The Arrowing Experience, I won't spear you the details!

So. Some (most) people may have questioned my sanity as to why I decided to subject myself to the stones (explanation as to stones located below) and arrows of the Archery Booth(e) at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire in beautiful Gainesville, FL. To tell the truth, so have I. I mean, what normal person dons 50-75lbs of kit and caboodle and purposely gets pelted for 5 to 6 hours for 5 semi-continuous/contiguous days? Hmmmm. Just set myself up, didn’t I?

Well, let’s just go back to the core of the issue, shall we? SCA fighting. SCA fighting is something I never imagined I would ever do. Seriously. Growing up, I was that sickly, allergy-ridden geekish jerk that seemed to randomly collect other people’s fists on a regular basis. I was assured of at least 2 good, knock-down, drag-out arse whuppins and a double handful of random acts of violence every school year, pretty much from 3rd Grade to 12th. 

Not that I didn’t know how to fight, nor that I just gave up and rolled over and submitted. Noooo, that would have been too darned easy. I, for some strange reason, subscribed early in life to the ‘Frack-It’ fight philosophy, you know, the one that states, “Well, you’re here, DO SOMETHING!” Which means I, in my measly wimpy ways, didn’t ever know when to quit. Add to that the potential fact that I sprang out of my mother’s womb as a complete smart-arse and only got smart-arsier the older I got, well, not all pummelings were, maybe, totally unwarranted.

Artist's reconstruction of what Beans looked like to everyone around him when he was growing up.

Artist could not understand that Beans was skinnier and not nearly as good looking.

But, well, you get the point, right?
(Image courtesy of free clip art actually)

Add to that, all the really really goooood allergy drugs made me look like a, sorry folks, a spastic hit by a taser (Have I ever tripped?  Oh, yeah, Ballsy trips, bloody nasty, all on legal drugs.  And Sudafed?  Handfuls of the stuff, enough to make my heart explode, but it was either risk death by exploding heart or drown in snot, seriously, as in actually drowning in one's own snot.  Yuck.)  Hand-eye coordination sucked as a kid. My hands fluttered all by themselves, flappy naked hummingbirds, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Baseball was… interesting. I could catch, but throwing was ungood, and hitting, well, I was assured one triple a season, that is I would hit the ball once the whole season, and get a triple out of it. Soccer was… running, well, yeah. No chance at football. Never ever got anywhere near the minimals in the Presidential Physical Fitness tests (remember those torturous tests? Fracking hated them things.) Except for sit-ups. I could always rip through sit-ups.

Not saying that I didn’t do stuff. Friends and I used to have tar-ball and palmetto frond shaft battles on the beach near Patrick Air Force Base, FL. Wear a white shirt, toss a gooey tarball from the beach at your enemy, and it was like sticky paint-ball (the tar-balls are from natural petroleum seeps off the coast, Florida could be energy exporting in a big way but noooo ‘teh-envirogenment.’) And we used the palm-frond shafts to wail the tar out of each other. That was fun. Kinda hard on t-shirts, but, well, kids. And that wouldn't be any old palm stalk, no, that would be too painless.  We used saw palmetto because, well, free and SAW!

So, one day, sometime in 1979 or 1980, I read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine about the Burro Creek War at the Burro Creek campground in Arizona, a ‘war’ fought by SCA people and, wow, I was hooked. But never got a chance to get active until 1986, in Gainesville, and didn’t get into fighting until the year after. Totally hooked. But like most of my ambitions, totally hooked in a 'well, one of these days' unfulfilled ways.

SCA fighting is, well, hmmm. Imagine boxing. With football padding. While holding an axe-handle. In a Rugby scrum. And your head is the ball, stuck in a cooking pot. Yeah… Fun. No, really, fun! Real Fun. If you enjoyed dodge-ball, or its evil twin Smear-the-Q....(1), this stuff is made for you. Still to this day I practice my fighting footwork and body moves (usually where no-one can see me…) Seriously, after getting my arse handed to me all my childhood, I found as an adult I was actually good at some physical sport thing. Not the best, but I could and did hang with some of the best. You know the prizefighter? I was the dude the prizefighter practiced against before the big fight. But I could get in my own hits on the best, on about 20% of my shots. Not good enough to be ‘Best Quality’ but good enough to be ‘Good Quality.’ Good enough to make the Best have to work for a win.

I found that all those years of tenaciously chasing other people’s fists with my face and body during the good old school days gave me a large amount of ‘don’tgiveadarned’ over minor to major aches and pains. No serious blood loss, no broken bones, no penetrating trauma?  Then okay, walk it off, and return to fun.

Also, though I am not the fastest person, seriously, not fast at all (I can run almost as fast as I can walk…) I have staying power. Thus, at wars and archery booth(e)s where hang-time is critical, I could hang better than most. In fact, I was pretty much in the top 10% of gutting it out.

Hey, one gets one’s thrills where one can, right? Still cheaper and less dangerous than motorcycles, flying, parachuting, excessive drinking, hanging with Mexican gangs, trying to make socialists see the light...

Now, the Archery Booth(e) was/is an actual tent, on one side of a service road at the fairgrounds. We use the road as the shooter area, lining them up at the edge of the road. The targets stand about 40’ back from the road, on rough gravel, in front of a large dirt backstop. Standing on gravel. For hours on end. Really good shoes are a requirement.

So, as a target, you are facing the service road, an access gate to the grounds will be to your right. Towards the left will be the Booth/Tent, and the road will be ‘closed’ with a rope barrier that can be removed for service vehicles or ambulances to drive through. To the left of the Archery Booth(e) is the Northstar Archery booth, run by that Sir Erika lady, and then about 5 booths until a beer booth. (Hmmm. Erika. Nice lady, sweet, bit of a smart-arse. What is it with ladies named 'Erika'?)

How can a target stand being targeted with blunted arrows while standing on gravel for hours on end? ('On your feet' is the smart aleck answer some of you are thinking, amiright?) I hinted earlier in my comments that the comradeship of fellow fighters (whom we were allowed to hit, because, fighters) and the witty banter and heckling of us versus the fair(e) visitors and potential shooters, and… the scenery. Yes, the trees were nice, and occasionally a plane would fly over (one time a B-17), and we’d see some nice cars go by, but… scenery. 

Ren- and Medieval Faires tend to attract visitors and workers who kinda tend to dress to their interpretation of what Renaissance or Medieval clothing looks like. So… Everything from every bad movie (including that really horrible attempt at remaking the King Arthur legend from a few years ago, or that really bad Viking movie starring Lee Majors (“The Norsemen” using a jon boat with plywood sides as a ‘longship ,’ seriously bad,) to really good reproductions of period clothing to, er, uh, stuff you’d see from “Rocky Horror Picture Show” to people wearing ‘mundanes’ (meaning regular old clothing, normal stuff.)

