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Gunner,Commander


mpow66m

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45 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

...to do what, realistically speaking?

To panic and bail out of the tank. 😛

 

In all seriousness though, the loader is usually the most junior member of the crew, usually trained in very basic operation of the tank (pull this trigger to fire the gun for example). Certainly a CMOH winning loader could hop between the loader position and load a round, then back to the gunner position and *maybe* fire the gun and possibly hit something, but the problem with that behavior in SB is that every loader would be Audie Murphy, with the user operating the gun just as effective as being without the gunner/commander (just waiting a long time to load), which probably isn't quire realistic as a norm. 

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There was one famous such case in the 1967 Six Day war. At the heart of Khan Younis, Yosef Lapper, a young IDF reserve tanker (trained as a TC, but positioned as a loader), fought alone for 8 hours from his immobilized M48A2C, loading and shooting the main gun all by himself. Eventually, IDF troops reached him and evacuated him to hospital, where Lapper suddenly remembered he still has in his pocket the hand grenade he had prepared in case the Egyptians would climb on his tank. Of course he was decorated with the highest decoration.

Lapper's reserve service was quite extraordinary, having experienced heavy fighting also in 1973 (M48A3 loader, injured again, during the failed October 8th counterattack) and 1982 (M60A1 RISE TC near Sultan Yacoub, the only tank in his company that wasn't hit). He also got an additional citation (low level this time) in 1976, for killing two terrorists who tried to infiltrate Israel through the Dead Sea.

 

The 1968 movie Kol Mamzer Melekh includes a battle scene that is based on Lapper's fighting:

 

 

and another video, depicting this case more accurately:

 

 

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2 hours ago, Iarmor said:

There was one famous such case ... Of course he was decorated with the highest decoration.

Yes, one case. A famous one. CMOH material, as Volcano labelled it.

It shouldn't be the norm.

 

The norm is that loader and driver decide that they have used up enough of their luck for the day, and that they need to care of the sticky goo on the walls and the charred pieces of flesh that moments ago were their crew buddies. Maybe we can apply a bit more granularity one day, but right now we can't, so a lone loader won't do much.

 

You could rationalize this that he's busy enough administering first aid to keep the severely wounded crew members from dying, until an ambulance comes along to restore them. Which is miraculous enough for my taste. 

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