start getting gun parity until the British 105mm L7.

NATO didn't start pulling ahead in armor until Chobham.

NATO tanks are almost always taller and heavier than their Soviet counterparts.

So, NATO was screwed before tanks like Abrams and Leopard II hit the scene?

Maybe not.

For the gun and armor to matter, you need to hit, and the Western designers put a lot of effort and thought into fire control.

The first step in accurate fire is an accurate determination of the target's range.

You'll see little bulges on the sides of US tank turrets.  These hold the objective lenses of the range finder, either coincidence or stereoscopic.

The earliest of these give the range which is called out and the appropriate stadia in the optic is aligned with the target.

The US miniaturized the mechanical fire control computers it'd been using on ships and put them in tanks.  The range obtained from the rangefinder could be input into the computer, along with wind speed and the reticle would be shifted so the gunner need only align a, relatively simple and uncluttered, crosshair on the target to hit.

This is all happening while the T-55 has no rangefinder at all and the T-62 uses stadiametric ranging.

The US then automated the process by putting a linkage between the rangefinder and fire control computer.

This was in the 90mm equipped M48A2, in 1953!

The M60A1 started with this.  Later versions got a solid state computer, laser rangefinder and sensors to compensate for wind muzzle droop and cant.

This is all in addition to stabilization that allowed for firing accurately on the move.

Of course, to effectively use all this fun technology requires some education and training that's, typically, absent from the Warsaw Pact and Soviet customers.

Israel vs et al kind of proves the thesis. 

To Be Fair

If we're going to count all the variations of the M1816 musket as a single service weapon, then we really should count all the variations of the AR-15 as a single weapon.

The M16 series (including the M4 series) is the king of service life, 1966 to 2022 or 56 years.

56 and counting since the M7 roll-out has not been smooth by any measure and many units, INFANTRY battalions, not support units, are still rocking the M4A1.

If we count each variation as its own weapon the M1865 is still the shortest in service, but the average number of years we stick to a specific design drops precipitously.

Even within some very short lived designs, like the Krag, there's several sub-versions.

Sometimes it's hard to tell how long a weapon was the primary infantry arm because they didn't replace the old ones, just stopped issuing them in favor of the new one.

This is true of the M1816 series and the Krag.  Units might have all the same gun, they might have a few of each.

Service Lives

Our first service rifle was, um, not a rifle.

It was the M1795, .69 caliber flintlock musket. (19 years)

It was replaced by the .69 caliber M1812 in 1814. (2 years)

It was replaced by the .69 caliber M1816 in 1816.  They didn't have an "A" designation so instead of M1816A1, we get M1822, M1835, M1840 and M1842.  The M1842 being the first caplock.  The Army didn't really consider them different guns, just different designations to keep track of small changes.  (39 years)

Those models were technically still front line weapons all the way to 1855 when we get the .58 caliber M1855 rifle musket in 1856.  Followed by the M1861, and M1863.  (9 years)

The first breech-loader is the M1865 chambered in .58-60-500 rimfire.  This is also the first Erskine Allin trapdoor to be type classified!  (1 year)

Then we get a trapdoor chambered in .50-70-450, the M1866.  Then The M1868 and M1870.  (7 years)

The cost of converting old caplocks turned out to be prohibitive and since they were making all new guns anyway, they decided on, yet, another chambering for the trapdoor.  The .45-70 M1873.  Then M1884, and M1888.  (19 years)

Smokeless supplanted black powder and the .30-40 Krag-Jørgensen M1892 hits the scene plus M1896 and M1898.  (11 years)

Then the M1903 Springfield in .30-03.  Then the M1903 in .30-06 in 1906.  (33 years)

The M1903 was, kind of, replaced by the "Enfield" M1917, but the M1917 was replaced by the M1903 after WW1.  The M1917 doesn't really count because it was a secondary standard.

We'd stopped using the year in the designation by 1936 when the M1 Garand is adopted.  This "gas-trap" version only lasted 4 years when it was replaced by the M1 with a drilled gas port.  (21 years)

The Garand was replaced in 1957 by the M14.  (9 years).