Picture this. Lots of college-age and older people of the fairer sex dressed so as to display, well, uh… lots of scenery. Lots of scenery bending over to pick arrows up (to which the targets are perfectly placed for best visual recognition thereof.) And excited people of the fairer sex bouncing up and down when they shoot what they consider a good shot (sometimes that means it actually left the bow, rather than the 1 in 1,000 that would shoot the bow and be left holding the arrow – a major heckling offense, if ever there ever was.) And just… lots of scenery. Hey, last I checked I was still a semi-functional male person.

For several years, my friend S and I were the stalwarts at the Booth(e). And three booths to the left of the Booth(e) was a ‘magic wand and magic jewelry’ booth. Which had, as one of their workers, a really, uh, nice landscape scenery lady who wore a really skimpy interpretation of Pirate-Pron dress with high-heeled lady-of-the-evening boots and fairy wings (yes, translucent iridescent fairy wings.) And every hour on the hour she would put on a little fairy dance for about 5 minutes which involved lots of motion in a 3-dimensional manner and sometimes using contra-rotating motions and, uh, well, uh, yeah. So S and I would just kind of stop actively blocking non-faceplate shots and stare, I mean ogle, I mean observe, yeah, observe the fair(e) fairy lass and the female shooters would light our fat arses up like a low-flying Zeppelin over London in 1917 while the male shooters wouldn’t be doing much shooting as their attentions were diverted elsewhere, sometimes resulting in some spectacular rib-punches from accompanying females and at least one accidental discharge of arrow into some poor schlub’s nether regions which was rightly deserved and that only happened once, thankfully. The female booth(e) workers encouraged the female shooters to rightly punish us for admiring the performance, rightly, served us right, yeah. (Jealous female booth(e) workers, vindictive to the last drop.)

Men are pigs. (Hey, Mistress Andrew gave me permission to look at the lasses, just no touching and no being too uncouth, and she’d better not hear any stories, which, of course, she didn’t have to because, well, I love Mistress Andrew, and her mundane counterpart Mrs. Andrew, which does have something to do with her amazing collection of knives but NOT related to any fear of her using said amazing collection of knives on some poor schlub named Beans. And, well, I’m a pig.)

Now, the scenery was also pretty darned good for the ladies, as the professional jousters all seemed to look like a combination of Fabio and pro-football players, flowing locks and all (lots of swooning and following going on down at the jouster’s encampment. Bastiges…) And lots of other males that looked good or great or attractive, I suppose, but I like land… So the ogling was’t one-sided. Just wanted to clear that up. 

And it was always wonderful when Sir Studley or Master Fabio or Loose Ren-Shirt Good Looking Dude would wander over to our area and attempt to impress the ladies and we’d heckle the living daylights out of Lord Shmuckatelli as he’d have problems pulling a 30lb boy-scout bow. Oh, we’d lock our heckler systems on a target like that, get tone, and unleash heckle-hell upon our hapless opponent like a squadron of B-29s fire-bombing Tokyo, but with heckles, burning hot, phosphorous sticky heckles. Nothing says total humiliation as having a squad of teenage girls (usually the line workers were teenage girls, evil tends to congregate together for some strange reason) point at Muscle-Man and laugh while making lackluster bow-shooting moves to the soundtrack of a good Beans trashing. Pity not the Fool.

And then there were the guys who are wheelie-bowers (compound bows, they have training wheels) who could not master the startling simplicity of the self or recurve bow, apparently only a skill being mastered today by Boy and Girl Scouts. Seriously, how hard is it to hold an arrow between two of your fingers? Seriously, trigger releases? Robin of Locksley would die from an aneurysm from laughing so hard.

And there was the enjoyment of watching some snotty fighter who thought he or she was better than me get blasted. Oh, yeah, that’s right, forgot to tell you the target line was open season for cheap shots not just from the shooters but from the other fighters. So Mr. Better-than-me would get shot in the inside of the thigh or armpit by an arrow right before Beans hollers “Lay On” (being the SCA phrase for 'Fight' or 'Hit Each Other') and catches the unfocused idiot with a shield blast (take your ‘sword’ and hit your opponent’s shield really friggin hard. If you hit the shield hard enough, it will numb the arm behind it for a moment. Pain is funny in other people, no?) 

Much humor also when someone stupidly turns their back to the shooting line and gets bum-shot. (Never turn your back to people with loaded weapons..) And much much humor when someone is in mid-heckle and gets hit on the faceplate (it’s rather startling if you’re not paying attention and you get hit right in front of your eyes.) Not to mention the complete humor of watching someone swallow every curse-word and negative statement that has ever been invented because the 6 year old just nut-shot him, again. Ha. Laughing myself silly at memories. Schadenfreude, it exists at the Archery Booth(e). So does stupidity, which often leads to Schadenfreudistic actions resulting in Schadenfreude. (Beans can be a rather savage Richard when he’s having a good day.)

Then there's Chop. A nasty nasty Squire/Knight game. The Chopper goes to the Choppee and whacks him/her/it with the forearm. Choppee canna chop back, but must find a new Choppee or much shame will fall upon the Choppee. Rules are: No Chopping non-Fighters.  Can only chop on the upper chest if no arms or other body parts aren't in the way (blocking one's choppable chest area with arms, knives, boards covered in nails is A-Okay, just make sure the nails are pointed outward.)  Armored may only chop other armored, unarmored may chop anyone (yes, you can chop an armored chest with an unarmored arm, it just takes practice.) If you chop a person with a developed... landscape, must make sure to chop above developed areas, if you know what I mean. Chopping while getting shot at is an artform that Beans developed way past complete arseholeness. Heh heh heh.  My first, middle or last name is not 'Richard' but people seem to call me some derivation of that name, especially when being Chopped.

Oh, other good things about the fair(e) would be spending time with Mistress Andrew, doing some shopping at various booths for strange and unusual things (The Spotted Pony was/is a booth that sold furs and sundries that went well with medieval to American Civ-War reenactments, things like buttons, sewing supplies, bottles and such.) And there was always the 5pm half-price sale at Das Bakery Haus, which made apple strudel and other appetizing treats, yum. And so much more!!!

So. To those who questioned my sanity and asked if it was worth it? Yes. Yes it was. Very much so. Be doing it still if life hadn’t intruded. I need to get life unintruded and lose some weight and get my kit back on.

Now, about that Elephant…

(1) Smear-the-Q.... is the evil twin of Dodge Ball. Played against a wall, using a handball or racketball, the object is to throw the ball as hard as the thrower can at the target, called 'the Q.....' If the target is hit, the target continues to be the target. One throw per player, cycle through, repeat until recess is over or the target is missed or the ball is caught. If that happens, the bad thrower is now the new target and the game continues. 

As you maybe can tell, this was some sort of unauthorized fun-torture that we kids in the late 70's thought we invented. And some teachers tried to get it banned. Wiser heads prevailed. Surprisingly, though I could not throw for poop, I have always been able to shimmy out of line drives. Self-preservation powers most of my body, just not my mouth. 

