Fun military stories
Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 3:10 am
Pair of interesting tales I ran across on Tv Tropes. Can't really vouch for their accuracy beyond the fact that no one has edited them off the site, but they are amusing. If anyone has some of their own to share, post em up.
The P-47 Thunderbolt was the largest single-engine fighter of World War II, known as the "Jug" on account of its shape. Gained 3,752 air-to-air kills (3,499 were lost to all causes). Seriously, seriously rugged. One pilot, Robert S. Johnson, sustained serious damage to his aircraft over France on 26 June 1943-including a fire. Unable to open his canopy, he managed to regain control. He heads for the channel, then gets a German FW-190 fighter (probably ace Egon Mayer, who was killed by another Thunderbolt after reaching 102 kills) arrive and empty his entire machine-gun capacity at the American pilot, who tries to move around a bit, but doesn't really succeed. The aircraft still stays going and the German leaves, saluting him by rocking his wings. Johnson gets back to the UK, lands safely and counts the bullet holes. After getting to 200 without even moving around the aircraft-he gave up.
In a nonfiction book of his (Armored Cav), Tom Clancy recounted a story of an Abrams tank in the Gulf War. Having been immobilized by an enemy shot while deep in hostile territory, the crew of the tank found themselves in what military experts would call "a crappy situation". In the space of thirty seconds or so the immobilized tank destroyed four enemy tanks, two of which got shots off, hitting the tank but completely bouncing off of its proprietary DU-laced armor. When reinforcements arrived they decided it was too much trouble to lug the tank back, and decided to destroy it on site. The American tanks took turns shooting another 8 or 9 times before the turret was penetrated, detonating the ammo stocks-which had little effect due to the blowout hatches installed. The tank's turret was taken back to the US for analysis while the chassis was refit with another turret and returned to action in a week. This tank's a God-damned "Battlemech".