A Signal Newly Shattered

Kuwait

2008-04-15T02:16:02-05:00

I'm in Kuwait right now, waiting to go to Iraq. It's hot during the day but not scorching, and the nights are cool. We've been working really long hours and everybody wants to get to Iraq and stop messing around here. The internet access here is really slow but it's being uncharacteristically fast right now so I'm taking advantage of it.

Kinetic energy of a 120mm APFSDS-T

2008-04-06T16:47:00-05:00

The formula for calculating Kinetic Energy is 1/2m * v^2 where m is mass in kg and v is velocity in meters per second.

The M829A2 120mm APFSDS-T (armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot-tracer) round's penetrator weighs around 4.9kg and has a muzzle velocity of 1680m/s. That comes to about 6.9 megajoules.

The M829A3 has a heavier penetrator (the net doesn't know but I'll ask one of our Mike Golf's) and a muzzle velocity of 1555m/s. KE yet to be determined.

More interesting data quoted from http://www.frfrogspad.com/power.htm:
Lets see now -- KE (ft lbs) = (W * V�) / 450436. That gives us (65,870 * 5480 * 5480) / 450436 which boils down to (hold on to your hats!) 4,391,500 foot pounds (that's right 4.3 MILLION ft lbs). Sectional Density = W (in pounds)/D�. That gives us 9.41 / .6 * .6 which equals 8.4. (That's eight point four--and you thought your 220gr .30 cal bullet had high sectional density at .343 (that's "point" 343.) The newer M829A2 round throws a 10.85 pound , .8" dart at 5512 f/s. I'll leave it to you to figure out the details.
As an interesting side note, when fired at 55 degree elevation, it will travel 113,111 meters (123,630 yards or roughly 70 miles) and reach a height of 44,073 meters (48,171 yards or almost 27 miles). You are NOT safe if someone aims one of these at you. The accuracy of the dart is sub-MOA and the stated effective range is about 3000 meters (3270 yards). However, first round killing hits have been obtained out to about 6000 meters (6540 yards).
Sharp-eyed readers may note the 55 degree elevation for the maximum rage of this projectile. While spin stabilized cylindrical projectiles reach their maximum range in air at angles of between 25 and 35 degrees (45 degrees in a vacuum) the "dart is fin stabilized and not spun (the 120 mm gun is a smooth bore) and this gives it its maximum range at 55 degrees elevation--the fins keeping it point first through out its trajectory and providing some lift.

Cloverfield

2008-04-06T16:29:56-05:00

Just finished watching Cloverfield, probably the best movie I've seen in a long time. I thought the shaky cam would be really annoying, but it wasn't that bad actually (although on a big screen it would probably be vomit inducing). The characters were totally believable and most of the effects were perfectly done. I would have liked to see more of the Army, and you can't tell me a sabot round wouldn't put some hurt on that thing. I'm going to look up the amount of energy delivered by a 120mm APFSDS round now I think...

Trip to Hamburg

2008-03-21T16:21:04-05:00

I'm typing this from Philip Lapple's Wife's Father's House in Hamburg, Germany. Hamburg is about 600km from Baumholder, and is a pretty interesting place so far. I forgot my camera, which I can't believe. Lapple and Natalie are staying at her grandmother's house and me and Tom (Block) are stayinig here. It was nice of him to let us stay here. Tom and I are watching stupid videos on the net in his kitchen right now, and my battery is runing low so I'm about to take off. Update: Visited the Reeperbahn tonight, it was interesting but that's not really my thing. I've eaten so much this weekend it's ridiculous, most of the food has been really good though.

A surprise visit

2008-03-17T10:14:42-05:00

Got a big surprise today, SPC John Yokeley showed up. He used to be in A 1-35 but PCSed a while back to Schofield Barracks. Apparently it sucks there even worse than here. He's on R&R leave right now and decided to come here instead of visiting home. He'll leave about the same time we do, in another 2-3 weeks.