Dusk 'til Dawn

(Source)

"Gebhard?" Colonel Raus nodded to the young engineer lieutenant as he led six of his men into the dim red light from the colonel's flashlight. Leaning over the map the lieutenant pointed and said, "Here?"

"Yes, the Soviet tank is right about there on the road, this field where you could make your approach is somewhat protected by this low ridge. You should be able to get close enough to take it out. Questions?"

"Nein, Herr Oberst, should be easy enough." Turning to his sergeant the lieutenant said, "Do you have any questions Horst?"

"Nein, Herr Leutnant. We can do this. But we'll need to get started, now. The nights are not that long, I don't want to be out there with my boys when the sun comes up."

Looking to the colonel with a raised eyebrow, the lieutenant waited.

At that moment another soldier jogged up to the colonel and reported that the anti-aircraft boys were about to emplace their 88 mm cannon.

"Show me on the map."

Briefly studying the map, the young soldier gestured and said, "We are here, yes?"

The colonel nodded, and the private pointed to the map and said, "The gun is going in here." Again the colonel nodded, turned to the engineer lieutenant and said, "Maybe your lads won't have to go in after all. Follow me." The two officers climbed a small knoll, the colonel pulled out his field glasses and then pointed towards where the Flak crew were setting up.

"They've got the setting sun behind them, the Russkis won't know what hit them!" The two men settled in to watch.

"Blyad'!"* Corporal Shukov blurted out as he climbed the side of the turret to where Captain Yershov was sitting. "Tovarishch Kapitan! There is a big fascist gun out there, towards the setting sun!" With that Shukov scrambled aboard as Yershov peered intently to where his loader had pointed. His eyes were starting to water from the glare of the sun. But sure enough, there it was, it had to be one of their 88s.

"Der'mo!** Valentin Alexandrovich, do you see him?"

As the turret turned in the direction of the big German cannon, Captain Yershov knew that his gunner had spotted the target, hopefully there was time. That gun would tear them apart given half a chance.

"Target acquired, Tovarishch Kapitan!" Without waiting, Smirnov fired.

As Raus and Gebhard watched, the Russian tank fired, there was no need for a second round, the 88 was gone, twisted steel and a dead or wounded crew all that remained. Raus lowered his head and sighed, looking up he said...

"Go, get it done, Lieutenant. Send in your men and Godspeed."

Scrambling back down from the knoll, the lieutenant had an animated talk with his sergeant, then he waved the engineer squad forward, leading the men himself.

As the night settled in, and the heat of the day gave way to a slightly cool breeze out of the north, the infantrymen of the 72nd tried to stay alert. But the heat and the shock of the past two days were too much for some, they fell asleep in their shallow foxholes, assuming the Germans would wait for the morning.

But they did not wait, the elite German combat engineers slipped quietly across the fields, moving up behind the slight rise of land between them and their target, sliding closer to their prey. Alert for anything out of the ordinary.

"Scheiße!" exclaimed the young German private as he fell into the unexpected depression in the ground, dropping his rifle and the satchel charge he carried. The young Russian he had stumbled over was just as startled, but the Russian reacted faster. The crack of a single shot echoed through the night, followed closely by a scream.

Peter Volker was in agony, the Russian had shot him low in the belly, the pain was nearly overwhelming. But the German's agony seemed to distract the young Russian soldier, he had never shot anyone before. He never saw Volker's fighting knife as it flashed into his groin. He screamed as if all the demons of Hell had been unleashed. It had been the young German's last conscious act, he bled to death there in the dark of a dirt hole scrabbled out of the meager soil of this Lithuanian field.

The young Russian was also in intense pain, but Volker's knife had not cut him anywhere immediately fatal. He managed to staunch the bleeding with his shirt tail. But he was afraid to move, or to cry out, where there was one German, there had to be more.

Leutnant Gebhard removed his hand from the sergeant's shoulder, then nodded, gestured forward. Whatever had just happened was over, for better or worse. But the tank still stood in the roadway, their target yet lived.

Creeping close to the road, then onto their bellies, two of the German engineers slid over to the big KV-2, they marveled that no one had seen them. They could actually hear the Russians inside the tank. They sounded worried. Out here in the open, there was just enough starlight to make out shapes, inside the tank had to be as black as a tomb.

Stuffing their satchel charges along the top of the KV's track, pressed against the hull, the two Germans pulled their fuses at the same time. Both turned to run as the bright light from the burning fuses silhouetted them briefly in the dark.

One of them made it to cover, the other was cut down by a Russian sergeant from Leningrad. Wilhelm Sigismund was dead before he hit the ground, his best friend, Wolfgang Lechfeld, upon reaching cover turned to see if their charges would do the trick. In the light of the two explosions, one after the other, Lechfeld saw the crumpled form lying in the road. He knew then that Willi was gone.

What was worse, the big tank's track slithered and clanked down off it's rollers. The tank's hull was unbreached. The KV wasn't going anywhere, but it was still a potent threat and the Russians were alert now. There would be no second chance that night.

Leutnant Gebhard and Pionier Lechfeld were the only two engineers to survive the assault. The attack by Pionier Volker on the young Russian and the resulting piercing scream alerted the Russians as to what was afoot. After the satchel charges had gone off, they had swept the field to their front with machine gun and rifle fire.

Volker and the Russian soldier he had wounded were found two days after the battle. While the Russian's wound had not been immediately fatal, given the lack of medical care available during the fighting around Raseiniai, the Russian's wound reopened and Private Ivan Ivanovich Koniev bled to death, unable to crawl back to his comrades.

As the dawn broke, Yershov's tank was still in play. Unable to move, but it still blocked the road. At this point, an entire German panzer division was held in place. By a single Russian tank, its brave crew, and a handful of infantry under a wounded Sergeant Major.

(Source)

* A rude Russian word I learned watching Russian dash cam videos. Something that rhymes with "truck."
** Another rude Russian word, this one I had to look up. Think fertilizer.

The Hunters, Hunted

Panzerjäger* I

(Source)

"I'm giving you a platoon from the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry, Leutnant. Patrols tell me there is a single Russian vehicle blocking the main highway just south of this little village, Raseiniai, I think it's called. Knock that bastard out, send a runner back when it's clear."

Lieutnant Wengeroth nodded and snapped out, "Jawohl, Herr Oberst!"

Oberst Erhard Raus, commander of Kampfgruppe Raus, which consisted mainly of one full regiment, the 114th and a single battalion of another, the 1st of the 4th Infantry, of his own infantry brigade, the 6th, of the 6th Panzer Division, nodded with some satisfaction. So far the invasion had gone like clockwork, prisoner interrogations revealed that they were facing the remnants of a Soviet Mechanized Corps, the Third.

