The Night Mail

[Compound2632]

Dear me. Finding my ring embedded in a block of Cheddar seems very tame, especially as my finger wasn't with it.

[Flying Fox 34F]

56 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

The main problem was what to transport the object in.  I ended up using one of the plastic bags that we carried for Fixed Penalty notices. 

 

Jamie

I’ve had to do this several times, after Human/Train altercations!!!  Management always wondered why I had a pack of ziplock bags in the vehicle.  Eventually, we were issued with Biohazard yellow bags.

 

Paul

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Dear me. Finding my ring embedded in a block of Cheddar seems very tame, especially as my finger wasn't with it.

I suppose it is far superior to finding a block of cheddar embedded in your r...

[Winslow Boy]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I suppose it is far superior to finding a block of cheddar embedded in your r...

Size is everything to some people.

[Happy Hippo]

10 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

 

I always feel those photos encourage bad habits, rather like Hollywood films make people think a cardboard box or  two will stop a high velocity round. 

 

Andy 

Ditto using the ubiquitous bullet proof car door for cover.  Some of the more specialised shotgun ammunition would probably take the door out of the frame.

 

 

[SM42]

Chaos this morning as budgets get spent. 

 

I've just dropped Mrs SM42 at work.

 

What would normally be a 10 minute job has taken over half an hour due to road closures and temporary lights on all the diversion routes

 

Even some of the rat runs have closures on them.  

 

I dread to think what rush hour will be like. 

 

Still in better transport news, the government has announced that the Midlands Rail Hub will mean Birminhgam's Cross City route will be turn up and go.  

 

Didn't realise you had to book in advance at present

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, SM42 said:

will be turn up and go

Perhaps they mean the trains, rather than the passengers?

[SM42]

Just shame that Stourbridge to Lichfield has been torn up and gone. 

 

Andy

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Ditto using the ubiquitous bullet proof car door for cover.  Some of the more specialised shotgun ammunition would probably take the door out of the frame.

 

 

When my late friend Peter moved to Canada in 1971, he reported that if the police there wished to stop a car they simply put a bullet through the engine block....

[skipepsi]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Ditto using the ubiquitous bullet proof car door for cover.  Some of the more specialised shotgun ammunition would probably take the door out of the frame.

 

 

Remind me how many brick walls could a 7.62 round go through or how thick an Oak tree had to be to provide cover?

[PhilJ W]

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

When my late friend Peter moved to Canada in 1971, he reported that if the police there wished to stop a car they simply put a bullet through the engine block....

I believe police officers are expected to use the foot brake here. 

[br2975]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

When my late friend Peter moved to Canada in 1971, he reported that if the police there wished to stop a car they simply put a bullet through the engine block....

.

My old force was formed in 1969 by the amalgamation of several smaller forces.

.

From 1969 to date, that force has only ever fired one round in anger, and that was a "Hatton round" at the engine block of a car full of drug traffickers during a planned operation.

.

Not bad for 'lawless Britain'

.

Edited February 29 by br2975

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, skipepsi said:

Remind me how many brick walls could a 7.62 round go through or how thick an Oak tree had to be to provide cover?

'At 50 meters, the 7.62mm ball round cannot reliably penetrate a single layer of well-packed sandbags. It can penetrate a single sandbag layer at 200 meters, but not a double layer. The armor-piercing round does only slightly better against sandbags. It cannot penetrate a double layer but can penetrate up to 10 inches at 600 meters.

The penetration of the 7.62mm round is best at 600 meters. Most urban targets are closer. The longest effective range is usually 200 meters or less.
 

Penetration capabilities of a single 7.62mm (ball) round.

 

Range                         Pine Board                                     Dry Loose Sand              Cinder Block                              Concrete

82 ft (25 m)             13 in (330 mm)                             5 in (127 mm)                    8 in (203 mm)                         2 in (51 mm)

328 ft (100 m)        18 in (457 mm)                             4.5 in (114 mm)                10 in (254 mm)                        2 in (51 mm)

656 ft (200 m)        41 in (1,041 mm)                          7 in (178 mm)                     8 in (203 mm)                         2 in (51 mm)

Continued and concentrated machine gun fire can breach most typical urban walls. Such fire cannot breach thick reinforced concrete structures or dense natural stone walls.

 

Internal walls, partitions, plaster, floors, ceilings, common office furniture, home appliances, and bedding can be easily penetrated by 7.62mm rounds.

 

 

*Bricks fall in between cinder blocks and concrete, so emptying a magazine of 20 rounds of standard 7.62 x 51 easily  punch a hole through the typical double skinned brick wall. 

[DaveF]

When I left school I worked in a cancer research lab for a year before going to University.  I remember on my first morning being told never to wear any rings in a lab just in case any chemicals came into contact with it.  I was given two reasons - damage to the skin if any chemical got under the ring and didn't fully wash off and seconedly damage to the ring itself - we used a number of chemicals which can damage even gold.

 

When I was tecahing I used to same the same thing to new staff working in the sceince labs.  I only remember one incident - a young teacher who found her wedding ring had got damaged when she somehow got some mercury on it.  I never could work out how she did it as mercury on skin is not a good idea.

 

David

 

 

Edited February 29 by DaveF

[Tony_S]

33 minutes ago, br2975 said:

From 1969 to date, that force has only ever fired one round in anger, and that was a "Hatton round" at the engine block of a car full of drug traffickers during a planned operation.

