Rambo Drops A Clanger!

[SASless]

A 7th Cavalry NCO has claimed to have killed over 2,700 Iraqi Combatants, fired more than 7,000 Depleted Uranium Cannon Rounds, Sniped 121 folks with two of the Kills being at 850 plus Meters.

I am in awe at his Brass.

However, there seems to be a bit of concern about his ability at simple Arithmetic.


America's deadliest soldier or stolen valor? (http://news.yahoo.com/americas-deadliest-soldier-stolen-valor-212237661.html)

[teeteringhead]

And I'm a bit concerned about one of his critics' physics!

Other stories he casts doubt on include Johnson's claim that he cut through a 220 volt cable with a small knife to darken an Iraqi hut he was hiding in when insurgents entered. "That area where he was – there wasn't electricity," says Spaid. "And I've been to college, I think that many volts would melt a knife that size, even if it was insulated, not just leave a few nicks." [my bold]

I know the cousins only have 110 v (?) domestically but 220 ain't a shedload of wiggly volts. You could easily cut through our 240v cables with a penknife. One wonders where the college he went to was!

And surely it's Amps not Volts that would "do the melting"

[Pontius Navigator]

That area where he was – there wasn't electricity,

There wouldn't be would there? Someone cut the cable. :)

In fact you don't need to 'cut' the cable, nor do you need an insulated knife.

Put the point on the cable, hammer it and blow the fuse. You can, if you are careful, do it without insulation. Done it many times:)

[SASless]

.....And if there is no Fuse?

How many Screw Drivers have I welded to the Outlet Box?

Ever seen a good pair of Kleins Side Cutters get ruined cutting our paltry 110VAC wires?

The guy is full of crap and embarrasses those who fought the good fight!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I don't know which college he went to, but it isn't as good as the one teeteringhead went to.. it is indeed amps not volts which do the melting

[Basil]

that many volts would melt a knife that size
In the case of wire cutters, it would melt two small nicks and blow some molten copper around around before the CB trips - don't ask :O

[Party Animal]

The guy is full of crap and embarrasses those who fought the good fight!

SASless,

How can you say that? As you know, many heroic events are kept very LIMDIS. Take my case for example:

During my first tour on Sea Harriers, I managed to bag 18 Argy Mirage and 14 A4's during a little publicised spat in the South Atlantic, some 31 years ago. As an RAF man, this was kept very quiet because our dark blue bretheren wanted to claim all the glory.

I then followed this up during the Cold War years in Germany doing sneaky over the border 'rhubarbs'. Sometimes I mixed it with Migs (even now I can't tell you what types specifically - it will remain classified until 2037) cliaming 16 confirmed kills and occasionally I was tasked with laydown attacks on exercising Soviet tank brigades. At one stage, I had 36 T62's painted under the canopy!

Having a break from the FJ world, I went to the Nimrod Force. Can you believe it took 3 torpedoes to destroy my first Akula submarine? Again I can't say too much but my story was partly the basis for some Hollywood movie - The Hunt For Red October. The memory still rings sharply in my mind everytime I fly over 6413.2N 00148.6W. Dissapointingly, I only managed to destroy one SSN. My other 2 kills were a Delta II SSBN (boy the Ruskies kept that one quiet) and a Foxtrot SSK. The Foxtrot was later raised by Dirk Pitt (I guess you may have heard of NUMA?). It now sits next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach as a tourist attraction.

I could also tell you about my exploits in GW1, GW2, Bosnia, The Stan and more recently Libya but modesty prevents me from doing so. That and the concern that I would be giving away government secrets. The amazing thing is (and I know this bit will be hard to believe), I managed to keep my same callsign on all 27 aircraft types that I flew combat missions in. Glad to say that PEYNOKEO is alive and well and currently test flying the Firefox 2 from that secret airbase next to Pax River, Va.

P.S. Just thought I'd mention the above to bring this article into the domain of 'anything to do with aviation'

Cheers, ;)

[Herod]

Love the callsign!! I think that I can now reveal that it was actually I who shot down the Red Baron.

[TT2]

No way would I start sawing away with a pen knife on 220 or even 110. Wiggly or non wiggly amps kind of worry me. Would the chap not have been better off finding the master switch or the fuse box?. Not heroic I admit, but logic determines if he was imprisoned why was he not searched? Or where did he actually hide the knife..........har........har........must have Navy before.:)

[Pontius Navigator]

.....And if there is no Fuse?

There is always a fuse. Even wired by an Indian (OK SASLess I know you won't get that one) there is a fuse. I saw a small workshop in India and it had fuses.

OK, let's call them current limiters.

At some point the circuit is closed completely bypassing the load. If he achieves open circuit then bingo, no lights. If, OTOH, he 'joins' positive and negative together then the circuit will overload. The weakest item will 'blow'.

I once had a dead short on a 12v line. The effect was dramatic and near instantaneous. I finished up with a couple of feet of hot plastic tube - no wires.

[Molemot]

"There is always a fuse".....hmmm. In an Iraqi hut? The fuse is quite likely to be their equivalent of a 6" nail, I would have thought. I have known such things to be used as fuses in France...so I certainly wouldn't consider applying a penknife to a 220v circuit anywhere. Insulated cutters, maybe. 220v is more than enough to kill you, and you only need less than an amp of AC to be lethal. 30mA can bring on fibrillation.
If you short circuit the live and neutral, then you're bound to blow something, somewhere...but you'd better be certain not to touch the live before the neutral or else the live voltage will send the current through your little pink body to earth...and that'll give you more than 30mA for sure. If you are lucky, the muscular contraction will move you away from the current source...if not, it can make you grasp it so hard you can't let go and then you are really in trouble. This is why you should always touch anything you suspect of being "live" with the back of your fingers...then the contraction will close your fist and disconnect you.

