An American Chernobyl

i see the latest estimate is now 44,000 barrels a day?? wow

 

The Sherman was originally an infantry support tank... hence the low velocity 75mm gun. It was never designed to go toe to toe with Pkfw 4Hs and Pathers. The later model Shermans were better. Not a great tank, but a good one. Mechanically, they were superior to anything the Germans had IIRC. Looking at the numbers is deceiving. The russians lost T34s by the boat load, but because they were generally in control of the battlefield at the end of the day, they were able to recover and rebuild them. On average, a T34 was rebuilt 4 times during the war! According to Wiki (I know, I know...) the Soviets lost 6064 tanks and assault guns. Kursk lasted less than 2 months. So if you use numbers, you'd have to come to the conclusion that the T34 was rubbish, which wasn't true (it had some serious drawbacks, but some excellent qualities too).

 

The history channel just did a piece on the M18 Hellcat. Seems with its high velocity armor piercing 76mm main gun & 60mph top speed (hard to get a bead on it, if the opponent had hand crank turrets ) it was quite a thorn in the side of tanks with much greater armor - even though it was open topped.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M18_Hellcat]M18 Hellcat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

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The Sherman A had a radial engine, but when the US entered the war, radial engines went to aircraft. I can't recall the specifics of what the B and C were, but both weren't made in huge numbers. At least one of them was a diesel for supply to the British. The most numerous Sherman was the D, which had a Ford V8.

The Sherman was outclassed. I wouldn't say it was do to inadequacies in the design, as more the rest of the world's tank designs had years of conflict to find the flaws and improve them. The Germans used narrow treads in the beginning, and ended up bogging down like the Americans when they invaded Russia. But the latest Panther still had flaws. It was using drive gears that were made when the design 10+ tons lighter. They had break down rates measured in hundreds of kilometers. Around 75% of their tank force was deployable at a time do to that.

It sucked being in Sherman against a Panther, but it was reliable. Sometimes winning a battle is just a matter of showing up.

 

I have a friend who was a Sherman tanker in WWII and Korea. He said the crews called them "Ronsons" after the Ronson Lighter. Ronson's slogan was "Lights the first time..." Pretty grim humor.

Tom

 

'The Americans have difficulty with asking for help. They travel to the moon and Mars but in the area of removing oil from the sea they are like a developing country.' This is the comment you can hear in Europe.
For example, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has built a safety system along the coast. The dutch company Koseq delivered ships with cleaning devices. They were also delivered to Vietnam, Brasil, Iran and India. To quote there website:

"The Koseq sweeping arm has proven to be the best tool for recovering oil from the sea. This is demonstrated and proved by the independent EMSA document, which reports the effectiveness of various oil recovery equipment used during the prestige spill. In this case, the Koseq sweeping arms were the most effective oil recovery equipment used to recover oil. You can download the full report from the EMSA website."



Their director claims that, when they had been involved right from the beginning, they could have cleaned everything easily, and there would have been almost no oil on American shores.

 

The report seems to focus solely on tanker spills.

Oil spills are not all created equal.

 

Shermans were touted as the best tank in the world to tank personal. imagine their surprise when they got to Europe and were up against tanks that were nearly twice their size with hard to penetrate armor (German tanks armor was weakest in the back the front could not be pierced by American tank armor)

The Shermans were not so lucky. even hand carried weapons could penetrate them in nearly every location. but the Tigers, being a much more complicated vehicle, needed much more maintenance and often broke down. with little or no supply line, the Germans had to abandon them where stood. this fact is the largest single contributing factor allowing the Allied Forces to take over the Normandy Peninsula. Shermans broke down frequently as well, but were very easy to fix.

on a "side" note; it appears that the oil leak estimate despite the capture of a volume more than 10 times the original leak estimate, is growing again... 60,000?? wow

 

the high ground pressure was address by widening the tracks. It was pretty funny though that the Tiger II (at nearly 70 tonnes) had a lower ground pressure than the original Sherman. Knew about the "Ronson" moniker. Apparently, crews filled the ammunition bins with water to reduce the likelihood of the tank "brewing up" if it were penetrated.

