The thing is, that would only work in the IDF. Any other armed forces in the world, you'd have hell to pay.
Same TC, different story: (Crucial fact to the story: The TC's nickname was "Ratcher" the Israeli term for a ratchet. Another story, but one that won't translate)
We had been on another night exercise, and the driver made a wrong move, instead of driving in a muddy ditch, he drove half in and half out. The mud built up under the muddy track until it pushed the track off it's sprocket drive wheel and inwards towards the tank. If the track had fallen outwards, we could have fixed it in approximately 7 minutes (I've proven that time). Since it fell inwards, it had massive amounts of unmovable pressure sitting on it, and we couldn't budge the damn thing even a millimeter, no matter how hard we tried. That whole "give me a fulcrum" thing? Crap.
To top it all off, the tank is sitting inside a ditch that is approximately 1m of pure mud. The best kind, too. The mud that is solid enough for you to stand on it for 13 seconds, then you fall straight through. After trying to do it by ourselves and the techies all morning, one of the spare tanks is dispatched from base to try and drag us out. We connect the tow cables, and the towing tank starts running in place. Literally. The tracks are turning, but there's no traction at all because it's on concrete. After turning the (fresh) concrete road into so much rubble, everyone stops to reconsider what we're going to do. The Battalion CO and Battalion XO are both there. The Company XO, the heads of both company's Tech squads, two whole tank crews, and a couple other assorted figures. We had the distinction of being perhaps only the second or third crew to have ever done this to a Merkava Mk IV, so we had a lot of spectators.
(A couple side notes, relevant to the punchline: 1-The Battalion CO and XO were both trained on Magach/M60's. Their knowledge of the Merkava IV is not quite lacking, but limited in some areas. 2-The Battalion CO is a big dark guy of Yemenite descent. He barely speaks a word of English. 3-The TC's father heads a big publishing house in Israel, and at his son's behest, donated a very extensive library to our Company. Due to that, he and the Battalion CO exchanged a few phone calls)
Back to the story, the Battalion XO suggests putting the towing tank into "T" mode, maybe that will help. Ratcher get's on the radio and starts saying that "T" is to help a tank that's being towed start it's engine, the equivalent of glide starting a car. As he starts talking, every single eye in the joint is suddenly focused on him, and he starts petering out, slowly fading away as the realization dawns on him that he's the reason everyone's here in the first place, and he's also just about the lowest person on the totem pole. The fact that he's right has absolutely no bearing on the matter. Then the Battalion CO, in a very surprising move says in English: "Ratcher, Say no more!" and then continues in Hebrew "Don't make me call your father and let him know what you did to my tank!"
Same TC, different story: (Crucial fact to the story: The TC's nickname was "Ratcher" the Israeli term for a ratchet. Another story, but one that won't translate)
We had been on another night exercise, and the driver made a wrong move, instead of driving in a muddy ditch, he drove half in and half out. The mud built up under the muddy track until it pushed the track off it's sprocket drive wheel and inwards towards the tank. If the track had fallen outwards, we could have fixed it in approximately 7 minutes (I've proven that time). Since it fell inwards, it had massive amounts of unmovable pressure sitting on it, and we couldn't budge the damn thing even a millimeter, no matter how hard we tried. That whole "give me a fulcrum" thing? Crap.
To top it all off, the tank is sitting inside a ditch that is approximately 1m of pure mud. The best kind, too. The mud that is solid enough for you to stand on it for 13 seconds, then you fall straight through. After trying to do it by ourselves and the techies all morning, one of the spare tanks is dispatched from base to try and drag us out. We connect the tow cables, and the towing tank starts running in place. Literally. The tracks are turning, but there's no traction at all because it's on concrete. After turning the (fresh) concrete road into so much rubble, everyone stops to reconsider what we're going to do. The Battalion CO and Battalion XO are both there. The Company XO, the heads of both company's Tech squads, two whole tank crews, and a couple other assorted figures. We had the distinction of being perhaps only the second or third crew to have ever done this to a Merkava Mk IV, so we had a lot of spectators.
(A couple side notes, relevant to the punchline: 1-The Battalion CO and XO were both trained on Magach/M60's. Their knowledge of the Merkava IV is not quite lacking, but limited in some areas. 2-The Battalion CO is a big dark guy of Yemenite descent. He barely speaks a word of English. 3-The TC's father heads a big publishing house in Israel, and at his son's behest, donated a very extensive library to our Company. Due to that, he and the Battalion CO exchanged a few phone calls)
Back to the story, the Battalion XO suggests putting the towing tank into "T" mode, maybe that will help. Ratcher get's on the radio and starts saying that "T" is to help a tank that's being towed start it's engine, the equivalent of glide starting a car. As he starts talking, every single eye in the joint is suddenly focused on him, and he starts petering out, slowly fading away as the realization dawns on him that he's the reason everyone's here in the first place, and he's also just about the lowest person on the totem pole. The fact that he's right has absolutely no bearing on the matter. Then the Battalion CO, in a very surprising move says in English: "Ratcher, Say no more!" and then continues in Hebrew "Don't make me call your father and let him know what you did to my tank!"
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