The M14 was replaced by the XM16E1 in 1966, M16A1 in 1969. (17 years)

The M16A1 was replaced by the M16A2 in 1983. (11 years)

The M16A2 was replaced by the M4 in 1994.  Then the M4 was changed to an M4A1 with a heavier barrel in 2014.  (28 years)

The M4A1 was officially replaced by the M7 in 2022.  (4 years)

The M7 was unofficially replaced by the XM8 in 2026. 

So the all time record for shortest service life goes to the M1855 with just one year!

The longest being the 39 years of the M1816 musket and its variations. 

¡Viva Cuba! ¡Cuba Libre!

Just for Technomad! 

Lee M1895 (6mm Lee) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 5d+2 pi, Acc 4, Range 800/5,600, Weight 8.6, RoF 1, Shots 5(3), ST 9, Bulk -5, Rcl 3, Cost $900, LC 3.

Krag-Jørgensen M1892 (.30-40) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 6d pi, Acc 5, Range 1,070/4,500, Weight 9.2/0.3, RoF 1, Shots 5+1(3i), ST 10, Bulk -6, Rcl 3, Cost $650, LC 3.

Krag-Jørgensen M1896 (.30-40) carbine: TL 6, Dmg 6d pi, Acc 5, Range 1,030/4,300, Weight 7.8/0.3, RoF 1, Shots 5+1(3i), ST 10, Bulk -5, Rcl 4, Cost $650, LC 3. 

And for fun, the Spanish Hornet!

Mauser Model 1893 (7x57mm) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 6d+1 pi, Acc 4, Range 1,150/4,800, Weight 9/0.3, Rof 1, Shots 5+1(3), ST 9, Bulk -5, Rcl 3, Cost $900, LC 3.

He's on his own to determine which is "worth it." 

GURPS will not show any of the numerous real-world foibles these three actions had.

Given the choice, I'm arming my men with Mausers; but remember that the troops with the Krags won in Cuba. 

Yes Yes It Does

Reader Technomad asks, "Why would the Navy adopt a different rifle in the first place? Wouldn't that complicate things?"

Yes and no.

Back in the late 19th century, the Navy and Army used completely different and independent supply and procurement systems.

It didn't matter that the Navy adopted a different rifle and cartridge from the Army because there was no interoperability requirement.

Small arms for the Navy was often an afterthought as well.

I would not be surprised that the reason the Navy uses the same rifle as the Army now is because they bought Army rifles when the Lee didn't live up to expectations and discovered how much cheaper they were because of the bulk discount the Army got and that they didn't have to spend any money on the development.

Or they didn't bother developing their own guns for the same costs reasons while the USMC starting growing past a ship-board infantry requirement into an expeditionary force.

It should be noted that the Jarheads have reverted to having their own rifles with their adoption of the M27, phase-out of the M4, and rejection of the M7 and XM8.

A Little Irony

Being on the GM side of the Ford/Chevy debate in hot-rodding means that the brakes on my car came from Australia.

I noticed that on the castings for my '79 Camaro and they were present on the Biscayne SS and Corvette too.

But The Beast is running Brembo.

I bought an Australian car and for the first time in decades, my brakes aren't.

I guess having Italian brakes means continuing the tradition of the calipers being from a different nation than the car. 

A New Record!

The Krag-Jørgensen was he official service rifle of the US Army from 1894 to 1903; until replaced by the M1903.  Nine years.

The M14 was the official service rifle of the US Army from 1957 to 1966; until replaced by the XM16E1.  Nine years.

Both are noted as having incredibly short lives. 

The M7 was the official service rifle of the US Army from 2022 to 2026; until replaced by the XM8.  Four years!

The XM8 appears to have an adoption process so truncated that it makes the rushed development of the M7 seem positively sedate.

SIGH. 

Recurring Theme

I've lost track of the number of times that a .357 has been loaded with .38 Special because...