The KV-1s of the enemy corps had come as a bit of a shock to his tank commanders, the small shells from their Panzer IIIs and IVs tended to bounce right off the big Russian tanks. But his on call air support, an entire group from Stukageschwader 3, had beat the Soviets up badly that very morning. The wrecks of a number of KV-1s and other support vehicles littered the fields around Raseinai, the oily smoke pyres marking the last stand of the Third Mechanized.

Or so Raus thought.

Ju-87 "Stuka" Dive bombers.
(Source)

Kurt Baumann sat on the back deck of the Panzerjäger I, just behind the two man gun crew and the small shield meant to protect the crew from small arms fire. He was just behind the vehicle commander, his sergeant Willi Klepper was on the right of the vehicle, his MP-40 at the ready. Kurt's K98k lay next to him, with all the brush to that side of the road, he didn't feel it necessary to actually hold onto his rifle.

"Baumann, pick up your verdammte rifle. Won't do you any good lying on the deck!"

Arschgesicht, Kurt thought to himself, but the left side of the road was clearing anyway so his rifle was now in his hands, at the ready. What does Klepper think I am, some damned rookie?

As he leaned out to see around the gun shield, Private Kurt Baumann, of the 2nd Squad, 3rd Company, 1st Battalion of Infanterie-Regiment 4, saw the biggest damned tank he had ever seen. Just sitting there. Bigger than even some of the tanks the Frenchies had.

Oberfeldwebel Artur Schlichter also saw the big Soviet tank, first he barked at the driver to halt, then looked to his loader, who already had an armor-piercing round up the spout of their Czech 47 millimeter gun. Bending his eye to the gun sight, Schlichter laid the gun on the target, low on the enemy tank's turret (which was turned so as to present the left face of the turret to Schlichter's vehicle), then barked...

"Feuer!" as he triggered the cannon, sending the round down range. Over the bark of the gun, Schlichter swore that he heard the round ricochet off the side of the Soviet tank at the same time seeing sparks fly just where he had aimed the gun.

"Reload! Schnell!" he screamed at Klaus Becker, his loader.

"Panzergrenate geladen!" Becker screeched as he slammed the breech block of the 47 closed.

Again Schlichter bent to the sight, noticing that the turret of the Russki was starting to turn...

In their direction.

Triggering the gun, he saw the round impact the enemy vehicle again. Again to no apparent effect.

"Scheiße! Reverse Hans, reverse!"

Schlichter was dimly aware of the two infantrymen jumping off of his vehicle and their squad mates scrambling to get out of the vehicle's path as the driver, Gefreiter Hans Landes began to back up. In his peripheral vision he noted that the landsers were heading for the ditches along either side of the road.

Baumann saw the flash of the Russian's cannon from where he lay in the ditch, without thinking, he buried his face in the dirt, both hands clasped over his helmet, rifle forgotten...

The big 152 millimeter round from the Soviet vehicle hit near the top of Schlichter's gun shield, exploding and reducing the top halves of Schlichter and Becker to a bloody mist. The driver, Gefreiter Landes, lived perhaps five seconds longer than the rest of his crew. All he felt was a vast numbness before he slid into unconsciousness and death. The pressure from the high explosive round killed him, not a fragment had touched him.

The explosion from the KV-2's big round, after tearing the top half of the small Panzerjäger into scrap metal and killing the entire crew, engulfed and killed or incapacitated most of Feldwebel Willi Klepper's squad. At the same time, the wrecked vehicle, still rolling backward, ran over Klepper's left foot. Saving his life.**

Baumann was deafened by the explosion, it felt like his head was stuffed with cotton. He was bleeding from both ears, his ear drums partially ruptured, he was also slightly concussed. His condition was survivable, what he did next was not.

Struggling to his hands and knees, Baumann saw his sergeant writhing in pain next to the wrecked Panzerjäger, holding his lower leg. Baumann thought it odd that his sergeant had his mouth open and seemed to be screaming. He was puzzled that he couldn't hear him. Then he staggered to his feet, determined to help his sergeant.

"Cannon reloaded, Serzhant Smirnov!" shouted Efreitor Nikolay Anatolyevich Shukov as he slapped his sergeant on the back. Private Arkady Petrovich Rogov stood by the ready rack, prepared to hand Shukov another round when needed. Nothing fancy, no calculating to do, all they carried was high explosive, the rounds were heavy, they could only carry twenty of them. Rogov had counted, now there were fifteen.

"Tovarishch Kapitan! One of the fascists is still alive!" screamed the bow gunner, Private Mikhail Gennadyevich Vasiliev.

"Then shoot him Mikhail Gennadyevich! Nikolay Anatolyevich, slew your gun to nine o'clock, I see more of those fascist self-propelled guns." His comment was punctuated by another German anti-tank round glancing off the top of the turret. The inside of the Dreadnought rang like a bell for a moment, as the turret slewed to engage another German vehicle.

Klepper was in intense pain, his foot was still attached to his leg but he knew it was crushed. His metal shod boot had been bent into an odd shape, causing him further pain, but as near as he could tell, he wasn't bleeding. Much.

It was then that he saw the young landser from Oberammergau stand and turn towards him. No, no, no.

"Get down Baumann! Get..."

He saw the 7.62 rounds slice through the young infantryman, killing him instantly. Young Baumann crumpled to the ground and didn't move, his sightless eyes still fixed on his sergeant. Klepper, in all his pain, had the odd thought that Baumann looked...

Surprised.

Platoon of German Czech-built Panzer 35(t)s advancing
(Source)

Just after seeing Valentin Alexandrovich's gun disassemble another German vehicle, Captain Smirnov saw a deployed platoon of German tanks coming into view over one of the gentle folds in the ground which were common in this part of Lithuania. All rolling plains or swamp he thought. He also noted that the light was starting to fade. Night was coming.

He would have to rely on Starshiy Serzhant Ivan Petrovich Tikhonov's lads from the 72nd to keep the fascist infantry at bay during the short night. He was confident the Nazi tanks would hold in place, for now.

The morning however, then we shall see how badly the fascists want this road...

Colonel Raus looked in disbelief at the young lieutenant, "A single Russian tank. One tank destroyed four of my Panzerjägers, and destroyed nearly a full platoon of infantry?"

"Jawohl Herr Oberst. From the description one of the survivors gave us, it has to be one of those big KV-2s, the assault howitzer."

"A survivor? Where is he?"

"He's wounded, Sir, they're about to evacuate him..."

"Gottverdammt Leutnant! I didn't ask you his condition. Where is he!?!?!"

As the chastened lieutenant led his colonel over to the dressing station, he saw them loading the sergeant with the crushed foot onto an ambulance. "You there, Sani! Hold up!"

The medic (Sani, short for Sanitäter), gestured to the stretcher bearers to wait. The lieutenant looked frightened, the colonel looked very angry.

"Oberfeldwebel! What is, mein Gott, is that you Willi?" Raus had known Willi Klepper since Poland, a good man to have in a fight.

"Excuse me for not getting up Herr Oberst. Whatever the Sani gave me is working well, I am feeling no pain. I daresay I shall never dance again though."

