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Praetorium Honoris

Friday, March 1, 2019

Dingoes, Beaverettes, Greyhounds, Pumas, and Other Steel Beasts

Um, you might want to rethink the concept, Freddie!
F.R. Simms' Motor Scout, built in 1898 as an armed car.
Much better, you might want to work on the name though...
F.R. Simms' 1902 Motor War Car, the first armored car to be built.
From "armed cars" to "motor war cars" we eventually arrive at the armored car ("armoured" for you folks in the Great White Up, Down Under, and Across the Pond). Rather useful vehicles in a number of contexts, reconnaissance, riot control, patrolling, if you can't have a tank - an armored car is probably the next best thing.

The first military use of the armored car was by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12. The Turks called it the Tripolitanian War, the Italians called it the Libyan War, which will give you some idea of where it took place. It's how Libya came to be an Italian possession. Like much of North Africa it had been part of the Ottoman Empire. Oddly enough, it would see a lot more action involving armored cars 30 years later, when a fellow named Rommel came to "rescue" the Italians from the British Army.

The Belgians actually used them next, in WWI. They liked them so much they formed a Corps of Armored Cars. By the time they put the thing together the mobile phase of World War I had come to a close with everybody scrambling to dig trenches. So the Belgians sent the Corps to the East, to help the Russians.

Mors armoured car of the Belgian Expeditionary Corps in Russia.
Almost looks like the Russians want to buy the thing, doesn't it?

The next lot to use the armored cars were the Royal Navy.

Royal Navy Sarge, wouldn't they be using boats and ships, not cars?

Well, normally yes. But the Royal Naval Air Service (later combined with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force) sent aircraft to Dunkirk to help combat the Zeppelin menace.

The sausage lookin' thing, not the ship.
Not to be confused with these chaps -

Amazon
Seems the officers brought cars with them (surprise, surprise, surprise) and used them to go rescue their mates when the impudent Boche shot them down. As the Huns on the ground objected, the chaps figured it would be best to arm, and armor, their cars. Eventually the British government replaced those improvised armored cars with actual purpose design armored cars. But yes, all those trenches and the like made the going rather rough, so most British armored cars went East as well. Not to Russia but to the Middle East.

The use of armored cars was much more widespread in World War II, seems that everybody who could afford an army could at least afford armored cars, if not actual tanks. Most armies had both. The cars to scout with, the tanks to fight with. Some of them had rather interesting names as well.

Beaverettes of 53rd Reconnaissance Regiment on maneuvers in Northern Ireland, 1941.
I'm guessing the Canadians named them...
A Dingo with a Bren gun, followed by a Daimler Armored Car and a Humber Armored Car in 1942.
Three types of armored cars in one column. British efficiency?
Sd.Kfz. 234/2 Schwerer Panzerspähwagen „Puma“
Mean looking beast, innit?
(Source)
American troops in an M8 Greyhound passing the Arc de Triomphe after the liberation of Paris.
GIs in Paris. With a car. What could possibly go wrong?
Some of them were heavily enough armed that they could slug it out with other armored vehicles, such as tanks, long enough to get themselves out of trouble using their speed. The Germans were heavily into armored cars. Incidentally, Sd.Kfz is the German abbreviation for Sonderkraftfahrzeug or "special purpose vehicle." Schwerer Panzerspähwagen is the German for "heavy armored reconnaissance vehicle." Yes. of course, they also had a "light" version, the leichter Panzerspähwagen -

British soldiers inspect a captured Sd.Kfz. 222 Leichter Panzerspähwagen, North Africa, 1941.
Sarn't Major! How do you drive this bloody thing?
Useful vehicles when you don't have an actual tank at hand. Very good at crowd control as well. They were used in much the same way that light cavalry was used in the old days. You could use them in battle, but that's not what they were best suited for, supporting their heavier brothers, the tanks, was what they did best I suppose.

Heck, even the Air Force has armored cars. I've seen them used in Korea and other places for patrolling the base. Very useful against infiltrators and the like...

Security policeman aboard an armored vehicle participate in exercise Team Spirit '81.
So Sarge, how do you know those are Air Force guys?

Well, first off, the vehicle is made by Cadillac Gage (the vehicle name is the Commando), nothing but the best for the Air Force ya know. Secondly, there is no M-60 machine gun behind that big shield above the driver.Why? It's the Air Force, some lieutenant probably lost it. Lastly, the guy to the left of the gun shield has his "booger hook" inside the trigger guard of his M-16. A big no-no.

I don't recognize the base, I don't think it's Kunsan, but I know it's in Korea. That's where Team Spirit was held back in 1981. Yes, I was there but I wasn't off mucking about in the mud, nope, I was in a nice dry hangar, calibrating aircraft radars. Very civilized it was, though we did have to schlep around wearing flak vests and steel pots. We even spent a bit of time wearing our chemical warfare stuff as well. No fun that, even in a nice dry hangar.