There's no reason, it's just our policy.

The first time I bumped into this was when the SEALs in Vietnam asked for S&W Model 19 revolvers.

Someone, with authority over whether such guns were purchased or not took one to the range with the issue .38 ammo he could get from the supply system and compared it with the Model 15 and decided that there was no advantage to getting the Model 19 and ordered the Model 15's.

Yeah, exactly the same if you use .38 Special and never try .357 in it...

Then I was reading about the '86 Miami shootout.  McNeill and Mireles were carrying, with approval, privately owned .357 Magnum revolvers, Orrantia was (likely) packing the issue model 13 .357; and all were firing the issue .38 Special.

Then I keep bumping across stories of departments mandating the use of department issued ammo and nobody issuing .357 Magnum even if they issued or allowed guns chambered for it. 

If you're not going to issue .357 ammo, then why buy guns for it? 

Fun Little Details

On the cover of The Free City of Krakow is this little tidbit:

I think it says 105mm on the side there, and I don't think we ever made a nuke round for that gun.

Never mind that this is a really small box for even a 105mm howitzer round.

How Much To Be A Nuclear Power?

In GURPS: Twilight - 2000 you, too, can be a nuclear power!

An M109A4 runs $567,000.  An M198 towed gun runs $530,000 and a 5-ton to drag it around adds $41,000.

A 155mm XM454 AFAP round is $4,991,250.

So you need $5,558,250 for the track and one round.  $5,562,250 to go wheeled.

Starting wealth is $5,000, so you need 1112.45 times starting wealth to buy into this dream.

That's 50 points for Filthy Rich to get $500,000.  Another 25 gets the first level of Multimillionaire and $5,000,000.  Another couple (2) points adds another $1,000,000 getting you a total of $6,000,000 for 77 points and you now command a howitzer and a single round W48 warhead.

It's scary that this is technically possible if a player thinks ahead a little bit.

UPDATE:

The cheap route is to get a 152mm D-20 towed howitzer for $150,000, a deuce-and-a-half for $22,000 to drag it around and a 3BV3 round for $5,682,937.50.  Wait; that's not cheaper at all!

We Got Lied To

Both the US and USSR had stocks of nuke shells for their howitzers when The Cold War ended.

I was kinda assured that wasn't so when I did NBC training in 1987.

We were really worried about the chemical part of NBC but with all the yapping about IRBM's like the Pershing II, they sort of assured us that normal cannon-cockers weren't involved with the N part...

Well, I have GURPS stats for them now. 

Went Down Fighting!

The Lovely Harvey got off one shot before she became a casualty.

But she got 'im!

This was her first time out with her Sgt Barnes clone and she only had the very tip of the bottom of the butt in her shoulder.

To say that it smarted a bit GROSSLY understated the eye-watering pain she experienced and she was done shooting today.

I zeroed my Spitfire AR on Dottie.  I'm out of practice, I was hitting an 8" circle at 100 yards when I confirmed my zero.  I was a little distracted by Harvey hurting her shoulder, but that shouldn't have mattered this much.

Not sure I'm completely OK with the reticle on the Spitfire.  The center dot is VERY small and hard to see against pretty much anything.  I forgot to check to see if was better in red than green.

Eerie

Using the 40 kiloton W33 warhead in high-yield mode, we do 6dx17,889 cr ex linked 6dx11,628 burn ex rad sur.

The radius of effect from p. B414 is 2x the dice in yards, or 214,668 yards or 122 miles for the explosion.  139,536 yards or 80 miles for the flash.

The average roll of 21 on 6d gets 375,669 points of crushing damage from the explosion and 244,188 for the flash.

This is at ground zero.  So don't stand there if you can help it.

But the damage falls off fast!

Remember, the average 10 HP person is making death rolls after taking 20 points of damage, is automatically dead after taking 60 and is nearly unrecognizable as a corpse at 110. 

Nukemap says the radius of the fire ball is just 1,270 ft or 423 yards.