As the colonel looked askance at the medic, the medic mouthed the word 'morphine.'

Nodding at the medic, Raus continued, "What did you see out there Willi?"

"A very big Russki tank with a very big gun. Had to be a KV-2, the thing ate our panzers and my squad like we were nothing. The 47 rounds just bounce off." Klepper began to sing "Erika."

Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein

und das heißt: Erika.

Heiß von hunderttausend kleinen Bienelein

wird umschwärmt Erika

denn ihr Herz ist voller Süßigkeit,

zarter Duft entströmt dem Blütenkleid.

Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein

und das heißt: Erika.

"Go ahead, Sani, get him to the rear." Patting the sergeant on the arm, the colonel turned to the lieutenant -

"Send a runner to the Flak Bataillon. We need one of their 88s. Now!"

If the feared 88 millimeter FLAK 37 can't crack that Soviet tank, then nothing could. By morning we shall see, the colonel thought.

88 mm Dual Purpose gun, Russian Front
(Source)

* Panzerjäger = tank hunter (literally "armor" hunter)
** He would be evacuated back to Germany, crippled but alive. He survived the war, the sole member of his company to do so

Other notes:
Leutnant = lieutenant
Oberst = colonel
Infanterie-Regiment = infantry regiment
Tovarishch Kapitan = Comrade captain
Landser = German military slang for an infantryman
Oberfeldwebel = master sergeant
Feldwebel = sergeant
Serzhant = sergeant
Gefreiter/Efreitor = corporal (German/Russian)
Arschgesicht = German equivalent of "asshole, literally "ass face"
Starshiy Serzhant = sergeant major

I have seen the Elephant...

Nay Fewmets, I was verily at the appointed place…  Kitted up, shield freshly re-painted, surcoat cleaned and mended, cup holder and cup in place, armor dickey fastened, emergency tasset and…

What?  You don’t have cup holders where you’re from?  Must not have sports fans either.  Yaknow, atheletic supporters?  Not beer bottle holders.  Cup?  That molded piece of plastic that hurts after wearing it for 1x6 hour  shift followed by 2x8 hour shifts after a weekend of 2x8 hour shifts.  And I prefer the banana nose version vs the flat version, less overall  pain over long term use.  Ladies wear ‘Jills,’ which are armored pads that cover down there.  Have we reached TMI overload yet?

Armored Dickey?  Dirty minded people.  No.  See, when you’re wearing a standard gorget, and not a Spanish Gorget, the neck and part of the clavicles are covered.  Spanish gorgets..  Okay, okay.  A gorget, pronounced gor- (as in gorgeous) and jay (as in the bird), so gor-jay.  Not gor-get or gor-gert.  It’s French.  Okay?  Gorget is a piece of unattached armor that covers the neck, worn over the protective padding or in addition to a maille head covering (either attached to a maille suit – a hauberk or haubergeon, or as a separate piece of armor – a camaille.  Not an aventail, that’s a maille drape from a helmet…)  So your gorget is neck protection, okay?  Got it?  Stop giggling, darned it.  So yer Spanish gergert…gorget has a wide section at the bottom of the part that covers the neck that extends over the clavicles and down the cervical vertebrae.  My personal gorget was not of the Iberian variety, so I had no extended clavicle coverage.  So I made a panel (of pickle-barrel plastic, covered in black cloth) that served the same function as the front lower portion of a Spanish gorget.  Seriously.  An armored Dickey.  For my clavicles.  Dirty minded people. (Especially since I told you my dicky (sorry people, the whole lot of you) was already armored by the aforementioned non-beverage holding CUP!)  Yeesh.

A standard SCA type gorget (we call them dog-collar gorgets.)

See, not a lot of clavical coverage, but at your throat's covered.
from:  http://www.wintertreecrafts.com/items/gorget.html

This is a 'Spanish Collar' style gorget.
Neck is still covered, and now the clavicles are.
(not copywrited)

Tassets, by the way, are those armored hip protector thingies that, well, cover the hips.  Or, in this case, the area already partially covered by the little fireman’s protective cap, so to speak.  Okay, here’s the actual description:   Tassets are either single plates or segmented lames (strips of material, think Roman armor) that cover the hips and upper legs, split down the center and on the sides.  Worn either only on the front or both front and rear.  So, armor flappy things that hang down from the belt line.

The flappy things are tassets.
The solid skirty piece at the bottom of the breastplate is a fauld.

from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulds_(armour)#/media/File:Faulds.jpg

So, why the serious sounding post title connected to a weird discussion over weird armor for ouchy spots?

Because, it’s time for reminiscing about… The Hoggetowne Medieval Faire!  Yoikes and Away!  Hip-Hip, Jolly Good and all that.  Yep.  A friggin Renaissance Fair.  Weeee…  But not any Ren-Fair.  It’s the Hoggetowne MF!  So much Better!  

Holy Fish! A picture of SCA fighters with me in it at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire!

I'm the one on the left, holding the white shield with blue frets on it.
Whoo-hoo!  Finally, proof I exist!
And notice the fancy quilted surcoat my mom sewed for me, white with blue frets on the skirt!

And my red(ish) belt!
from:  https://www.naturalnorthflorida.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/faire-2.jpg

So.  Long time ago, the City of Gainesville, Florida, in order to promote the beautiful Thomas Center and it’s gardens, decided to hold their version of a Ren-Faire, and since it was being put on with the help of the local Society for Creative Anachronism group, the Barony of An Crosaire, it had to be a medieval fair(e) so, well that’s how it started.

The first year was small.  The second year was a little bigger (and I was Friar Tuck, seriously.  The Tuck himself.  Wee!  Big Adventure!)  The third year the City got greedy over the Fair(e), and the SCA’s direct participation was removed and responsibilities shifted to the city, so they hired some beautiful lady (whom I was and am intimately acquainted with) to be the coordinator and the Fair(e) outgrew the beautiful gardens at the Thomas Center, with professional acts and stuff, not to mention the city workers who worked in Thomas Center B complained about the smell of elephant pee in their parking lot (Ha, you’d never think I’d get to elephants, did you?  But not those elephants, just wait for it.) (And who knew elephant pee soaks into cheap asphalt and lingers for months, bwahahahahaha.)

The next year, the beautiful lady moved the Fair(e) to the Alachua County Fairgrounds, out by the Gainesville Regional Airport (one of those airports, you know, found about every 30 miles or so, built during WWII by the Fed Gov/Military and then expanded over the years.  President George W. Bush landed there in 2004 in Air Force 1 and then immediately left this leftist puss-hole and drove down to The Villages below Ocala. (Seriously, the place is called The Villages, capitalized letters, lots of old fart conservatives live down there, no weird attack weather balloons, though.)

So, 4^th and 5^th years went well, the beautiful lady got un-contracted from her coordinator’s position, and we got to go to the Fair(e) as visitors and finally enjoy the sights and sounds, right?  Well, no. 