I think juvat had rotated back to the States by then, even if he had been there he would be flying jets, the ones I'd calibrated the radars on. Also not mucking about in the mud like some primitive...
A staffer from the Pentagon was conducting a briefing for a group which included airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines one day, and posed the question: “What would you do if you found a scorpion in your tent?”

A sailor said, “I’d step on it.”

A soldier said, “I’d hit it with my boot.”

A marine said, “I’d catch it, break the stinger off, and eat it.”

An airman said, “I’d call the front desk and ask why there’s a damn tent in my room.”
In the Air Force, roughing it meant staying in a 2-Star hotel. With no pool.

Ask me how I know...




68 comments:

  1. As we all know, an M-8 that is very lucky can hunt Tigers successfully!

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  2. I sat in a Ferret scout car once upon a membership to the MVPS... I really wanted to get into that end of collecting old, cool stuff. But armour is heavy and expensive... I had three youngsters to feed, so I kinda faded out from the scene....

    That eight wheeled German machine is kinda cool.... I wonder if I could MAKE one now??? Hmmmmm......

    1981... finished high school at Rooster Poot, TX and started at Double TT high skool for the criminally inclined in Lubbock. Met my future wife.... That was a hinge year. Everything started to turn, set me on the path I'm on today....

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    1. Ferrets are really neat looking armored cars. I checked online, there were a few for sale, seems they get snapped up pretty quickly.

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    2. Yeah, 1981 I was at Moody and had met my future bride also. That picture looks like it might have been Taegu or Kwangju based on the lined up shelters. Those were the only two other two ROKAF bases I've been at. I agree it's not the Kun, nor is it Osan.

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    3. Yup, I'd bet Taegu or Kwangju as well.

      I thought you seemed Moody that year, or something. ;)

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    4. Looks like, except for the modern equipment, photos of Taegu when my dad was there in 53. Mud, frozen mud, SNOW and then frozen mud, mud, and then dust, then...

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    5. Well, based on that description, that could be any base in Korea, truth be told.

      :)

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  3. Hey AFSarge;

    Good Post, I remembered reading about the Royal Navy and their armoured cars in the middle east in WWI. I thought that was strange...but hey British do things different than everyone else.

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    1. The Brits always seem to do that. Often it's effective.

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  4. I would really like to buy a Ferret MK2. (any of the MK2 variants) It's the follow-on to the Dingo, and there are quite a lot of them in civilian hands. The hang up is not the cost. It's who would work on the damned thing when it broke, and you know that it will. It's a machine. I can muck about in a garage as well as the next guy, but spare parts and all of the tools (it would have to come with specialized tools) needed is something else all together. One day, if I live long enough, you may see me standing next to one on my blog.

    In the world of "cool", the Ferret is high on my civilian list. Going to war in one - in today's environment - uh, no. One raufoss MK 211 round through that thin skin would shred anyone inside. Maybe your next post could be on killing thin skinned vehicles (for fun and profit)?

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    1. Ferrets are awesome.

      I'm thinking of doing a post of what an infantryman can do when confronted with a steel beastie, armored cars, tanks, you name it.

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    2. Hmmm, that got me to thinking (always dangerous). If I had a Ferret, with a turret, maybe that guy that drives at 30 in a 70 would be a little more anxious to get out of my way. Course it only does 58, so the folks doing 70 might be a bit irritated at me, but....turret!

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    3. A turret forgives many sins on the highway.

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    4. Y'all need to check out armyjeeps.net. I've seen Ferrets and Commandos for sale there, once they had a Greyhound and also it's APC version.

      Oh, yeah, The Brits and then The Americans found it useful in WWII to take the turrets off of some armored cars and turn them into armored personnel carriers. The Brits did the same thing with some tanks, too.

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    5. I went there, started drooling, had to leave. WANT!

      Yes on your last. The Kangaroo springs to mind.

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    6. Sarge, if you do such a post on infantry vs. armour, don't forget the devices that didn't work so well - the PIAT comes to mind. And maybe minen would have their own post, given the variety ...

      Juvat, I have often wished for a means to clear the lane in front of me, including thinking about the various "James Bond" options like forward facing guns. But a turret would also work! And just having an up armored Humvee might work too, as evidenced in videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yco1deXOzN8

      Of course I've also thought about how useful a HARM option with reduced yield warhead would be in going through certain small towns where the majority of their revenue is derived from speeding fines!

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    7. Stay tuned for "How to kill a tank, if you don't have a tank."

      :)

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    8. @tom:

      I’d recommend some CHAMP-type solution. Non-lethal, plus you won’t leave any fragments of warhead behind for analysis.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-electronics_High_Power_Microwave_Advanced_Missile_Project

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    9. Won't work on an old tank. Primitive stuff.