Smash Lab

2008-03-09T08:57:36-05:00

Just watched an episode of Smash Lab, and I think it'll be my last. It's Mythbusters dimwitted cousin. The crew (with the possible exception of Chuck) says the most inane things and have no personality. With Mythbusters 1/3rd of the show is geekiness, 1/3rd is the crew, and the last 1/3rd you fast forward through with your Tivo. With Smash Lab it's about 1/5th geekiness and the rest fast forward. Mythbusters' endless recaps have always annoyed me, but that's what Tivo is for (that and commercials), but the content to noise ratio on Smash Lab just isn't worth it. Stop doing pointless small experiments just to fill time, the thrill factor of a minor car crash has long since worn off. Show us the maths and get on with the real thing. Spend less time on the flat personalities and more time on the project build, the behind the scenes setup, and all the interesting technical details we want to see. Get rid of the narration and recaps. Stop being so safety conscious, we like seeing Tory get hurt on Mythbusters.

Random Updates

2008-03-08T13:41:00-06:00

Haven't blogged in a while so I figured I'd post some things I've been doing. Went rappelling the two weekends after leave near the autobahn. There was one really nice face I'd like to climb, but a guy told us it's off limits because 4 people died there, so we'll have to find some place else. Not like we have much time though since we'll be deploying soon. Last night went to Poseidon's with some of the guys (Koval, Southard, Block, Howson, Wollaston, and one other I'm spacing out on). Four of us got the Marathon Plate which is for 4 and it had so much meat we couldn't eat it all. Went over to Rick's tonight for some BBQ. Had a bunch of ribs and wings and chilled out for a while.

Back to Germany Again

2008-02-16T14:54:35-06:00

Heading back to Germany yet again, this time I probably won't be back for quite a while. I'm typing this from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport this time, I've got about 2 hours until my flight leaves. I had a pretty laid back trip this time, not going out that much or visiting too many people. One and a half trips to Meteor Crater and 3 days in Tucson with my Dad was about it. On Thursday I went to Chiva Falls with my Dad, pictures will be up on Monday. It was pretty cool, it was flowing good but it would be interesting to see it with a lot of water.

The Office

2008-02-08T17:35:00-06:00

The Office is the funniest show ever. Just finished the Ben Franklin episode, Dwight quizzing him at the end was hilarious. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Click on the images below to see the Amazon page for that DVD.

Aborted Trip to Meteor Carter

2008-02-05T14:42:00-06:00

Well, I had planned to go see the famous Meteor Crater today in northern Arizona, but about a hundred miles out I realized I left the battery for my camera in the charger. D'oh!

I decided to turn around at the next stop and try again tomorrow, or sometime later this week. At the next turn off on I-17, Stoneman Lake, the road looked interesting and I had never seen the lake so I decided to give it a try before heading back. Hoping it would be interesting but not too interesting because I hadn't my camera to take pictures of it. Well, it turned out to be interesting but not the kind I hoped for. About 5 miles down the road I got stuck in the snow. Luckily an older couple happened by about 15 minutes later and had a shovel, and about 20 minutes later I was out. I couldn't even take pictures.

The battery didn't even need to be charged but I wanted to make sure since I hadn't charged it since I got the camera (over a month ago) and had taken tons of pictures. DSLRs rock on power usage, especially when you use an external flash!

Update: It turns out that according to the web the lake has no water in it. I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or not, finding it's actual status would be interesting and maybe if it had a little water it would have been frozen. That would have been cool.

Portland

2008-02-02T14:55:19-06:00

I'm in the Portland airport, waiting for my flight using the free WiFi. It's great to be back in the states again, although not as good as last time. This makes my 6th flight transatlantic. This was one of the more pleasant ones, there was a decent amount of room in the plane and I slept most of the way. I've never flown to Portland before, will have to look at my old itineraries to see if it's shorter or not. It's a nicer place to fly than Chicaco or Houston though, since it doesn't get nearly as much international traffic. It is a pretty nice airport and really quiet. I'm was expecting a ton of people to show up going to the Superbowl, which is in Phoenix this year. Dowdy flew on the same plane as me but I lost him in the customs line so that should be the last of Baumholder I'll see for two weeks, Hurrah!

The Stabbing

2008-02-01T14:16:00-06:00

Somebody was stabbed tonight.

In the ass.

No, it wasn't serious and in fact is was rather amusing. I won't say who did it. I happened to be taking pictures of the snow from the 3rd floor and was on my way downstairs when it happened.

