//Way off topic content follows

Jeff,
Actually rooting for the Sooners today. Don't tell my mom 'cause she is from Nebraska. If the Sooners win there is a chance Ohio State win play in the championship game. I went to Purdue but you have to root for the Big Ten, right?

Shaun

Dave,
Essentially all you are saying is the a 37mm round could hit a 38mm circle once every 20k tries.
Keep in mind that (I am discounting the Panther's muzzle brake here) that the orientations of the two gun tubes would have to match exactly including the elevations. The Panther's degree of depression would have to match the Greyhound's degree of elevation.

The 37mm round is 49% as big as the 75mm gun tube.
A .22 caliber bullet is 49% as big as the bore on a .45 caliber pistol. How many times do you think a guy shooting a .22 at a guy shooting a .45 is going to put one down the barrel of the .45?

Not 1 in 20k tries.

Shaun

/Not being argumentative, just sayin'

I also remember reading an account of an M8 destroying a Panther during the Battle of the Bulge. Spent hours going thru my references and of course no luck so far. Seem to remember a point blank shot deflecting off the mantlet down into crew compartment tho, not thru barrel. Is that possible, I wonder?

The claimant comes from Troop D 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (Mechanised) of 7th Armoured Division. Follow the link to the after action reports from this page and it's about the bottom of page 6 (just search for the word 'Tiger')

http://members.aol.com/dadswar/87rcn.htm

I found another reference quoting similar text but attributed to Troop E, but they had assault guns which I presume were M8 HMCs

David

>> I didn't have to go there several thousand times before a fluke such as that could occur.

And why would you expect to go several thousand times? Because the odds of golf balls colliding are several thousand to one against?

They probably are. But we didn't decide IN ADVANCE to look for colliding golf balls.

If you had collided two darts, or two bullets, or anything else in that vein, I'm sure you would be telling us about it now. So perhaps we should ask, what are the odds that you ever saw two small things colliding? Those are surely better odds.

And why should it be you? We didn't pick you in advance. So perhaps we should ask, what are the odds that anybody reading this thread ever saw two small things colliding. Those are even better odds!

You can't figure the odds of something unless you know what it is beforehand.

All of this talk about the odds of something happening make me think this. The odds against winning 100mil in a lottery are pretty astronomical, but somebody always wins anyway.

OK,,,,,OK......OK !!!!!!!!!! I have not enjoyed reading anything in awhile here as I have this topic. While reading it, I remembered an even stranger story, which DID happen when I was with 3rd AD during the 1st gulf war. It may or may not apply, but what the heck right ?

Long story short, during the ground war, 3 bmps were observed to be retreating from thier position. Smoke was called in to indicate thier position's to either artillery or air support. One of the smoke rounds landed on the middle bmp, penetrated and caused it to go up in flames.

The concerns about the barrels having to be aligned isn't so important since both guns
would be aiming roughly at each other at the interesting moment and if the smaller round
hits the opening at a few degrees off the perfect alignment it would enter sufficiently to be
diverted into the larger tube, even with the muzzle brake.

/ Robin