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    10. Well, if there's enough traffic, a MICLIC would clear a whole lane for quite a while. But you'd need some sort of ram or plow to clear the mess..

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    11. True, A Hercules with a plow might do it.

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    12. CHAMP was for use on greedy cop radar guns, not tanks. :)

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    13. US 90 between Del Rio (Laughlin AFB) and San Antonio (Randolph AFB, yes I know Kelly and Lackland also but they weren't FLYING bases) was famous for two things. First, the legend was that someone had told the Iranian Student Pilots that the numbers on the black and white signs were speed limits. And Hondo, Bracketville, Castroville and Uvalde were Notorious for speed traps. My Vega had been repaired after it had gotten T-boned (I couldn't afford a new car yet.) and I was headed back to Laughlin late one night after Christmas leave. Because of the accident, it could NOT go above 60 and a hefty wobble started at about 55. So, it's just after Midnight and I'm going through Hondo. Out of nowhere, the flashing lights come on. I pull over immediately and the deputy sheriff goes through the license and registration routine. He then tells me he pulled me over for doing 70 in a 40. I told him my car wouldn't do 70 and I'd show him if he wanted to see for himself. "Take it up with the Judge." So, I took it up with the Judge. Took a day's leave and showed up at the courthouse. Judge calls me into his office. He's sitting there in a sweat stained wife beater 2 shirt, some lizard skinned boots propped up on his desk and a cowboy hat on his head. "What can I do for ya, boy?"

      "Just here to pay my traffic ticket, your honor."

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    14. Just to clarify, the speed limit signs ARE in black and white. The Highway Signs are also in Black and White (with a big black 90 on it). Most of the Iranians were from the more wealthy part of Iranian society. Virtually all had bought a Black t-top Camaro (this was just after Smokey and the Bandit came out) and thought they were SOMEbody!

      So, Law Enforcement wasn't entirely unjustified in their speed traps.

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    15. Police radar, should be outlawed. Politicians who rely on them for revenue should be thrown out of office and banned from any public position. I'd say hang 'em, but that seems a bit extreme.

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    16. We had Iranian trainees at Lowry, seems that all their sergeants could afford were old beaters. We'd see them careering around packed with seven or eight Iranians. Kind of amusing as long as you weren't in their path!

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    17. Sometimes people do drive too damned fast, so yeah, there's that.

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  5. As mentioned above, in the comment to a comment, my father (Air Force fighter pilot in case you all had forgotten) was at Taegu right after the war. It was tents, mud, wooden walking boards, mud, snow, dust, tents and Marsten Mat runways. Sarge would approve because the planes stayed above the level of mud and snow et al. Though they did have to protect the planes from the dust for the two weeks it was dry and dusty...

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    1. Gotta keep the planes out of the muck. Gotta keep the dust off (and out) in the summer months.

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  6. And, (hey, you think you could get me to stop talking?) armored cars, as mentioned, were needed and useful in places they could run. Flat plains or hard desert were the perfect environment for ACs. And they were also useful in cities where their smaller frames fit narrower Euro streets better.

    The Japanese had their ACs designed to fit the railroad gauge (width between the rails) of China so they could travel easily, as roads in China during WWII were sketchy at best.

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    1. Armored cars were great in the desert, useful in cities as well for the reason you point out.

      I remember that bit about the Japanese ACs. Clever.

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    2. Some of the 8x8 German armored cars even had limited trench crossing abilities. There's a lot of places you can go with 8-wheel drive. I really like the Puma. 7 forward gears, 7 reverse gears. The radio operator, whose position looked backwards over the engine deck, had a duplicate set of driving controls. So on a narrow forest track or in a city street, the Puma could get out of trouble as fast as it got into it while keeping the thicker, though by no means thick, forward armor facing the enemy. With 8-wheel steering, it was maneuverable. With a modern engine and transmission, truly a vehicle made for DFW traffic.

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    3. Not to mention that big gun, Larry. That would be a factor in city traffic anywhere. Well, except maybe Boston, those folks are insane! (And damned proud of it!)

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  7. The closest I came to riding/driving an armoured vehicle was an M113. One of the heavy equipment engineer companies in our Group had an armored bulldozer that saw service in WW II. As an aside, circa 1960's, several of our 5 ton trucks ahd welded over bullet holes and 1942-1944 manufactured dates. Would the Air Force use such old equipment?

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    1. Only if they were C-Rats issued during typhoons on Okinawa. Seriously.

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    2. I recall getting C-Rats during a Civil Air Patrol search and rescue operation. It must have been in the early '60s, so they wouldn't have been as old as the ones you were issued.

