Man On Fire

[Yogimus]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Windy Wilson]

That's what I thought as well.

Another fun activity each year was counting the number of Soviet tanks destroyed when their crews built a fire under the engine compartment to heat it up enough to start in the morning of a Russian winter.

It happened so often that we assumed it must of worked often enough to be a thing, but it was the times that it didn't go well that made for entertaining intel reports.

Erich Hartmann recounted in his biography how a tame Russian prisoner showed them how to build a fire under the airplane engine to get it warm enough to start on cold winter mornings. They had visions of all the charred wiring and hoses, but the airplane did start and fly safely.

[PawPaw]

Erich Hartmann recounted in his biography how a tame Russian prisoner showed them how to build a fire under the airplane engine to get it warm enough to start on cold winter mornings. They had visions of all the charred wiring and hoses, but the airplane did start and fly safely.

My fist platoon sergeant at Knox, an old 2ID veteran, told me about using oil drums cut in half lengthwise. They'd put rags in the drums, soak them in a little diesel, light it and slide it under the tank. The hull under the engine compartment of an M48/M60 hull is a single piece of steel, so the risk of damage to the engine was minimal. When the steel got warm, you could start the tank if your batteries were up to the task.

[blackeagle603]

In Fairbanks days, pre-block heaters, Dad used to put light the Coleman stove and slide it on a plank under the oil pan/trans to warm things up enough to turn over.