Medic Tank

[Brad Edmondson]

From my warped mind comes the Medic Tank:

 

 

I had a friend apply his model-fu to a Leopard 2 kit, replaced the main gun with a syringe and dirty it up.

[Doug Kibbey]

Nice to see you are taking precautions, just remember to not recap the needle after firing.

[Michael Eastes]

I presume that the main portion of main gun ammo is BPPPD*? When you are faced with lice-infested troop units, you could switch to a Beehive round with Kwell flechettes.

 

*- Buttock Piercing, Procain Penicillin-Diffusing

[Hittite Under The Bridge]

Is there a ASRF*?

 

*Alcohol Swab Range Finder.

[Michael Eastes]

Is there a ASRF*?

 

*Alcohol Swab Range Finder.

 

In the A1 variant.

[Rick]

Seeing this model reminded me of something, if I remember correctly. In 1980-82 I was a "doc" with a Marine rifle platoon. I do not believe I saw a vehicale at that time with a red cross on it.

[Michael Eastes]

Seeing this model reminded me of something, if I remember correctly. In 1980-82 I was a "doc" with a Marine rifle platoon. I do not believe I saw a vehicale at that time with a red cross on it.

 

We Army types had red crosses on white backgrounds on our M-113 ambulances in the same timeframe. A big one on each side, two small ones on the front, and a medium one on top.

[Doug Kibbey]

Seeing this model reminded me of something, if I remember correctly. In 1980-82 I was a "doc" with a Marine rifle platoon. I do not believe I saw a vehicale at that time with a red cross on it.

 

I had the troop medic and supplies on my ACAV with 2/11th ACR in Vietnam and you can be sure we didn't have any red crosses on the vehicle, just the full armament of every other ACAV. Nor did he (the medic) wear any distinguishing features on his uniform.

 

Red crosses in VN were bullet magnets and should have been left off of all vehicles and aircraft, in retrospect. In '71, under the naive impression that the "other guys" could only be shooting at green dust-off helicopters by mistake (they also bore white panels with red crosses), the 101st or XXIV Corps introduced three all-white-with-red-crosses UH-1 Huey's into the theater and also dropped a butt-load of leaflets to duly inform the PAVN that these were medical helicopters and unarmed. They drew more fire than anything else in the sky and the misguided project was hastily terminated.

 

The pic isn't mine, but the leaflet is...

 

 

Edited August 23, 2011 by Doug Kibbey

[Michael Eastes]

I had the troop medic and supplies on my ACAV with 2/11th ACR in Vietnam and you can be sure we didn't have any red crosses on the vehicle, just the full armament of every other ACAV. Nor did he (the medic) wear any distinguishing features on his uniform.

 

Red crosses in VN were bullet magnets and should have been left off of all vehicles and aircraft, in retrospect. In '71, under the naive impression that the "other guys" could only be shooting at green dust-off helicopters by mistake (they also bore white panels with red crosses), the 101st or XXIV Corps introduced three all-white-with-red-crosses UH-1 Huey's into the theater and also dropped a butt-load of leaflets to duly inform the PAVN that these were medical helicopters and unarmed. They drew more fire than anything else in the sky and the misguided project was hastily terminated.

 

The pic isn't mine, but the leaflet is...

 

 

 

The fact that anyone thought that would work leaves me nonplussed.

[Doug Kibbey]

The fact that anyone thought that would work leaves me nonplussed.

 

 

The triumph of hope over experience. The enemy never shirked from exploiting targets because of their medical nature. We participated in MEDCAP's out in the boonies with the 'Yards...don't even get me started.

[Doug Kibbey]

I think Air America had one of theirs in Laos painted white for the UN implimentation and stablization force which had the acronym ICCS painted on the side.

 

When the peace deal failed, it predictably became known as 'I cant control shit'.

 

I.C.C.S. and their precedent, the I.C.S.C. generally used whatever aircraft they could borrow from the powers still with a presence. As this was all effectively from '73 onwards (after the P.P.A. and U.S. combat involvement ended) incidents tended to be isolated and not always among the original combatants (Khmer and Pathet Lao, for example, with local government in turf battles). I was long gone by the time these guys were operating, though. Any fire taken would have been a different dynamic than firing up an air ambulance just because they knew it was unarmed (though not necessarily everybody in it )

 

http://www.vhpamuseum.org/special/iccs/iccs.shtml

[Doug Kibbey]

Am I right in thinking the CIA had their own deniable form of air support in Laos? Something they nicknamed 'The Ravens' if I remember right.

 

Then of course there was the rather inventive home made napalm AA sometimes went in for using. I shudder to think how much you could dump out a C123.

 

Interesting link BTW.

 

Well, not very deniable, what with multi-service support. More "unofficial" than deniable.

 

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/ravens.html

[Doug Kibbey]

I think Air America had one of theirs in Laos painted white for the UN implimentation and stablization force which had the acronym ICCS painted on the side.

 

When the peace deal failed, it predictably became known as 'I cant control shit'.

 

True AA aircraft tended to be a silver-ish blue bordering on white with darker blue highlights in the narrow striping that resembled blue pinstriping. Overall the effect was non-threatening, which it was meant to be. leaving the colors a sort of friendly pastoral color that could not have sinister intentions. Generally, this fiction was revealed over time and the silverish, bluish, whitish with blue pinstripes tended to be soon identified for what it was, by those in the know. There were other carriers besides AA operating as well, such as SAT and a couple others. Eventually, it all came down to "who could help me get my family out when things got tense". Thankfully, I was not involved in that stage of evacuations or the decisions leading up to those. We had one group for whom we were interested in securing transportation for and this did not require a lot of red tape.

 

At some point, it was just stick out your thumb and see who would deign to pick you up. By that point, it was getting dicey fast so a backup plan was a good thing to have. Many were caught, may I say, criminally short of the support at getting out that they deserved, but there was nothing we could do to address that.

[R011]

I.C.C.S. and their precedent, the I.C.S.C. generally used whatever aircraft they could borrow from the powers still with a presence. As this was all effectively from '73 onwards (after the P.P.A. and U.S. combat involvement ended) incidents tended to be isolated and not always among the original combatants (Khmer and Pathet Lao, for example, with local government in turf battles). I was long gone by the time these guys were operating, though. Any fire taken would have been a different dynamic than firing up an air ambulance just because they knew it was unarmed (though not necessarily everybody in it )

 

http://www.vhpamuseum.org/special/iccs/iccs.shtml

An ICCS helicopter was shot down in April 1973 with the loss of nine lives. I seem to recall reading at the time that it had been painted white and marked as an ICCS aircraft.

[Colin]

One of my old Captains was a ex-pilot and was flying in Papu when he was approached by AA, the money was tempting but he declined.

[Doug Kibbey]

Sort of distantly related to the topic, here is a nice pdf file of some of AA's Beech D-18's, aka C-45 (Air America being the biggest operator of the type there). Some of the Volpar Turbo Beeches are quite striking. The ICCS bird on page 26 is obviously a hastily-painted-over Air America aircraft that was just "handy". The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

 

http://www.utdallas.edu/library/collections/speccoll/Leeker/vtb.pdf