See, the Hoggetowne… Okay, side note.  At one time Gainesville, Florida was originally Hogtown, Florida.  Little known fact.  Also used to be a major crossroads for in-Florida railroads (referenced by the name ‘An Crosaire’ in the SCA Barony of the same name.  Subtle, huh?)

So, though the SCA local group was no longer running the HMF (whew, got tired of typing all that folderol) and instead shifted, like our Puritan fathers and mothers after they ditched socialism, to making money.  Filty lucre.  Dastardly dough.  Cretinous cash.  Get my drift?  Yep, on it like Venetian merchants on unsuspecting pilgrims new business prospects.  The local group went into selling delicious and refreshing liquid refreshments of the non-alcoholic variety (yah, sodas, so?  Wadya expect? Sekanjabin?  Really?)  And the real money maker, the Archery Booth(e). 

Archery?  Yawn.  Boring.  Been there, shot that, don’t see the point in it, right? 

No.  Not archery, but… Archery.  SCA Combat Archery-ish.  Shooting at stupid people brave knights in armor.  One Shot 50 cents, Three Shots a Dollar, Hit a Knight in the face win a soda…  It’s like it was drilled into me.. Oh, wait, it was, but I get ahead of myself.

Seriously?  Combat Archery?  What?  Okay.  The SCA fighting stuff is all about THE PAIN without THE DEATH, so no actual shooting real pointy arrows at SCA fighters, nope (though, in one spectacular failure of smarts someone actually did, but in a roundabout way.)  No.  We shoot at each other with what used to be wooden shafted arrows with 1 ¼” wooden dowel (closet rod) sections covered in padding and Duck Tape (of course.)  Used to be.  Then the powers that be finally allowed SCA archers to go to fiberglass shafts (Why?  Because some turd-burglers would go around stomping on the arrows and break them.  Go to a war with 300 arrows and leave with 15 or so.  Jerks, jerks are everywhere, even in an organization where Chivalry and Courtesy are supposed to be what we’re about.)  And with the fiberglass shafts came… Baldar Blunts. Named not after the Norse god who died from an arrow of mistletoe but instead named after Duke Baldar, who decided he could make a rubber and plastic ‘arrowhead’ that could be mass produced commercially and sold commercially, thus revolutionizing SCA Combat Archery.   Oh, and you are only supposed to shoot them from 30lb pull or less bows (and crossbows that meet specific draw-pulls and other technical garbage that I used to know but would have to go consult the SCA Combat Archery Dash-1 for the exact specs.)

Here’s a link to a friend of mine’s webpage where she and her husband sell the darned things.  She’s the cute lady Knight shooting one of them.  Those big shields with the Norse raven on them.  I ran one of those shield s.  For years.  Me and my V-shield were bestest friends and we were a force together.  Oh, here’s the link:   http://www.northstararchery.com/SCA_combat_archery.html  She also sells lots of traditional archery stuff.  If you do regular archery, especially non-compound bow shooting, she's a really great resource for stuff.

The UHMW head, cross section and finished Baldar Blunt.
Sick, sick minds thought these things up.
from:  http://www.35footspear.com/?q=content/tutorial-making-fiberglass-ammo

Look at the arrow head.  Yes, they hurt when they hit.
That's Sir Erika.  She owns the company that makes the blunts.
Those big shields?  That's a V-Shield, baby.  V as in Varagian.

from:  http://www.northstararchery.com/SCA_combat_archery.html

So.  Combat Archery.  Hoggetowne Medievale Faire.  Archery Booth(e).  Armored people.  Beans used to wear armor.  Beans was talking about weird armor pieces and..

Yes, okay, alright, I used to get shot with blunted arrows at a friggin semi-Ren Fair(e) in January next to an airfield at a county fairgrounds where one weekend it would be friggin hot and the next weekend would be blowing 30mph and COLD!.  And I did this for FREE!  And FUN!  AND PAIN! OMG THE PAIN!!!

What?  What about all that armor, Squire Beans? (I r not a knight, I r a squire.  Titles matter, seriously.  Red-belt, not white-belt.  Further explanation in a future post, because sometimes the cart does come before the horse.)  What about all that armor (without the extra tasset hanging over the cup region and the armor dickey?  Well.  The first shot in a semi-armored place isn’t too bad.  Armpit, inside of thigh, side-moob, the clavicle region (my normal harness doesn’t cover my clavicles, because I didn’t allow people to hit me in the clavicles, duh,)  and the insole of my size 13EEE gunboat feet (for I had no sabotons (armored foot covers) the flesh behind the cup, first shot doesn’t hurt (much.)  But imagine.  Standing there, for at least 5 hours a day (meal breaks, bathroom breaks, wife breaks, it all cuts into armor time,) shot after shot hitting the thinly armored parts of one’s body, over and over again and OW!  So, therefore, the extra tasset where I normally wore no tasset and the armored dickey.  Still ended up hurting.  The target people can block shots with a shield except for face shots (face covered by armored grill) but still, sneaky bastige shots sneak in to nail the cup, the armpits, the inside of the elbow, my friggin FEET and so forth.  Hey, get shot in the same place enough times with a bb gun and it will hurt.  Trust me.

Oh, funny story before the funny story before the funny story…

You may have gotten that I have a bit of an attitude and a bit of a mouth on me, right?  So, one of the fun parts about getting shot in the parts over and over again is the heckling.  Not from the shooters, but from the shootees.  And guess who was the champion of the verbal cuts?  If you think it’s your dashing hero, Squiree Beans, yep, ‘tis I.  Master Heckler, Baron of the Burn, Lord of the Loudmouth.  Surprised?  No?  Okay then.

So.  Heckling.  Heckling is good.  Pick on the idiot man/boy with his girlfriend, talk about how you are sooo scared of the masterful power of the archer, the weak quivering arms, the shaky body, the useless tyrannosaurus wrists, the mincing steps, oh, I have nothing to fear from the guy in the (whatever) ball cap, but your girlfriend, she’s a killer.  And it works.  (Insert sound of cash register here)  Pick on their teams, pick on their choice of clothing (“Hey, You, you in the ‘Aeropostale’ jacket, do you know what that means, punk?  That means ‘Air Mail.’  Ha, ha at you, Double Ha.”)  Things like that. 

One year this kinda nice looking Gothy lady shows up and starts plinking shots down range and she… sucks.  The line workers try to help her, and she’s clueless, they’re clueless, clueless all around.  So I, being a man of Courtesy and Chivalry, step up from the target line and help her, mostly finger positions, holding the arrow between the middle and index finger, how to draw the bow, hold the bow slightly tilted to keep the arrow on it, how to pull, how to hold the bow so it doesn’t catch one’s… front, yeah, front and how to release.  She really was a good sport, kinda nice in  a pissed-off emo gothy way, had some issues with men I found out later.  So, I get her shooting relatively well, and then go back to the target line to get shot and I lay into her with the major heckling, not saying anything nasty, just, well, heckling.  Heckled her, the people around her, how Goths catch on fire when exposed to sunlight, things like that.  Oh, and I slaughtered the Emo Cultists (bunch of moody emo gothy teenagers who were talking smack and not backing it up, so GAME ON, BOYOS!  And I guess she had to stand up for her tribe, because she kept going back and getting more arrows (three shots a dollar) and plinking away and finally, after like 10 cup shots, 2 side moob shots, an elbow shot, two shots to the insole of my right foot, 5 right clavicle shots (this lady was the reason for the armor dickey, made it that night) and finally she nailed me in the faceplate.  Probably cost her $20 or so. 

