From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 20:59:58 PST
>When I was much younger and before Army bases
>were as secured as they are now, I wandered into
>an army shop to watch them swap out gas engines
>for diesels. This was pre-Abrams. The explanation
>they gave me was that diesel fuel was much safer
>to be carrying around than gasoline.
Very true. You have to try really hard to get diesel to ignite compared
to gasoline. They did not call the Shermans "Ronsons" (British) and
"Zippos" (American) for nothing! Better than the Lee/Grant, which the
Soviets nicknamed "grave for six brothers" after their Lend Lease
experience with them.
Diesel is also more stable from a storage standpoint. It can be stored
longer without going bad. Or so I am told :-)
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:24:56 PDT