You divide the crushing explosion damage by 3x the yards from ground zero.  The burn explosion damage is divided by 2x the yards from ground zero.

So at 423 yards you take 296 points from the explosion and 289 from the flash.

Heavy blast damage (20 psi) goes out to 2,440 ft, or 813 yards.  Thats 154 points from the explosion and 150 from the flash.

Moderate blast damage (5 psi) goes out to 0.97 miles, or 1,707 yards.  That's 75 points from the explosion and 72 from the flash.

Radiation radius (500 rem) is 0.98 miles or 1,724 yards.  That's 73 points from the explosion and 71 points from the flash.

Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns) is 1.62 miles or 2,851 yards.  That's 44 points from the explosion and 43 points from the flash.

Light blast damage (1 psi) goes out to 2.5 miles or 4,400 yards.  That's 28 points from the explosion and 28 from the flash.

At the theoretical max blast circle, you take 0.58 points of damage from the blast.

At the theoretical max flash circle you take 0.9 points of damage from the blast and 0.88 from the flash.  Someone could punch you harder than that! 

For a bit of perspective:

An M67 fragmentation grenade does 9d[2d] cr ex.  That does an average of 32 points at the detonation point.

Don't be around nukes when they go off!

This, mostly, GURPS. 

The W79 Mod 0 dialed all the way up does: 6x2,966 cr ex linked 6dx1,928 burn ex rad sur.  Average damages of 62,286 and 40,488 each.

Fireball: 100 yards - 208 from blast, 202 from flash.
Heavy: 246 yards - 84 from blast, 82 from flash.
Moderate: 517 yards - 40 from blast, 39 from flash.
Thermal: 581 yards - 36 from blast, 35 from flash.
Radiation: 933 yards - 22 from blast, 22 from flash.
Light: 1,320 yards - 16 from blast, 15 from flash.

Dialed down it's: 6dx283 cr ex linked 6dx1,928 burn ex rad sur.  Average damages of 5,943 and 40,488 each.

Fireball: 38 yards - 52 from blast, 532 from flash.
Heavy: 110 yards - 18 from blast, 184 from flash.
Moderate: 232 yards - 9 from blast, 87 from flash.
Thermal: 255 yards - 8 from blast, 79 from flash.
Light: 596 yards - 3 from blast, 34 from flash.
Radiation: 613 yards - 3 from blast, 33 from flash.

These too, GURPS!

Toe To Toe With The Rooskies

In 1981 we developed another nuke round for the 8" howitzer.

It's something interesting.

The W79 is a radiation enhanced warhead.

Normally the burn ex rad sur damage is 65% of the cr ex damage in GURPS.

The W79 Mod 0's low yield mode gets the same burn ex rad sur damage as the full yield mode!

So the XM753 with W79 Mod 0 is a rocket assisted round that does 6dx25(0.5) pi++ linked 6dx283 cr ex linked 6dx1928 burn ex rad sur in low yield configuration.

It does 6dx25(0.5) pi++ linked 6dx2966 cr ex linked 6dx1928 burn ex rad sur in high yield configuration.

The W79 Mod 1 only has a single mode and does 6dx35(0.5) pi++ linked 6dx2530 cr ex linked 6dx1645 burn ex rad sur.  (I love how it lists a damage for the projectile before the explosion, though they're all air-burst capable).

GURPS range is -/24,600.  That's about 14 miles.  <- Fixed!

GURPS range is -/24,600.  That's about 19.7 miles.  That's safe, right?

14 is a bit short of the 19 Wikipedia lists.  I could be that's because they gave the velocity for a Zone 7 charge.  Rocket assisted rounds usually use the heaviest launching charge, so...  Using the velocity for a Zone 9 charge I get about 18 miles, which is closer (and might even be correct as the exact ranges of these things are classified.)

UPDATE: I forgot that this round was never fired from the short barreled M110 and was always used with the M110A2.

With a Zone 8 charge it gets 2,770 fps. and will go to 34,650 yards which is 19.7 miles which is nearly spot-on-close-enough to the range listed in Wikipedia!

