Oligo
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Posts posted by Oligo
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wardog @ Feb. 12 2002,09:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Almost all western tanks have a crew of four. In OFP the loader isn't used; guess the job wouldn't be that exciting.
The autoloader has it's problems; at least on the T72, there were cases where it shoved the gunners arm up the spout and closed the breech...<span id='postcolor'>
Which is an urban legend. They have a protective plate next to the gunners right arm (not shown in OFP) preventing the autoloader snatching the hand of the poor gunner.
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In Your Face
Another funny thing came to my mind. This happened during a week long summer exercise. It was a typical summer in Finland and of course it was raining for the whole goddamn week.
Midway through the week, everybody was totally pissed. Unfortunately so was our squad leader, who kept bitching at our squad all the time. We bit our teeth together and endured, until we had to take up positions in a really muddy patch of land.
Now to prepare a heavy towed 120mm mortar for firing, you have to dig a big hole for the base plate. Then you lower the base plate into the hole and showel dirt to the open spaces left. A good kicking with the heel of your boot nicely secures the baseplate to the ground.
Noticing the muddy state of the ground in our new positions, we realized there was room for a little revenge to our squad leader. We did the lowering part, but instead of dirt, we used wet mud to fill the excess space in the hole. Little dry dirt on the surface covered our deed.
Time for firing came eventually and our squad took their positions around the mortar. The squad leader was the only one positioned directly behind the mortar, since he had to pull the firing cord. The poor sod asked why everybody was grinning like crazy.
Orders came and our loader slammed in a shell. The squad leader lifted his hand and acknowledged readiness. The order to fire was given and our belowed leader pulled the cord. You can imagine the 120mm baby coughing out the first shell with a satisfying thump. You can also imagine the baseplate pressing down with the force of the recoil and about a half ton of mud splashing all over our sarge.
The coolest part was that he couldn't give us any shit, since inspecting the mortar positioning was one of his jobs...
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Its so funny when you all say stuff like: "Iraq sent their men to war." I think it would be more truthful to say that the few in power in Iraq forced a lot of people to take up arms and attack Kuwait. I don't think there was a common vote about this invasion. So the sad point here is that just a few power crazy people managed to control the millions of an entire nation. Even sadder is that this happens again and again in different places as history progresses.
To counter the offensive forced by Saddam, NATO went to war. They killed a lot of people: definitely troops, most likely also women and children. When you play around with guns, people get killed, its what the guns were made for. When waging war, it should be understood that all sorts of people will die as a result. All this crap about striking only military targets is just theoretical and does not apply in the real world in which all systems are interconnected and intertwined.
NATO bounced the Iraqis out of Kuwait with a lot of blood shed. Results:
-The true culprit was neither captured nor killed (Saddam).
-A lot of people forced to wage war got killed (includes the soldiers of NATO).
-A lot of ordinary people had to kill, because they were told to, which is definitely not good for you.
-Bush and ironically Saddam got huge popular support.
-Kuwait got freed (Status Quo got returned)
According to the results, the people doing the fighting and dying got next to nothing out of this war.
When going off to the next war however justified, NATO should accept the fact that war cannot be clean and civilized. War is hell. So when the media starts showing the children blown to bits by NATO bombs, the public should accept this blood on their hands and not try to deny it. The politicians should not deny it either, but they should try to wrap up the war ASAP.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (foxer @ Feb. 12 2002,03:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Watch fight club,great movie.<span id='postcolor'>
Yeah, Wobble, maybe you should start going to twelve-step support groups like the protagonist did in Fight Club when he couldn't sleep?
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I live to take orders
Back when I was doing my military service in a heavy mortar company, we had to go on a long excercise up to the northern part of Finland. As it happened it was winter and also the coldest period for last ten years. The temperatures quickly dipped to -40 degrees Celcius. You can imagine we were a little pissed off at this.
There was one guy at our unit, who really snapped because of the weather and the bitching officers. So he decided to act out like a REAL trooper. Every time somebody gave him an order, he did the task without any complaints. But as soon as the task was completed, he just fell to the ground instantly like a wet sock and didn't move. Since there was about a meter of snow everywhere, it was really hard to find the guy after he had hit the deck. The officers tried for a while to stop this behaviour, but since he always obeyed orders, there wasn't much they could do.
Now it just happened that a general came by to inspect our positions, so our officers psychoed like hell to get everybody formed up to parade lines and such. But the poor sods forgot about our hard-core trooper who was again lying in some hole in the snow and thus failed to hear the form-up orders issued.
The general finally arrived and stepped out of his car. Our platoon leader shouted like a maniac: "ATTENTION!" Everybody snapped to attention in a split second, but before the general could say anything, our hard-core trooper lifted his head from a snowy hole some distance away and asked: "What now?" I swear I could see the veins in the forehead of our platoon leader, pounding away, especially when his whole platoon (and the general) burst out laughing...