As Pontius says, low votages can be just as dangerous if the current is high enough. Years ago, in a telephone exchange (which used to run on 50v DC supplied by humungous great lead acid accumulators) a colleague short circuited the main busbar with a pair of pliers; a loud bang, and they melted!

[The Helpful Stacker]

This talk of amps and volts is all well and good but nobody has yet mentioned the important unit involved in electrickery, imps per metre. I believe pre-decimalisation the standard unit was pixies per furlong.

Bloodly dark arts the lot of it I tell you!

[SASless]

I was not going to tell any of my War Stories but.....There I wiz....2500 feet Agl, IMC, Inverted, Nothing on the clock but the Makers Name, Air Medals hanging in my face....when I sez to my Coey....."Time for a Kool don't ya think!"....but I digress.

Some of what this guy says and some of what he did is pretty gutsy stuff and has been verified....but it is the Media hyping him and actually falling for the Bull Corn part is what I was taking issue with.

If he just told the true story....he would deserve a lot of respect and admiration....as he did serve well and see some nasty combat.

It is when one goes silly with yer bragging that it gets up my nose.

We have to recall what the ol' Cowboy said...."It ain't bragging if you done it!".

[sled dog]

Ref the book, what a load of bull***t............

[Pontius Navigator]

"There is always a fuse".....hmmm. In an Iraqi hut? The fuse is quite likely to be their equivalent of a 6" nail, I would have thought. I have known such things to be used as fuses in France

I was not implying a delicate little piece of wire the thickness of a greasy hair but a current limiting device. By CLD I am implying a weak link somewhere in the circuit that will ultimately kill the circuit. The 15.24mm nail is most likely the last thing to fail.

I changed my first fuses at the age of 8 - more than my mother could do. There were two fuses in the circuit and we weren't sure whether it should be 2x15 or 1x15 and 1x10. By trial and error we selected 2x15. Later, to be safe, I double wrapped them :)

[Always a Sapper]

Always a fuse in circuit? One would hope so... Although I have found at least two fuse holders at LYNE with copper wire wrapped around the dead fuse while isolating buildings before demolition!

As for chopping live 240v cables with a knife.... :eek:

[Pontius Navigator]

My screw driver still has a big burn mark in it :)

Nothing wrong with a knife unless it is like a Leatherman or a Swiss Army Knife. A Wilkie in a protected hand would do the trick.

There are knives and knives, remember Crocodile Dundee :)

[Melchett01]

Party Animal,

I challenge you and out you as a Walt! Everyone knows that Hunt for Red October was based on a Baltic Sea Fleet Krivak frigate that attempted to make an unauthorised trip to Leningrad to protest against Regime corruption.

Other than that, can I have your autograph - I've never met a real Ace before :ok:

[WE Branch Fanatic]

I was not implying a delicate little piece of wire the thickness of a greasy hair but a current limiting device. By CLD I am implying a weak link somewhere in the circuit that will ultimately kill the circuit. The 15.24mm nail is most likely the last thing to fail.


Hopefully, I'm not the only person who just a little concerned by the unsafe practices mentioned here.

Put the point on the cable, hammer it and blow the fuse. You can, if you are careful, do it without insulation. Done it many times

Why would you do that?

The Earth lead on appliances has the same effect. The Earth lead provides with is effectively a short circuit from the metal case to ground, so in the event of the case becoming live the current rises towards infinity and blows the fuse.

Melchett01

Wah!

[thing]

<an ex leccy speaketh>You really really don't want to cut through a mains cable with a penknife unless Jesus is your friend. That is all. No doubt people will keep on trying and dying though.

[TT2]

'Hopefully, I'm not the only person who just a little concerns by the unsafe practices mentioned here. '

Mrs TT and I were engaged in unsafe practises last night. This morning with mango knife in hand, she told me that one way or another I'm going to pay if she ends up pregnant. Gulp.

Did I ever tell you how I shot down the whole of the Luftwaffe in one afternoon?
Had to go home to refuel before finishing them off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEe55NxFSSU

[Secret1]

Utterly, utterly, PREPOSTEROUS! claim :mad: as the greatest American war hero of all time Loo-tenant Kernal John Duke Wayne, of the 101st Tenneseean Airborn Horse Brigade, zapped at least 250,000 baddies in countless wars from The Alamo, 21 Injunn Skirmishes, Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, The Green Berets, and so many, many, more. These well known undisputed acts of heroism are fully evidenced in technicolor with certified true copies stored in perpetuity for all to see in the US National Hall of Bovine Scatology.

Long live The Duke.:cool:

[Two's in]

Anyone who brags about their own personal body count is a liar or a sociopath, or a lying sociopath. I suspect he may be all of these things.

Now to the interesting bit - Amps do indeed kill you, but to push enough Amps you need a high voltage or a low resistance (such as a penknife or wet skin). I= V/R and all of its transpositions remains true, you can't change one without changing the others. You only need about 50mA (50 thousands of an Amp) to kill someone in the right circumstances.

[CoffmanStarter]

Amps certainly do the frying ... as some idiot found out when trying to nick copper cable from the local railway recently (750v DC 3rd Rail system) ... he and his mates should have stayed at school and paid attention during physics ... stupid sod ! Apparently he was quite an effective fuse !

[sled dog]

was`nt the film star Audie Murphy one of the ( real ) most decorated US soldiers of WW2 ?

[CoffmanStarter]

Sled ... He's @29 on this list ...

Top 50 Most Decorated Americans (http://www.veterantributes.org/Top20MostDecorated.htm)

[SASless]

Indeed Audie Murphy was.....

His Awards and Citations for those Awards.

Valor awards for Audie Leon Murphy (http://projects.militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=209)