Pictures: The Stabbing

Wisdom Teeth

2008-01-08T22:53:00-06:00

Getting my wisdom teeth pulled today, it's going to be loads of fun.

Update: They're gone. The procedure went really quick, but the odd thing is I remember parts of it like it was fast forwarded. I bled all over the sink changing the gauze the first time, but since then I haven't needed any gauze and it seems to be healing nicely. I've been sleeping lots, half from the jet lag and half from the procedure I think.

I got some Percocet for the pain, but I've only taken 1.5 of them so far instead opting to take plain aspirin. The first half of a Percocet took the pain away nicely but not for very long, and the whole pill I took next made me sick and dizzy so I think I'll stick with the aspirin. I ate some solid food after 24 hours, not so bad just careful not to chew back there.

Update 2: I got dry socket. They put an 'artificial blood clot' in it which tastes like clove paste. blech! I have to go back tomorrow afternoon and hopefully get that stuff removed, it's really nasty. I really want to just chew something, really chew something, and knowing I won't be able to for a while is frustrating.

Heading back to Germany

2008-01-05T10:03:00-06:00

Well, I'm leaving to head back to Germany in about 4 hours. It was nice seeing everybody and spending some time back in the states. I'm really not wanting to go back! The flight will take up a whole day of my leave, which sucks. I'll be back in February though, that's not too far off.

Quail Hunting

2008-01-01T16:12:50-06:00

Went Quail Hunting with my uncle Mark and cousin Stephen in Wickenburg. We saw maybe 6 birds, it was a disaster. Mark got one of course and we spent the rest of the time walking all over the desert for more. Usually there's quite a few of them out there but they weren't there today.

SmugMug downloader

2007-12-27T10:23:00-06:00

I've modified a shell script I found on Tech Life of Recht to download my Pictures from SmugMug. You can download your entire gallery with the second script or just one album with the first. It uses MD5Sum to check the hash of existing files before downloading them, so you can periodically run it to backup your pictures without wasting bandwidth.

Bugs/Todo:

Files that have duplicate filenames will cause the script to download both but only save one

Expand it into a full sync up/down

Handle video (currently skips videos)

DONE: Store files in named Category/Subcategory/Album Name directories instead of AlbumID

DONE: Fix for the SmugMug URL Privacy Key added on Feb 8 2008

smugget.sh - Downloads an Album from SmugMug

allsmugget.sh - Downloads all Albums from SmugMug (in conjunction with smugget.sh)

albums.sh - Creates a mapping of Album ID to Category/SubCategory/Album Name

albumsymlinks.sh - Uses albums.sh to create human readable directory structure

Hosting provider change

2007-12-26T10:05:00-06:00

I've changed hosting providers to Site5. They offer effectively unlimited disk space and bandwidth, so I can now make backups of my photos (or anything else really, 1TB of disk is a lot) and host My Videos (in lovely h.264 format). I've also got my own IP address now, so that should help with the problems I had with the Military firewalls and the old site. Migration was a snap, a few tweaks here and there and that was it.

Christmas Leave

2007-12-23T14:03:00-06:00

I'm back in the states and at home in Arizona right now, it's good to be back. I need to pick my truck up from my Dad some time and visit the families for Christmas. The Defer Christmas is at Aunt June's this year. My camera is supposed to arrive on the 28th, the first order got returned because nobody was here to sign for it. I had to reorder and this time I'll make sure I'm here. The flash and 50mm lens are both here. I also got my flashlights from Quality China Goods, they're pretty sweet and should put the Surefire's we have at "work" to shame. My luggage left on the flight after me, I filed a claim and the delivery company was supposed to call today but nothing so far. I opened a ticket with Dell for my laptop and am hoping to have the repairman out here on the 28th so I can kill two birds with one stone. I'm hoping to get my projector fixed while we're here too, or at least sent off to the repair center. My computers here both work fine. My mom got herself a new HP laptop that looks pretty decent. Had to fix her email which hadn't been working for 3 months (she has been using hotmail temporarily). The Tivo upgraded itself and the Windows PC downloaded 59 updates. Speaking of killing birds, hopefully we can get a dove/quail hunt together for the new year. The cat is going to overload from too much attention, I miss having pets around.