Next day, there’s the Queen Emo Goth, in the line.  Spent like$40 shooting me that day, winning about 4 sodas and causing me to just about pee blood from all the cup shots, and she just about crippled me from pegging my toes and such.  (Hey, you try dodging one particular shooter while being targeted by 10 or more others.)  Following weekend, Empress Gothy is back.  Bout crippled me for life.  Thank God it was the last weekend that year, as I barely could walk for a week.

Next year, the sky darkened as Queen Empress Emo-ness of Goth is the first person on the first day.  She lit my fat arse up like a football stadium at 10pm.  Next day, Blam.  She appears in a cloud of fire and brimstone and blasts away.  Next weekend comes, and the Mistress of Darkness and Pain shows up, even more dark and emotional than ever before and she’s not aiming for the top-helmet, if you catch my drift.  She’d wait until someone else fired a non-face shot and I’d automatically block it with sword or shield (yes, you can cut arrows out of the air with a sword.  I’ve done it against an 80lb bow firing an SCA arrow (strictly against the rules, by the way) and it just takes seeing the launch and you’ve got a good chance of cutting it out of the air.) and then Darkness Herself would smash a shot in my nether region.  Over and over and over again.  She wasted about $50 on my waist region.  Finally, she stepped away, and I took a break. I asked her why, in the Name of God Himself, did she keep targeting my little soldier?  Her answer?  Her husband was now her ex-husband.  I went home that day and made my front-tasset while all my fighting duds was awashing (hey, I hate, hate, HATE putting on dirty fighting garbs.  It’s not like the washer and dryer weren’t not just right there as I headed into the house.)  So, next day, after about 20 shots from her that were not eliciting high-pitched squeels of pain, she switched to targeting my clavicles, which I had already armored, so then she switched to shooting me in the toes.  Witch.  Mean mean Witch.  All this time I am trying to banter and heckle and make fun of people and all I wanted to do was to curl up in a ball in a closet somewhere and cry in pain.  The lovely Mistress Andrew came by and talked to the Dark Witch of Emo Gothiness and after a brief time of laughing, the lovely Mistress Andrew gave the DWoEG permission to shoot me anywhere, anytime, and laugh about it.  I think the DWoEG left the Fair(e) that year feeling much better, almost as if there was an inverse correlation to the amount of pain I was in.  Funny that.

This sado-masochistic relationship continued for years and years.  I could always tell how the DWoEG was feeling by what particular place she was blasting that particular day.  She became quite a skilled shot.  So skilled that the Female Knight Lady who sells Baldar Blunts tried to recruit her to join the SCA as a combat archer just because she was so skilled at blasting through my defenses (hey, I wasn’t the best at offense, but no-one ever could say my defense sucked.  Beans was strong on Defense.) The DWoEG didn’t take up the offer, much to everyone’s chagrin.  Seriously.  She was that good.

About seeing the Elephant… Oh, yawn, it’s late, it will have to wait for another day…

Dreadnought*

(Source)

The massive Klimenti Voroshilov Two (KV-2) assault howitzer rolled to a stop. The driver, one Private Pavel Ivanovich Zhukov from a tiny village in the Urals, kept complaining that the "road is mushy Comrade Captain, there is too much mud, he wants to slide into the ditch."

Captain Pyotr Sergeivich Yershov had felt it as well, the road was churned up from the heavy vehicle traffic in the area. A fast moving rain shower had provided just enough moisture to muddy the road. As one of the few good roads in this part of Lithuania, both the Soviets and the Nazis had been on it since the German invasion just a few days before.

Captain Yershov hated to admit it, but they were somewhat lost. He thought they might not be too far from Kaunas, but he wasn't sure. He had traveled a lot in the Baltic states prior to the war. But he had been young and had paid perhaps a bit less attention to the countryside than he had to the young ladies in his youth group.

"Take it easy for a few minutes, boys. I need to talk to the infantry."

As Yershov climbed down the side of the massive turret, an infantry sergeant major came over, but not before yelling at one rustic looking private that his hole needed to be a lot deeper or the fascists would surely make his young wife a widow.

"Tovarishch Kapitan! I am Sergeant Major Tikhonov, 72nd Infantry. My major is busy looking for the rest of our battalion, what can I do for you?

"Da, Starshiy Serzhant, is your infantry to stay and defend this crossroads? As we," gesturing to the KV-2, "have no prior engagements, perhaps we can stay and help. We too have no idea where the rest of our battalion is."

In truth in the few short days since the German Army Group North had rolled across the border into the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic nothing had gone to plan. The fascists were seemingly everywhere, their thrice-damned Stuka bombers were unopposed. More than one curse had been levied at the Red Air Force. Of course, the captain had no way of knowing that most of that force had been caught, and destroyed, on the ground.

"Yes, Tovarishch Kapitan, our orders are to hold here until we are relieved."

"Very good Starshiy Serzhant Tikhonov of the 72nd Infantry, we shall..."

Yershov paused.

"What is your full name?"

Drawing himself rigidly to attention, the soldier barked, "Starshiy Serzhant Ivan Petrovich Tikhonov at your service, Tovarishch Kapitan!"

"Very well, Ivan Petrovich, I look forward to killing fascists with you!"

Whistling, the captain strolled back to his vehicle. With infantry in support, they had a chance. As long as those damned Stukas stayed away!

And so begins another of my sojourns into writing historical fiction. Valued reader Bret suggested that one of my endeavors to craft something entertaining might well be turned to the subject of that lone KV-2 at the Battle of Raseiniai in Lithuania which I posted about the other day.

I've done a bit more research on the topic, I didn't realize (though I should have) that the battle took place in the first week of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. That there was a bit more to the fight than a lone Soviet vehicle I should have known. There were infantry in the area, also a few KV-1s, the Dreadnought's smaller cousin.

While the plot for a full novel has yet to coalesce in my fevered brain, I have snippets of stories that may or may not be weaved one day into a vast tapestry of...

Yeah, yeah, calm down Sarge, let's not put the cart before the horse.

MrGarabaldi, there will be Czech-built tanks running hither and yon, maybe even a Soviet 122 mm gun or two lobbing shells at the Germans for our man Paweł. I also think LoFan John might be onto something with his suspicion that perhaps Hollywood used this story as the basis of the film Fury, which is, as you know, a Sarge favorite.

