26th September 0800
Single Tank Battle Course! Day and Night firing. Prepared the tanks early in the morning, after which we did zeroing and boresighting and other boring technical stuff.
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| I'm such a morning person |
If you thought zeroing for a SAR21 was boring and difficult, try doing for a tank. MULPHA field was exactly that, a field. There was absolutely nothing for tens of kilometers around. No targets, no control tower, no firing lanes. Everything we had to set up. Target boards on iron pickets at the butt, a tonner for a control tower, and iron pickets with white tape to denote firing lanes. But anyway, we set up the targets concurrently and were ready to shoot by lunch.
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| Constructing a firing range from scratch, from control tower to target boards |
As the first detail mounted the tank, we were all aware that this was the first time we would ever fire a 120mm round. All the anticipation led up to this. As the first detail charged down the range, we watched it intently.
"14C firing!"
Silence
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| BOOM |
An explosion that sent vibrations through the ground, and a chilling feeling down your spine. It wasn't exactly LOUD, I've heard louder things, such as an F16 taking off. But the immediate feeling is a vibration that goes right THROUGH you, giving the shock and spine chilling sensation. That's about as far as I can go describing it without flying you to Australia.
For all you Battlefield 3 players out there who has always wondered, why the hell is there so much dust? The graphics are gorgeous, the lighting is so realistic, why would you spoil all that by adding in so much dust? Well the truth is, on an actual battlefield, a tank really does kick up that much dust.
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| What happens 0.5 seconds after the boom. |
As I stepped up to the plate, I was commander first. As I gave the order to fire, I stayed up in the commander's hatch and watched the target intently. Big mistake. As the round went off, the shockwave from the barrel, meters away from my face, knocked me back down into the commander's compartment. I also got a healthy mouthful of propellant exhaust and ringing ears for my trouble. I regained my senses and stayed down the next time I fired. The blast was surprisingly soft, being inside the tank makes it much softer than being outside I guess. The whole tank still rocks back and forth when you fire though, so hang on to something.
After a fun filled day of firing, we transitioned to our night shoot. And boy was it dark. Forget Singapore dark. This was a new kind of dark, a can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark. At least Singapore had some glow on the horizon. This was scary. But the stars, oh the stars. The stars were out in force, in hundreds, forming shapes and patterns I had never seen before. But they had always been there, just invisible. I contemplated that for a while. Firing at night was pretty fun. A blast would momentarily light up the whole range, casting a striking silhouette of the tank. An orange beam of light of the tracer would arc majestically downrange before finally striking the target and burning out.
The thing about tracers and Australia's dry, hot weather. They don't go to well together. In short, after about 20 rounds, we managed to start a forest fire. The fire burned so hot and bright, that our Thermal imagers got over saturated after some time. The fire would continue to burn for the entire night, covering tens of square kilometers, only stopping sometime in the morning, because it literally ran out of stuff to burn. An unnatural fog covered the whole range the next morning, delaying the firing until the wind blew it away.
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| That's not supposed to happen. |
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| Reminded me of Silent Hill |
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| Before. |
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| After. |
