After having 20 civilians, including women and children, climbing on the M1A1 in the maintenance bay without incident, some knuckleheaded student pulled the Halon fire extinguisher this afternoon.

Of course, no one saw who did it. Now we have to pull the back deck, take the bottles out, take the back deck and bottles out of the engine-less tank and swap them out. Then get the empty bottles refilled. No rides until this is done.

Silver lining is the photos of the back deck off of the tank when it happens. Had to happen at the start of our busiest month.

Man, glad I'm not there. If that was my training Flight in the Security Police Academy - we'd all be chasing the Marines about halfway through a 10 miler...

Gunnie

Rob,

That just proves what I always knew...If you think it's indestructable give it to a soldier!. :-)

Yep, give a soldier two iron balls connected by a steel chain and he'll lose one ball and break the other.

Sounds like good "corrective training" for your students.

I have to agree on the potential lies greater at home, and that this only cries for a training class for ALL!

My 2¢ worth of wisdom.

Dave

There always seems to be one dummy who just has to "see what happens if you pull this?"

I would be tempted to turn it into an after-class hours training exercise for the class involved. Let them lose some free time. Yeah, a couple of your guys may have to work late a night or two, but at least they won't have to do the work!

I sympathize with you Sabot. I love our soldiers, but sometimes they can just make you want to scream!

Sabot, sorry about the halon thing. However, on the upside, there is going to be a new sarcastic quote on my office door tomorrow, "Give a foundryman two iron balls on a chain and" etc. etc.

Thanks for the quote.

Shaun #:-) :-)

If oyu are familiar with the CO2 bottles in the 60 series,sometimes they would go off on their own.
The cause could be traced to a dum driver aiming the heater air deflector in the driver's compartment towards the bottles,rather than back towards the driver.So they would get real warm,and discharge.
But , at least we didn't have to pull a back deck just to swap them.
Sheesh,what a design. (++)

M1 has two sets, one in the crew compartment, one in the engine. Engine one was pulled from the outside by someone. Got to pull the deck to get at the bottles.

Hell Rob, sounds like my first week as a platoon leader. 1st day the Co walks me up to the motor pool down the line to a tank with its motor swinging on an 88 getting a new final drive. He says..there's your tank LT. The next day the #3 tank has a burned up starter. The day after that we have to go back in 'cause the 88 punched a small hole in the fuel cell.

Wash rack near the ranges,Graf,1977.
Someone lft their CVC helmet on the purge handle.
It was pushing down on the preheater button for the diesel fuel.
So all the air was burned up in the manifold.
Engine,of course wouldn't crank.
A slave start was tried,but no go.
Into that night I helped the BnMaint pull the pack,and they discovered,the slave attempt,on a vapor locked engine = bent con rods.
Someone ought to model an M-88 with an A/M resin M-60 engine swinging from the sling.
It was a common site in the 70's! (++) (++)

That ranks right up there with this, i was at an air show and a pilot was showing a kid the cockpit, the kid climbed in. A little before this the pilot flew in. Any way the kid was looking around when somehow he managed to pull the ejection seat handle, understand this is a rocket fired seat, the seat killed the pilot and the kid. Enough said. Basiclly if you do not know what is does DON'T TOUCH.

I have this seeming sick idea that all warning labels should be removed. Let the injured speak volumes over labels.