This GURPS! Now... 

We Got Lucky I Think

As I tear into all these cannon and howitzer stats and make GURPS stats for tanks; I realize how near a thing WW3 might have been if it had started before 1988.

Our tank armor wasn't really sufficient for the guns the Soviets were going to be using against us.

Our guns weren't sufficient for the armor the Soviets were fielding.

One advantage we started accumulating was the ability to fight at night.  The Soviets lagged on that.

Our fire control stuff was far better, but that doesn't matter if you can't penetrate.

We could also shoot on the move better, but again, it doesn't matter if you can't penetrate.

We'd be in a similar situation as in WW2 when our best gun wasn't punching the front armor of the enemy, and we'd have to get around to the sides and rear.  Without being able to rely on the enemy's best tanks breaking down every ten meters. 

203mm 2A44

The Soviets made an 8" howitzer too.  It was introduced in 1975 and it's still in service.

The 2A44 gun is mounted on the 2S7 Pion self propelled gun.

The rounds weigh 227 lb. or 240 lb.

A nuke round was developed. 

I have ranges from wikipedia. 

Ukraine managed us US 8" projectiles. 

This is just about all I know about this gun.

I assume there's an HE round, because every howitzer has one.

FASCAM?  DPICM?  Chem?  Smoke?

Base bleed?  Rocket Assist?

Who knows!

A copy of Jane's Artillery '95-96 is en route.  Maybe it will have some answers.

Sort of related:  There's scanty information online about the gun on the M110 and M110A2 SPG's too.  Still digging there too.

Artillery Again

Did the 8" for the M110 tonight.  This gun comes up for both Twilight: 2000 and Funny New Guys.

Same green bag/white bag deal as 155mm.

M1 Charge (green bag), Zone 1 (base increment): 6.3 lb.; 806 fps.
M1 Charge (green bag), Zone 2: 7.6 lb.; 879 fps.
M1 Charge (green bag), Zone 3: 9.3 lb.; 984 fps.
M1 Charge (green bag), Zone 4: 11.7 lb.; 1,133 fps.
M1 Charge (green bag), Zone 5: 15 lb.; 1,358 fps.
M2 Charge (white bag), Zone 5 (base increment): 17.7 lb.; 1,432 fps.
M2 Charge (white bag), Zone 6: 23.1 lb.; 1,675 fps.
M2 Charge (white bag), Zone 7: 30 lb.; 1,950 fps.
M188 Charge, Zone 8: 40 lb.; 2,316 fps.
M188A1 Charge, Zone 9: 50 lb.; 2,510 fps.

The M188 charges don't come around until the mid-70's and are used with DPICM and HERA rounds.

The fun part was calculating the damage for the M422, W33 nuclear round.  Pairs well with the 155mm M785!

6dx17,889 cr ex linked 6dx11,627 burn ex rad sur for the 40k-ton high yield setting.

6dx6,325 cr ex linked 6dx4,111 burn ex rad sur for the 5k-ton low yield setting. 

Battle Of The 8-Wheel Armored Cars

Since I've stranded a LAV-75 in Libya fighting the Afrika Korps, how would it fare against a SdKfz 232 8-Rad?

First, armor.

The LAV has, in F, L/R, Rr, T, B order,  DR 90/75/50/30/30 on the body and DR 67/60/35/35 on the turret.

The SdKfz has, with the "bumper" plate: DR 83S/33/55/14/14 on the body and DR  62/62/62/14 on the turret.

The best AP round for the KwK.30 is the PzGr.40 which is an APHC round doing 6dx3(2) pi++.  That will roll an average of 63 which can penetrate DR 126.  Decent penetration on the front armor.

The KwK.30 is completely manually controlled and sighted, so...

The 6dx5(2) pi++ from the M791 round punches 210 DR, so no problem nailing the front armor of the SdKfz.232.

Again, thermal sights and full weapon stabilization are in play with the LAV and a powered turret with a much faster traverse than the hand-cranked German turret.