Canon EOS 40D

2007-12-11T11:18:54-06:00

I finally took the plunge and bought a digital SLR, a Canon EOS 40D. I've been thinking about it for a while, and finally decided that since I'm so fond of available light photography I needed a camera that could handle it. I'll likely be upgrading my SmugMug account to Pro to handle the larger pictures and potential of selling stuff. The Pro account also has HD video support so I can start uploading some of my video too.

Back from Grafenwoehr

2007-12-11T11:13:30-06:00

I'm back and finally done with this year's field problems. It felt like a really long rotation even though it was only 2 weeks. Owned some targets with my SAW (as usual), and drove the 1SG around a lot but not much else to mention. Christmas leave is going to rock. The drive back took 12 hours 30 minutes and boy did it suck. I had to fix my windshield wipers by running a wire from the running lights to the wiper motor. Worked like a charm actually. Headlights needed rigging too, the wires in the high beam switch were corroded. Truck needed a new transfer case the other day too, she really didn't want to come home I guess. Temperature gauge is still on order. No pictures because I left my memory card in the barracks, there wasn't much to see anyway.

Back from Hohenfels

2007-11-21T03:13:00-06:00

Got back from Hohenfels last night, we're here for a couple of days then it's off to Grafenwoehr. It rained and snowed a lot and was really cold. We lived in tents whose heaters kept breaking and ate lots of MREs. I can't say I learned that much, it's all stuff you pick up in the first few weeks being in Iraq. Hopefully the guys who never deployed learned something, and it's always good to get them practice driving their tanks.

Hohenfels Gallery

Frozenfels

2007-10-20T15:52:00-05:00

Leaving for a JMRC rotation at Hohenfels later today. We'll be there for a month, then going back to Grafenwoehr for a couple weeks. It's pretty much Christmas leave after that and then we'll be in 2008. I'm not sure what kind of net access I'll have, but certainly not enough to upload pictures or anything so that'll have to wait for a while. It's been really cold in Baumholder and Hohenfels is supposed to be worse. The forecast is looking nasty, almost freezing and rainy. They don't call it Frozenfels for nothing, I guess.

Raven Training

2007-10-12T11:40:00-05:00

I returned from my Raven SUAV class at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama today. The Raven is a small unmanned aerial vehicle used by the US Military (and possibly others), details are on the first link for those who are interested. It's very easy and fun to fly, and my team's instructor (Ricky) was great.

It was great being back in the states, I've really been getting tired of Germany lately. The food was great, we went to: Denny's, IHOP, Arby's, Pizza Hut, Krystal, Friday's, Hooters, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and a local mexican restaurant (twice). Everybody spoke English, and the stores were open at reasonable times. I'm looking forward to my Christmas leave even more now.

Redstone was pretty cool too, it has all sorts of rockets and missile development groups including NASA. Most of our training was in the afternoon and evening. A typical day was a flight during the day and one at night. We flew pretty much every day except one, because of a tornado warning.

Raven Training Gallery

Frankfurt Car Show

2007-09-15T12:27:00-05:00

Went to the 62nd Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung in Frankfurt with Brad today. It was smaller than I imagined, with a TON of people. It was nowhere near as cool as the Geneva Motor Show and much more crowded. Still, there were some interesting cars there. On the way back, we ran into Mcdonald and Stowers in their rental car. It was having mechanical difficulties so we helped them out, ended up having it towed and taking them to the rental agency to get a replacement. We made a Mcdonald's run and got 18 cheeseburgers for 4 people, our new record. All told it took us 6 hours and we didn't get home until 20:00. For the record, the Mainz/Weisbaden area is a royal pain in the ass to navigate.

Gallery

Iraq Pictures

2007-09-10T10:42:36-05:00

I uploaded a batch of new photos from Iraq. They were in an unsorted folder I forgot about, until I remembered a picture of Kuwait City I took from the air. There's some good ones in there, especially the Misc and Redeployment galleries. The pictures of Kuwait City are in the Deployment gallery. Check them out: OIF 05-07 Pictures.