Weapons Of Mass Operator Destruction

Father Time did a turn with the Army in the early 60's. Luckily, we were between Korea and Viet Nam, so my combat duty consisted mainly of getting up at 4:00AM on Monday with a raging headache from Sunday night's training exercises at the Blue Goose in Leesville, Louisiana. I knew serving my country would be tough but this was beyond the call of duty!
At any rate, one of our most "feared" weapons was a 106mm recoilless rifle mounted on the back of an ordinary jeep. Being an engineering student in civilian life, my curiosity was aroused when the term "recoilless" was used to discuss this fearsome, yet brilliant, product of our best military minds. (Remember, mind altering drugs were in vogue back in those days!)

This cool diagram shows the principle of 106mm "rifle." Note that a large portion of the gases produced by the explosive, exits the rear of the gun, offsetting a portion of the recoil that is normally present in any weapon that hurls a huge projectile out of its barrel. So, it has to have some recoil in order to eject the projectile - absorbed by the jeep, but best of all, it would fry anyone standing behind the weapon with hot exhaust. We tried using the exhaust gas to roast wieners, but for some reason, we just ended up with a burnt stick and no hot dog! Life was not looking out for our best interests!

With a straight face, our training sergeants told us that this Jeep/106mm combo was a feared "tank killer." Strategically, we would drive the Jeep into raging combat, aim the 106mm at a tank, fire, and take off before the tank could fire back. Right! Rumor had it that the crew of this unbelievable weapon had a combat life expectancy of about 45 seconds!

At this point Father Time's brilliant mind went to work and came up with this! Since it was a foregone conclusion the crew would die in a matter of minutes, what if we mounted the 106mm on a motor scooter? We could cut the number of casualties in half!

I submitted my idea to the Army Weapons Lab on February 6, 1961, and am still waiting for an answer. Patience is a virtue.