The SAS would, literally, murder people in their sleep for the LRDG to get hold of a couple of these.

Top To Bottom

 

The stack of mismatched ammo from this recent post appears to be:

1x 9x19mm ball.

2x 9x19mm HP

4x 7.63x25 Luger

4x 9x19mm ball. 

There are many pictures of guns seized by the cops with wildly mismatched ammo, but I think this is the first time I've seen the wrong round for the gun included. 

I Can Gut It Out

FEMA says I need to have 72 hours of food on hand in the event of a disaster.

That'd be my generous girth, Mr Government Man.

Plus, it's impossible to forget and very difficult to steal.

Not so good for sharing with the family... 

1986

I have the part number for the bolt that holds the crash-bar to the firewall.

11588735.

That's "Multi-Purpose Bolt, M8x1.25x100."

It originally appeared in an Opel in 1986.

Full description is:

This part is a bolt, hexagon flanged head, m8x1.25x100, 22 thread, 18 outside diameter, 8.8 steel, gmw3359, m-point intake manifold, for Chevrolet, Chevrolet Trucks, Buick, Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, GMC Trucks, Opel, and Vauxhall cars. It fits for 113 Opel\Vauxhall vehicles which were sold in the U.S., Europe, and the UK from 1986 to 2013. 

Really it's a bog standard Grade 8.8 bolt with zinc plating.

It's widely used too. 

I am absolutely not worried about cutting 1/4" off this thing anymore. 

What?

From the Baltimore City Crime Gun Intelligence Facebook page:

On August 23, at approximately 3:40 p.m., NED DAT detectives were in the 5400 block of Sinclair Lane when they observed an individual exhibiting behavior consistent with being armed. During the investigation, detectives arrested the suspect and recovered (1) Polymer80 9mm handgun.

The gun in question:

 

What is "behavior consistent with being armed?" 

About That 6-3 Ruling

Hey, blue states, you could have just opened up your voting rolls for inspection and proved that only eligible voters were voting.

Misrepresenting what's going on here seems to be the hallmark of the press.

I've long thought we make it too easy to get registered to vote and too easy to actually vote.

That sounds odd, doesn't it?

But what I mean by too easy is it encourages voting without considering what you're doing.

Voting is important.  Your vote matters.

If we required you to apply in person to register and only allowed you to vote in person, you'd at least have to take a moment to plan that action.

It's your sovereign franchise and you put less effort into it than deciding what you're going to watch on NetFlix.

That making it too easy also makes for casual fraud to occur is secondary to me, but the fraud is what's going to give me my druthers and make voting harder for everyone and still below my threshold. 

Just For Fun

The LAV-25 is a perennial favorite of Twilight: 2000 players.

How would the 25mm Bushmaster fare in the Libyan desert against the Panzer IIIG?

It would fare well.

M791 APDS-T does 6dx5(2) pi++ that rolls 105 on average and punches 210 Dr.
M792 HEI-T's 6dx4(0.5) pi++ linked 4d+1[2d+2] cr ex isn't gonna punch.
M919 APFSDSDU-T doing 6dx8(2) pi inc will certainly punch with an average roll doing 168 before dividing the armor in half, so it'd punch DR 336.

Even the Panzer IIIH is sweating against this 8-wheel armored car.

Of course, the frontal DR 90 of the hull and DR 67 on the turret of a LAV-25 isn't putting up much resistance against the 5cm PzGr39 (see previous post for how much DR that punches).

I think the thermal sights and stabilization on the LAV will matter a great deal.

Yup

In real life the 5cm KwK 38 cannot penetrate the frontal armor of the Infantry Tank Mk.IIA, aka Matilda II (A12).

The GURPS: WW2 book All The King's Men gives DR 300 for that frontal armor on the hull and 290 on the turret.

The 5cm PzGr 39 the Germans were using in Libya does 6dx6(2) pi++ with a linked 1d-3[2d+2] cr ex.

That will roll an average of 126 which will fail to penetrate the 145 DR the turret front is reduced to by the armor divisor.

