Gettin' It Stuck = comedy show!

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Well, we *finally* are getting some wet stuff falling out of the sky around here in NC. It's been so long, I forgot what that's called.....

Anyway, being inside for once in a couple of months, I was eyeballing what happened to be on daytime TV.

I tripped across the show on Discovery where they build custom choppers up in my old stomping grounds outside of Newburgh, NY. Orange County Choppers. What they call the show is escaping me at the moment....

Anyway, it's not something I usually watch, even though they've been on for years. I can't stand the fighting between the Old Man and the sons.

But, I saw it was on, and so I tuned in just to see what they might be building, and they were not at the bike shop. They were outside - must have been the house - and had managed to stick a tracked skid steer in a hole next to a pond.

I mean, it was half sunk. Stuck real good!

The next thing I see is the Old Man in a tractor/loader/backhoe coming to unstick the skiddy.

There is snow on the ground, and it looks rather icy to boot. Like heavy wet snow that froze into ice cubes.

I figured *this* might be the beginning of some quality comedy entertainment!

I didn't have to wait long, either. Pops got a chain onto the backhoe bucket and had it way up in the air and started driving. This worked - at first. Then the thing started sliding down the hill towards the pond.

They unhooked the skiddy, but the thing still didn't go up the hill. It slid right into the pond, hoe first!

It was quite a sight, as he still had the riggers down so it looked like a swan dive! The ice on the pond held the thing up for a second or two, and then - plop - down it went.

He gave it up, as it was not about to come out of there, but the next scene showed a dozer on a flatbed driving in.

I figured I was in for *more* quality comedy, and so I was!

The dozer driver tried pulling out the backhoe, but that didn't work on the icy stuff, either. Slip. Slide. And, one of those slides was the old sideways 'ice-skate' all us dozer drivers in snow country know all too well!

He got unhooked, turned around, and used the blade to dig the crap out of the ground to find some dirt. After which, he just yanked the hoe out, and then the skiddy and the show was over - at least for me.

Anyway, it was fun to watch someone else get their mess stuck - and on nationwide TV to boot!

later!

Stan

[oldtanker]

LOL getting stuck like that is real funny till it happens to you! I have many stuck tank horror stories Recovering an item stuck like you described is an art .

Rick

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Oh, yeah! It was only funny because (a) it was on TV and (b) it wasn't *me*!

When I was a teenager, the farm I worked part-time on had a pair of 3010 crawlers (no blades or loaders) that they used only for yanking out stuck tractors.

It was a 15k acre operation sitting in between two ridges (read that to mean some swamp-like spots) so the crawlers got plenty of use both during planting and harvest.

One of my jobs was to run one of the crawlers to unstick things. Sometimes one had to be pretty creative.

I like watching the shows where guys are going to tank school and get to use those specialized tank retreivers to unstick stuck panzers. Heck, even the winch units they use are impressive, much less the entire machine.

Later!

Stan

[Tigerhaze]

I like watching the shows where guys are going to tank school and get to use those specialized tank retreivers to unstick stuck panzers. Heck, even the winch units they use are impressive, much less the entire machine.

Hi Stan- it is funny you bring that up. My grandpa was showing me a book earlier this year that was written by a tank retriever commander that served during WWII. The interesting thing was that my grandpa was a tank driver during WWII and knew the commander personally. He showed me several pictures in the book and passages where he was there or knew of the events personally. It's funny how small the world is sometimes.

My grandpa has his own interesting stories about driving a tank- he landed during the D-Day invasion (after the beachhead was secured) and also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. There is at least one documentary that showed film footage of a tank column being bombed by the Germans-he pointed out his tank in the column shown in the film.

The best story was that my grandpa got chewed out by Gen. George Patton himself for crossing over and securing a bridge that he was supposed to leave alone as it was risky. My grandpa has always been a little cantankerous

If anyone is interested, I will ask my grandpa the name of the book about tank retrieval and the author.

[H-D]

Amazing story; I would be interested in the 'specs' for the book!

[Tigerhaze]

I am pretty sure this was the book- "Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II", published in 1998 by Lt. Belton Cooper. It is about armor recovery in the 3rd Armored Division, the same heavy tank division that my grandpa served in.

The attached summary from a Birmingham newspaper gives an insight into the contents:

http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/memoirs ... cooper.htm

I will confirm with my grandpa that this was the same book.

Once you read his attached bio, you realize that any of us crawler/tractor enthusiasts could have been in his position.

[cowboy4996]

I read the book and really enjoyed it. He had some good insight on some of the issues relating to why the tanks were made the way they were. I reccomend it as a good read.

[oldtanker]

LOL those WWII tanks were not very heavy by todays standards. Combat loaded they are a tad over 70 tons now. That makes for some interesting recoveries. When I was theaching Armor Tactics at Knox to new Lt's had a student stick a tanks so bad that I stepped up about 18" off the rear deck....took 2 retrievers to get it out.

I had the chance to talk to a son in laws grand father who served under Patton from North Africa to the end of the war on tanks. Very interesting to talk to.

Now I gotta buy another book....LOL!

Rick

[Tigerhaze]

Since you all are interested, I found something else related to use of crawlers in theater. I was researching purchasing a IH TD-18 dozer earlier this year (gasp) and during my research I found out they were used quite a bit for movement of artillery as well as tank clearing in WWII.

One website I found had some pretty neat pics of its use in WWII for this purpose:

http://www.olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_ih-td18.php

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Stepped *up* 18 inches to get off the *top* of the tank deck??

So, that means the gun barrel could lay flat on the ground.

Now, *that* is what I call **stuck** but good!!

And, I thought I've seen some stuck stuff in the past......

Later!

Stan

[oldtanker]

Actually the gun tube was slightly elevated....Bout the best thing about tanks is that 4 guys (the crew) could break track and put it back on with just tank mouted equipment in a couple of hours.....and that would include replacing blocks and or doing a repair. On my 2nd tour of Germany my tank was deadlined for track wear. Those were the days of work till end of mission. We got reman track, indivdual track block delivered on line at 1PM: on a cold Friday. I was acting platoon Sgt with a brand new butter bar. I had 8 men present for duty including the LT and me. At 6:15 that evening we parked and locked up the tank with both tracks changed, tightened, adjusted and the old track broken down into 8 block sections and stacked on pallets. This was with hand tools and the only power was the rope and sproket used to pull the new track up on the sproket. We had good people in the platoon who busted thier butts and the LT and I working with them....not just watching.

Rick