I might even scrape together a photo or two of smashed up German panzers for Juvat. Though I daresay a busted up Soviet tank would do just as well, I mean Juvat and I are old timey Cold War types, when the Soviets were the bogeyman and their equipment was extensively used by the folks we tended to regard as "the bad guys."

Stay tuned.

"Ich habe dir gesagt, dass der Hurensohn groß war!"
("I told ya the sumbitch was big!")
(Source)

Sources
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/battle-raseiniai-1941-single-kv-tank-stopped-entire-german-kampfgruppe.html/2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raseiniai
http://www.warlordgames.com/scenario-monster-in-the-road-the-battle-of-raseiniai/
http://forum-console.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/205825-kv-2-premium-tank-ideas-pzkw-kv-ii-battle-of-raseiniai-kv-2/
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2617567&mpage=1&key=Fast%2CBoys%2CSuper%2CBelgians&#2617567
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov_tank

* The crews called the vehicle this, though probably "дредноут." Being Russians and all.

Bailout, Bailout, Bailout

Well....One Down.  35 to go.

Weeks that is. 

This one was about as expected.  In a variation of a joke STxAR commented with a few days ago, we prepped 650 out of 975 new laptops in time for school to start and gave them to teachers who had had no laptops before, do we get called wonderful?  No we get greeted with "Where are MY laptops?  I can't teach without them." 

No, Ma'am/Sir, you can't teach.

But I digress....

I'm sitting here in my office on a lovely, albeit warming rapidly, Sunday morn, running several scripts that need running but which I can't seem to get to during the week. (Reread para 3 if you need to ask why.)  I was trying to think of what to post about this week, Sarge having stolen all the good stories and stuff.

I swear, he's like Google sometimes.  You know what I mean.  You click on a link that you are curious about and all of a sudden all the ads you see are talking about retirement stuff. (Beans! What did you thing I was looking for?).  So, I've been thinking about this post for a couple of weeks, and then Sarge writes one and put's this picture in it.

Source

My first thought was "He's done it again!"

Fortunately, his post wasn't about ejecting from an Airplane.  So that means the subject is still available.

I had done a little investigating prior to commenting recently about ejecting through the roof.  Specifically, I couldn't remember if the F-15 had a canopy piercer or not.  Typically the first thing that happens when ejection is initiated is the canopy separates.  Having it remain in place is a great impediment to your longevity. Long time reader VX had remembered a friend killed in an F-4 when the ejection seat fired due to an electrical malfunction and the canopy had not separated. 

Early systems would just open the canopy a bit and the wind would rip it off.  Somewhat crude but worked most of the time (most being the operative word).  However, as aircraft became more sophisticated, wind flow over the canopy was not necessarily guaranteed.  For instance in a tail slide, the air is rushing from back to front.  The canopy is not going to separate.

Yes, tail slides happen frequently in air to air.  Depending on the airplane, they are great fun (F-15) or pretty exciting (F-4). Not in a good way.

 Nowadays, most aircraft have some kind of explosive device to separate the canopy from the jet.  Two of the jets I flew had a backup system in case that fails.  If that were to happen in the T-38 or F-15 the first thing that would hit the canopy would be a reinforced part of the seat put there to shatter the canopy allowing the seat and pilot to go on about their merry way.

The Harrier dispensed with the canopy by having an explosive cord in the canopy itself which exploded destroying the canopy and the pilot and seat went through that.

Note the canopy frame behind the hole Source

Well, that was step 1 in a long multi-stepped process, so stay tuned next Monday for the next installment.

Beans! Just kidding! 

So, I'm having difficulty maintaining flight and have made a wise decision to return the aircraft to the taxpayers.

Source

Do I stand up, hook up and shuffle to the door?  Well, no.

The next thing that happens, typically within about a quarter second is, the rocket under my seat fires, lifting the seat, with me in it out of the jet.  At that point, at least with the ACES seat in the F-15 and many others, a computer assesses quite a few parameters and adjusts the rocket accordingly.

Some of those factors, include airspeed, altimeter, vertical velocity and attitude.

As far as airspeed is concerned, anything above 450K, you're going to ride the seat for a while til you slow down a bit.  By a bit, I mean a few seconds.  If you are on the ground, stopped and needed to eject, the seat will fire, and you will be in your chute within 2 seconds.  A nice capability.

If you were in level flight, inverted, 150' above the ground (AGL), the computer would work the gimbals on the rocket to fire in such a was as to right you and once headed away from the ground, kick you out of the seat then deploy the chute.

If you were at medium altitude and below 450k, you would ride the seat for about 6 seconds to get you slowed down and stabilized, then the seat releases would work and the chute would deploy. 

Remember, in times of stress, time seems to slow.  That 6 seconds, I've been told by a buddy that jumped from an Eagle under that mode, seemed like forever.  He said he'd wondered if the seat had failed and he was riding it in at least a dozen times.

The most dangerous set of circumstances is a high speed dive.  The chart below is from my F-4E Dash-1.  The bible as far as a Fighter Pilot is concerned.  Certain sections were, in fact, memorized verbatim.  The rest were studied, reviewed, discussed, tested and digested until memorized.

So, if I'm in an F-4 in a 60^o dive doing 600K and take a hit, and decide to bailout, communicating those immortal words "Bailout, Bailout, Bailout" and pull the handle initiating the WSO's bailout followed 2 seconds afterwards by my seat firing, I have to have pulled the handle about 4200' above the ground.    Even a 15^o dive at that speed requires more than 1000'. 

The Eagle's ACES II seat was slightly better, but Physics is Physics, you're rushing at the ground at a great rate and the seat only functions at a fixed rate.  If the time to hit the ground is less than the time to open the chute, well........

But, time marches on and I came across this Article from Aviation Leak Week regarding improvements to the seat.  Basically, they improved it so it had a higher safe operating speed, 600K.  They also made it so things mounted on the aircrew helmet (e.g. night vision goggles etc) wouldn't interfere with the seat's operation. Also, at least for me, they made it handle big boys.  It will now handle up to a 245 pound pilot.  (only 5 more to go juvat, you can do it!)

No, I was well under that while I was flying, thanks for asking.

I found a couple of other interesting facts from this site .  I'd thought Ejection seats were a post WWII phenomenon.  Apparently the first one was built in 1910 and the Germans perfected one in time to have a combat ejection in 1942.

Reader "a bear" will undoubtedly comment about this, but apparently, the B-58 ejection system was tested using bears to ride the seat. 

Source

Research did lead me to one fact I thought was a bit disturbing.  The ACES II seat has a 94.4% success rate.  Which sounds pretty good, but that statistic is for "in the envelope" ejections.  That means the airspeed, altitude, attitude and vertical velocity, were within design parameters.  That means 5.6% of the time the seat failed when it shouldn't have.

Glad I didn't know that at the time.  Flying is a dangerous operation and we learn from every flight.

source