Repairing tracks, military style

[HermannB]

This videos shows how the GDR Army repairs demolished tracks in a hypothetic war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSMZo45S7iU

[justsendit]

Really interesting video. Thank you for sharing!

—mike

[18bravo]

They talk about the small amount of explosive required to destroy that stretch of track. Unfortunately for them, guys like me wouldn’t have done it that way. It is precisely for such applications that we’d have employted a SADM, and more than likely underneath a railroad bridge. I know this because we used to practice it on a railroad bridge on South Post at Fort Devens.

Question about weapons load on a Skyhawk

I’ll bet it was. Nothing like a good 15-6 to get the blood flowing. As the youngest guy on the team, I had to jump it, but it was a rope jump. Hell, my team jumped in BBQ grills and small black and white TV’s, why not a thermonuclear weapon? I’ve never seen photos of a team actually training with the dummy, so here are two from my collection. We were practicing emplacing it near a railroad bridge on South Post at Fort Devens when I was in 10th Group. [image] [image] Obviously at that time I…

I never posted the photos of the bridge, but it was with these that I took from the same training mission.

You’ve been on a roll with DDR related stuff lately. Please do continue.

[HermannB]

Hi Rob,
In East Germany, railway played a more important role than in the west. In a country where you have to wait 10+ years for a car, travelling by train or bus was paramount. While we stopped the use of steam engines in 1977. Dampfloks were in use until the end of GDR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYj0yxf3xvU

GDR also put great emphasis on NBC defense, take note that even the train driver had NBC protective suits. I wish that GDR NVA would have got greater attention by model companies. I would build some more GDR tucks (IFA W50, Robur LO 2002) if they were available in styrene.