      Paul

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    3. Paul, CAP was still issuing C-Rats in the late 70's/early 80's. I didn't find them that bad, but then again, I think Chef Boyarde mini-raviolis straight from the can are an okay snack. Heck, C-Rats were IMAT food, and some of them were even more tasty than the early MREs.

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    4. Loved me some peanut butter with crackers.

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    5. Andrew: "...some of them were even more tasty than the early MREs." Depends on which of the MREs, and, of course, your taste buds ( or lack thereof ).

      Paul

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    6. OldAFSarge: " Loved me some peanut butter with crackers. " Me too. Playing in Team Spirit 86, the driver of the company commander ( I drove the artillery liaison team's M151 ) liked the cheese spread that was the alternative to the peanut butter. So he and I would trade when we got an MRE with the packet we didn't like. Worked out well for both of us.

      Paul

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    7. The cheese spread was also a favorite, just that the peanut butter seemed more filling.

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    8. "...C-Rats were IMAT food..." Andrew, you know that using an acronym not listed in the official Chant du Depart Acronym Page is a court marshal offence. You have 24 hours to rectify that situation before a court marshal hearing is convened. Conviction for such an offence is the loss of birthday and forfeiture of all cakes and presents.

      Paul

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    9. It Makes A Terd…

      And I have no control over the CdDAP. None at all. You'll have to see the big boss for that.

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    10. That one is not going on the Acronym Page, for various reasons.

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    11. Upon review, the court marshal board has determined that Andrew ( AKA Beans ) shall not be held responsible for using an acronym not found on the CdDAP; in part for the reason that the controlling authority for said CdDAP refuses to include said acronym for reasons unknown and in part for the reason that Andrew/Beans is not a responsible individual.

      Paul L. Quandt
      Chief Clerk, Court Marshal Board

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    12. While I'm not against scatological humor, oh wait, I am.

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  8. Anybody else remember this? Adam 12 @ the 22.00 mark--

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHJmmthklqY&list=PLHat9OEqFwPHSBVfCid5LFWLllalULQRn&index=24

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    1. Cool, I must have missed that episode.

      Only in L.A. man.

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    2. Yes, cool. However, just like DFCs to call an armored car a tank.

      Thanks for the post.
      Paul L. Quandt

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    3. They called it a tank?

      Perhaps I should have turned my sound up. (I was listening to music at the time.)

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    4. How cool was that? Can you imagine driving around in a Greyhound in LA now? You could almost hear people pooping on the sidewalk... wait, you can hear that already.

      Maybe the armored car in LA is a good idea after all...

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    5. And as I was driving around my socialist nightmare of a city to go to the student Target to get stuff for Mrs. Andrew, well, I remembered that Adam 12 episode. And really wished I had a fully loaded one that hasn't been de-milled. That 37mm would have done wonders on Mr. Skateboard dude...

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    6. Beans @1:24 - I'd love to do that, watch the progs faint with the vapors.

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    7. Beans @1:26 - Heh, Mr. Skateboard dude, we have them here as well.

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    8. By the way, DFC is another acronym which won't make your acronym list, I reckon.

      Paul

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  9. Heh. Many mentions of traffic congestion. Well now.

    Many years ago I had a conversation with an older gentleman who as a young lad (too young for WWII) had worked at a hole-in-the-wall gas station/greasy spoon along a highway in the area of southern Nevada, or thereabouts. Bomber crews flew countless training missions in the area, boring holes in the sky and bored out of their minds. The local sheriff got more than one call from angry locals who went out to find a row of 50 cal holes in their barn.

    He said that one day a family of four in their car pulled in where he worked. The whites of their eyes were still showing and their hands were still shaking. From the story these folks told, it seems that a B-17 came up behind them on the road and just about skipped the ball turret off the car roof.

    Gives me an excuse to post this (again)--

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlFD0Zyl_f0

    This next one starts near the end. Slide it to the finish and click replay.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8veDpPwFCVM#t=574.4493392

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  10. In his defense, the Airman with his booger hook has an M-16 loaded with blanks if it's loaded at all. A Gunny would beat a Marine's ass for the offense all the same though.

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    1. You noticed the blank adapters? Tuna, you're not just a pretty face are ya?

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    2. Oh, those are blank adapters? I thought they were launchers for the Air Force's square rifle grenades! :-)

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    3. Shh, no one's supposed to know that.

      ;)

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    4. One week of Marine Corps appreciation taught me something. That, and that I never wanted to join the Corps!

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    5. I am impressed that you remembered.

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  11. The last bit is completely true. One of the things I found truly amusing was the USAF maintained a complete Air Base in a couple hanger size warehouses called the Banz and in there were hundreds of air conditioned tents called Harvest Falcon and they could build an expeditionary base in no time. They I learned that it even included a swimming pool. Those guys thought of everything. I lived in that stuff in Egypt during Bright Star one time. Beat the hell out of Navy tents.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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