This GURPS!

Likewise the QF 2-pdr on the Matilda worked against the Pzkw III Ausf G's DR 120 hul and DR 145 turret front.

The best 2-pdr round in the desert was the Shot APCBC/T Mk.I which does 6dx4(2) pi++ and averages a roll of 84 which should punch DR 168...  I say "best" but all of the AP rounds calculate to 6dx4(2) pi++ except the early AP/T Mk.IT which is what GURPS calls an SAPHE round doing 6dx6 pi++ linked 2d+1[2d] cr ex; that only punches 126 DR, barely adequate for the Ausf G.

The H has DR 230 in the front and rear and some of the G's were upgraded to the H standard by the Afrika Korps.

This GURPS!

Checked It Twice

Despite the sturm und drang over slavery, I double checked.

There's nothing that made the TL3 character from my TL Project illegal.

Thorvald is still a slaver.

He thinks of himself as a good guy, but most villains do. 

What Do YOU Mean You People

Speaking of exonyms and ethnicity.

Did you know that Italians were once not considered to be White?

Italian immigrants in America faced discrimination at least as severe as anything Blacks endured or are enduring.

I hereby claim my eternal victim status!

Or not.

The Irish went through this discrimination thing too.

At least twice and sometimes from the previous wave of Irish-Americans.

But since my grand-parents were not considered "White" when they arrived in America, then I am a person of color now!

Ah, to be rid of that pesky White Privilege!

Eskimo No Mo

Among the changes that they virtue signaled in 4eR was eliminating Eskimo from p. B137 under Gullibility.

“Of course the Eskimos are descended from Spanish conquistadors; everyone knows that!”

Has been changed to:

“Of course the Yupik are descended from Spanish conquistadors – everyone knows that!”

On the infamous p. B2 we have:

And then there were the words we were ashamed of – exclusionary words, prejudiced words, even outright offensive words. We were guilty of perpetuating ethnic stereotypes, and using terms like “crazy,” “cripple,” and “slave” in lazy, hurtful ways. In cases where the correction was simple – a person is “Black,” not “black,” and the culture is “Inuit” or “Yupik,” not “Eskimo” – we made it and moved on.

Speaking as a cane wielding cripple, I was not offended and I am increasingly offended by the able bodied being offended for me instead of asking me if the use of crippled offended me.

If you're going to capitalize "Black" you'd damn sure better capitalize "White."  Just sayin'.

But the Eskimo thing stood out.

It's not a thing in the USA.  The Inuit and Yupik thing is an article of Canadian political drama concerning "what do we call the first nations people so we feel better about conquering them?"

Oh, and you clearly did not make the change and move on.  If that were true I'd have only noticed that Eskimo had been replaced with Yupik if I compared the books page by page or remembered the example and tried to show it to someone else with the new book.

The two main people doing this revision are Canadian and I think their political zeitgeist is creeping in while SJ Games is being taken over by all the people they hired from Possum Creek Games.

It makes me sad to see the change because SJGames was the different company from the others way back when.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with their legacy and classic stuff.

The customer for Old West is looking to recreate movies and TV shows, not try to figure out who the fuck the Ndee are.

Never mind you can make a Gestapo agent as a character from their WW2 line.

Slavery is up front in both Greece and Rome.

Things that really happened are far harder to sanitize than a wholly fictional universe like Dark Sun.

It makes me wonder if we're going to have to call corn maize because corn is the name applied to it by Europeans. 

The Industry Might Be A Tad Insular

With rumors of Wizards of the Coast bringing back the Dark Sun setting without the core tenant of everyone BUT the 12 Sorcerer Kings being a slave of some kind...

AND

The "we know this will come as a surprise to you unwashed, low born, scumbag customers, but: Slavery is wrong!" in GURPS 4eR.

It makes me think that Steve Jackson Games was trying to get ahead of the Dark Sun release and be more virtuous than them.

If WotC strips slavery from the setting, I think SJG might have gotten themselves hoisted by their own petard.