Dad was in the army and was checking traffic near the Danish border after hostilities had ceased in 1945. One car declined to stop and ran over Dad’s foot before driving on. He fired and shot out the tyre, stopping the car. The officer who came from the real road block just out of sight congratulated Dad on his shooting. He said he hadn’t been aiming at the tyre. 

[skipepsi]

27 minutes ago, DaveF said:

When I left school I worked in a cancer research lab for a year before going to University.  I remember on my first morning being told never to wear any rings in a lab just in case any chemicals came into contact with it.  I was given two reasons - damage to the skin if any chemical got under the ring and didn't fully wash off and seconedly damage to the ring itself - we used a number of chemicals which can damage even gold.

 

When I was tecahing I used to same the same thing to new staff working in the sceince labs.  I only remember one incident - a young teacher who found her wedding ring had got damaged when she somehow got some mercury on it.  I never could work out how she did it as mercury on skin is not a good idea.

 

David

 

 

I remember being encouraged to poke a ball of mercury around the science bench with my finger...

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, br2975 said:

.

My old force was formed in 1969 by the amalgamation of several smaller forces.

.

From 1969 to date, that force has only ever fired one round in anger, and that was a "Hatton round" at the engine block of a car full of drug traffickers during a planned operation.

.

Not bad for 'lawless Britain'

.

According to my brother, they did fire a lot in practice.

[jamie92208]

7 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

When my late friend Peter moved to Canada in 1971, he reported that if the police there wished to stop a car they simply put a bullet through the engine block....

Yes we had the rifled slugs for use in shotguns that could do that.  Merseyside used a similar shaped shotgun round containing CS, called a ferret.  The only time it was used in the Toxteth riots in 81  the gas was pretty innefective but the casing removed one testicle from one of the rioters. 

 

Jamie

Edited February 29 by jamie92208

[PhilJ W]

My science teacher at school accidently spilt some mercury on a workbench and just  swept it into a beaker with his bare hands.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

My science teacher at school accidently spilt some mercury on a workbench and just  swept it into a beaker with his bare hands.

I shared a prep room with an adjacent lab in my second year as a teacher. My colleague moved a Fortin Barometer and noticed there was no mercury in the reservoir. It turned out the cleaner had damaged it and had brushed all the mercury out of sight. The equipment storage cupboards were on wheels and it was easy to see. The head of science came up and recovered the mercury  and sprinkled sulphur powder on the floor. However blobs kept appearing, so a man from the council came with a detector of some kind and said it was fine and there was no mercury vapour even though we could see mercury. Things were “different “ then. The second school I taught at was more safety aware. 

[DaveF]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I shared a prep room with an adjacent lab in my second year as a teacher. My colleague moved a Fortin Barometer and noticed there was no mercury in the reservoir. It turned out the cleaner had damaged it and had brushed all the mercury out of sight. The equipment storage cupboards were on wheels and it was easy to see. The head of science came up and recovered the mercury  and sprinkled sulphur powder on the floor. However blobs kept appearing, so a man from the council came with a detector of some kind and said it was fine and there was no mercury vapour even though we could see mercury. Things were “different “ then. The second school I taught at was more safety aware. 

 

When I was a Head of Science we once found mercury on a lab floor in the gaps between the wooden sections of the parquet floor.  It was during a formal Health and Safety Inspection by Inspectors from the local H&S offices.  The lead inspector, a lady, told us not to worry.  She said the lab was so draughty because of the old poorly fitting windows that there was no danger of a harmful concentration of mercury vapour in the room.  She also told us she was happy for us to eat our fish and chips in a lab as long as we used a physics lab.  She said there were far more dangerous things in other parts of the school buildings. 

 

David

[TheQ]

The first person my Dad sacked in the civil service, had poured a large amount of medical grade mercury onto a packing table, which was well worn and had a hollow in it.. the person was playing boats with a paper boat...

 

In the RAF wearing jewelry was absolutely forbidden in the electronics buildings, short circuits in equipment that transmitted 60MW of pulses were not to be encouraged..

[PhilJ W]

41 minutes ago, TheQ said:

In the RAF wearing jewelry was absolutely forbidden in the electronics buildings, short circuits in equipment that transmitted 60MW of pulses were not to be encouraged..

Especially if you were the short circuit.

[iL Dottore]

Apart from the miraculous “impervious to anything” car door, has anyone noticed how often “flesh wounds” (for want of a better term) just make the hero wince a bit and then carry on. 
 

Take it from me, who has treated more than a few bullet holes in his time, anyone who takes a small calibre bullet in the leg, arm, shoulder (or humorously) buttocks will most definitely be cancelling that day’s appointments and if they take a large calibre bullet in one of those areas, assuming shock and/or blood loss doesn’t kill them, then they’ll not be having much on their social calendar for quite a while.

 

And as for “beserker rage” - even that is no match for heavy calibre bullets.

 

Mind you even the lovingly hand-crafted, personal, method of killing people with edged weapons is pretty effective - and in some can inflict even worse injuries than modern arms. There’s a series of videos on YouTube showing how terrible and effective these pre-gunpowder weapons can be; the video makers use pig carcasses as stand-ins for humans (roughly same height, weight and tissue & bone consistency/resilience). Believe me, once you’ve seen one of their videos on the battle axe or the broadsword, you’ll realise that “cleaved in twain” is not simply a Shakespearean turn of phrase…

 

Edited February 29 by iL Dottore
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