Tank crews were forbidden from returning to their burnt out vehicles. They burned so hot that the bodies of tankers who couldn't get out typically shrunk down to half their normal size. It's no wonder that "Graves and Registration" troops were typically raging alcoholics. Poor guys.

 

I also knew someone who worked in tank recovery. The Graves and Registration troops got the big pieces, but someone had to clean all the ooze and pink mist from the bulkheads, behind equipment, and from all of the hidden spots. He said it was a horrendous job, and even after a thorough cleaning job the tanks still smelled.

Tom

 

Funny thing about Chernobyl is that it will be *good* for the surrounding environment for hundreds of years to come, until the radiation decays enough to allow humans to return. The entire exclusion zone is now a de facto nature preserve, with perhaps the richest diversity of plants and animals in all of Europe. Yes, it's true: people are more harmful to the environment than is radiation.

In contrast the Gulf oil spill does no good for any life forms except certain kinds of bacteria, but its effects will be mostly gone within a decade or two.

 

The 76mm high velocity gun that the sherman acquired after normandy was a decent gun. The 17pdr that the Brits put on it (and rechristening it the "Firefly") packed quite a wallop. The Israelis put a 105mm cannon on it and dubbed it the super sherman.

One advantage of the 75mm low velocity gun was that it was capable of indirect fire. Many a German 88mm AT gun was knocked out by Shermans lobbing light artillery down on it from covered positions. By 1944, however, it was a useless AT weapon.

The hull shape of the Sherman wasn't bad. Defo superior to the early war German tanks (Pzkpfw III and IV), and my understanding was that it was automotively superior to the Tigers and possibly the Pather (the later, in particular were excellent designs, but they tended to wear out gear boxes, etc pretty quickly).

 

Kids in the water



June Grass and sea weed, the dark spots are the little berries that fall off of the main plant



No oil here either




Those are photos from the FL coast.

Here is a few pictures of before and after the oil leak.

Before:


After:


Remove your children from the room...this will be horrible!

These poor, helpless people are about to die a horrid death from oil poisoning!










I tend to NOT listen to the media anymore, Or what garbage scientists spew on how much oil is leaking. They over generalize the issues from the get go.

Yes, I feel bad that the leak is ongoing and what has happened, has happened. They will fix it eventually and the leak will stop.

 

Jimmy,

Unbelievable!

Are you really trying to convince us that the oil spill isn't really much of an issue, using before and after pictures of Florida beaches? You state that you don't "listen to the media anymore", I might suggest that you do some independent research about the extent of the disaster! What do you think it will look like after another 68 days of as much (or more) as 60,000 barrels per day? (that is when they expect to have the relief well done, and maybe have it stopped, Hurricanes permitting!)

Speaking of Hurricanes, the first Tropical storm of the season is brewing in the Carribbean as we speak. If storm force winds are expected at any time at the rig site, all collection and drilling activity will cease ~120 hours before any expected event, which will shut down the activity for as much as 14 days. (Plus any time for the storm to pass!). This will inevitably lead to even more oil release into the water. (Not to mention the ability of the storms to quickly overwhelm any containment booms/artificial barriers)

Get a clue!

 

ok. this is uncommentable

 

Um ... why? If the wells are properly shut down, why would we expect any further oil releases?

Speaking of which, considering the high napthalene content of Gulf crude, shouldn't we consider air sparging to keep up with BOD?

With surface remediation of GRO's, DRO's, and RRO's, air sparging of the soil helps keep up with BOD and ensures that natural biological decomposition can occur quickly

Speaking of leaks, if this is true

Anderson Cooper 360: Blog Archive - Video: Was leak ignored on doomed oil rig?

and the ROV operator in fact DID notice a leak of the hydraulic control system on the BOP before the explosion, all the talk of an Acoustic BOP is academic.

The only way to properly repair a leak in the control system is to completely shut down the well, pull the BOP, and put in a new control package.

Again, if this is true, it is scandalous. This also makes discussion of improved safety devices academic, as no matter the technology, it must be regularly inspected and kept in good repair

 

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. My point was, any short term abandonment of the drilling rigs, or the recovery rig as a result of weather will lead to more oil spilled than would otherwise be spilled. This is because if they have to abandon the containment cap because of any storm, they will stop collecting,,, for up to 14 days after the storm!

I hope that is clear

 

Ah, that's entirely different