But it's got me thinking.

Two different games, from different companies widely separated geographically BOTH on an anti-slavery snit?

Group think be real, yo. 

Fastener Design

In the ongoing saga of the two bolts that GM says that I need to remove the windshield to get at...

I cracked open my old text book.

The only threads doing any holding are the ones inside the nut.

Excess thread beyond the nut does nothing.  Only the engaged threads matter.

The video that got me worried about cutting them to remove them:

His contention is that the extra thread somehow catches again after enough force is applied to strip the threads from the start position.

I don't think he knows what he's on about because he keeps saying shear.  The shear force will be at the plane where the two parts meet and will break the bolt there; not cause it to slip down the nut.  Threads strip in tension.

If GM had really "highly engineered" this with the idea that an extra 1/4" of thread was going to grab after the engaged thread stripped; there'd be another nut on the end of the threads as a stop. 

My contention is this design decision was made to force the customer to go to the dealer to get the evaporator replaced because small shops don't have the ability to remove the glass.

But if you're really worried...

Cut the original bolt.

Replace it with all-thread rod.

Tighten it to spec with a nut at the top and use red Loctite® on that nut.

That would replicate the OE bolt. 

PS: Royalty Auto Services is the only source for this worry I can find.  Google cites them in the top three hits when you search for the issue.  Sorry, search for this non-issue.

PPS: The engineers that designed this are also the ones that lied about why they use torque to yield fasteners.  ARP proves them wrong over and over with regards of getting consistent torque.  Torque to yield is so a machine can do the torquing.  They're very good at counting degrees of rotation but not so much at measuring torque when you have a bolting fixture that does all of the head bolts at the same time. 

PPPS: If GM designed this all to collapse in such a way to put those bolts in tension during a collision, I think anyone injured in such an accident has an excellent case for substantial financial compensation. 

Phish Elsewhere

Got an email from a dead email account that still forwards...

It was in my spam folder.

It warns me that it's infected my operating system with malware and they used the camera on my computer to catch me doing naughty things while viewing an adult webpage.

They threaten they're going to send the video they took to everyone on my contacts list if I don't send a large amount to their bitcoin account.  They helpfully provide a string for doing so.

Well, scammer...

BRING IT!

I fucking DARE you; NO I double dog dare you to send a vid of me jerking off to everyone on my contacts list.

The worst I will get is, "Why the fuck, Angus?"

My contacts don't care, so titillate them, Mr Scammer.

Fingered

FuzzyGeff put his finger on why the virtue signalling in the new edition of GURPS rubs so wrong.

They really think we needed it explained that slavery was wrong.

Condescending is the word, I believe.

They're acting like they're a guiding moral compass, but they're a fucking toy company. 

Gen Set

Thanks to all who've made helpful comments about getting a generator.

We already have one!

It's just not worth digging out for a couple hours inconvenience.

Generally, by the time it'd be up and running the power company would have service restored.

A house sized UPS is prolly more what we want, but batts on that scale are still a bit spendy.

Maybe once we've paid off the house and AC work... 

New AC For The Inlaws

First off, FUCK YOU Joe Biden and your AIM act!

Fuck all you congress creatures who suck greenie cock.

A $3,000 compressor and air handler is now $8,700 because mixing R32 with something else is better for the environment or something.

Better for some chemical company's bottom line.

It's a good thing I have good credit, because we're financing this shit.

Should even be zero cost out of MY pocket because the inlaws are going to be making the payments.

Their old system still had R22 in it, and it wasn't new when we got their place in 2019. 

Fragile Tough

We had a bit of a squall run through here.

The power went out for about three hours and I now know that my uninterruptible power sources aren't good for that long.

A fan, light and radio, each powered by Ryobi One+ batts, do last for that long.

So I was reading a book when the power came back and everything came back online just like it was supposed.

I'm pretty pleased about that!

I learned that some people are better prepared for outages than me too!

I don't have the scratch for a whole house backup, but I am, officially, jealous now!