It's a good story but...

[Double_Deuce]

Originally Posted by mkr8683

It sounds to me like there's a misunderstanding of what it means to have a weapon boresighted. It's simply placing a laser-emitting device that looks like a cartridge into the chamber, aiming the weapon at a target, and adjusting the sights to wherever the laser is showing.

I can see where the term is being used in this instance due to in the old days, even as late as the early 80's you boresighted with 2 pieces of thread tapes to the muzzle of the gun, looked through the tube with binos, having the gunner manually lay the "cross" on the boresight panel while he also adjusted his sights to the same aiming point. Use a similar method without the thread to mark hull down positions to make sure the driver pulled up far enough so the gun cleared the berm.

Doing a Google search the only times this story comes up for me is when its been posted by this guy, almost exclusively in psychology themed forums, nothing on any military forums/sites.

Military types like to brag to other branches about what people in their branch accomplished back in the day and in all my years I never heard this one come up. Not saying it didn't happen/ just that I don't find the story all that credible.

[Cross]

I found one of anecdotes I've read:


The second shot from the enemy's giant cannon raced past a few meters above the roof of the
tank destroyer, but the third was on target. Bix noticed that the recoil guard of his own cannon
rose backward and felt the blow of the impacting shell. The fearful crash of the impact left him
deaf. Thus he did not hear the gunner report that he could no longer see, as the optics port had
been shattered.

Bix tried to open the cannon's breech in order to peer down the barrel and aim in that way. But
he found that the recoil guard was up at the edge of the turret on the inner armor. Now he knew
that the gun mantlet had been sprung from its trunnions and that the end was near for them.

Panzer Aces, Franz Kurowski, 1992, J.J.Fedorowicz Publishing



Cross