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What we are witnessing in both Black Hawk Down and the current war against terrorism is the creation of a new myth of nationhood. America is casting itself simultaneously as the world's saviour and the world's victim; a sacrificial messiah, on a mission to deliver the world from evil. This myth contains incalculable dangers for everyone else on earth.<span id='postcolor'>
Quite nicely put. Brings to my mind the phrase: "Heaven help us all, when the wounded giant starts flailing out blindly."
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Priest @ Feb. 01 2002,06:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As a species we have collective humanitarian responsibilities and this is something our societies have forgotten.<span id='postcolor'>
Just a short biology lesson here. It doesn't work like this with animals, plants or microbes. Species is a group of individuals that can reproduce with each other, that's all. Survival however, is purely a every individual for themselves thing or maybe every flock for themselves (flock is a comprehensible group of individuals, not 5 billion people). So actually it is very natural to screw thy neigbour over in order to further your OWN agenda. When you talk about collective humanitarian responsibilities, it is not something we have forgotten, because it has never been there. Now the question whether we should ADOPT collective humanitarian responsibilities for the first time in history is a question I don't care about.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wobble @ Jan. 31 2002,10:01)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">and all great empires have those who envy and hate them.. no matter how fair or unfair they are..
the US could do every single thing on earth correct.. and just because it is THE superpower thee would still be little people like you who look for any excuse to call it"evil" "greedy"
you forgot to mention the whole funding 1/4 of a 16 nation establishment donating more troops to it than any 2 other combined and giving billions of dollers worth the aid..
PS.. Â dont look now.. but an Evil empire air/spacecraft has snuck its evil self into yer avatar..<span id='postcolor'>
I probably should have stressed this a little more: I have no problem with U.S. doing whatever they do around the world with theit big armies and bullying politics. I understand that anybody with so much power will use it only to further their own agenda. This is how the world works and this is how I personally would probably also act. Evil and greedy is okay with me.
What I despise, however, is the fact that U.S. tries to justify its actions with some benevolence crap. So I keep pointing out shit U.S. does so that somebody from the land of the proud and free would just say: "Fuck you, we MOSTLY do this shit because we PROFIT from it and not because we are so goody-good."
Hence I have no problems with having a high-tech spacecraft U.S. scrapped because of a moronic president as my avatar. X-33, rest in peace.
And about aid to foreign countries. I'm pretty sure that if you calculate foreign aid given per capita, U.S. is not nearly the biggest giver.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wobble @ Jan. 31 2002,06:58)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">yea, the US is the right kind of 'evil enemy' to have .. give ya money, help protect yer country's interests.. and then sit back and let you berate it and call its people idiots,.. . I wish I had an enemy like that Â
it would be nice to have an evil empire that pays 1/4 of all the costs of the international orginazation of 16 countries.. one of which being yours, while you call its people greedy, then send more troops in to the conflicts that orginization has to participate in than any other 2 countries combined.. while you say its soldiers are inept.. then when its over you can make fun of it for any and every little mistake it made during the entire process.... Â it must be wonderful to have the US as an evil enemy...<span id='postcolor'>
Yeah, evil empires are best recognized by the fanaticism of their citizens and troops. Have a nice day, mister!
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (MrLaggy @ Jan. 30 2002,14:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It's also yet another reason why I consider Star Trek a joke. If you want an attempt to produce a realistic SF communist society, you need to read Iain Banks' "Culture" books, but even they are implausible in the extreme as political prophecy: though I did like "Excession", which demonstrated that the Culture types are only happy, fluffy, "can't we all get along?" bunnies when they have nothing to fight over... the moment a unique object turns up they all want to own it.<span id='postcolor'>
Man I just love Banks. The Culture books are in the top lot of SF, since old Iain has thought about things a lot. Anyway, you got to remember that not everybody got agitated in Excession. It was just the couple of ships (like the rapid offensive unit Frank Exchange of Views), who happened to be in the neighborhood to react. Most of the ships, drones and biologicals of the Culture just carried on with their hedonism thingy.
Besides, I doubt the Culture is communism. Since anybody can have anything they want, it is something I would call an utopia.
Man, The Use Of Weapons must be one of the best books I have ever read: "Any object or concept an organism uses to lenghten its survival can be called a weapon. Thus, survival comes down to the use of weapons." And Cheraderinde Zakalwe must be the best in the use of weapons, any weapons...
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Did you know that...
...the bacterial parasites living on your skin are more numerous than the cells of your own body?
...the symbiotic bacteria living in your gut make many essential biosynthetic products for you to use?
...some bacteria can withstand 3000 times more radiation than humans?
...some bacteria can withstand superheated water steam (120 degrees celsius) up to 20 minutes?
...despite our best efforts, some bacteria have managed to adapt to withstand even our most potent antibiotics in just a few years?
...bacteria live forever?
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The UN is an American puppet, just like NATO. While the UN bureaucrats sometimes get ideas above their station and pretend that they're in control, like when they recently kicked the American delegates off some human rights commision, without America the UN would be utterly irrelevant; and even today it's little but a social club for sad old socialists dreaming of world government, which America uses any time it wants to justify its interference in other countries.<span id='postcolor'>
Amen. Thank you for formulating into sentences what I was trying to say with my sarcasm. I agree to the fullest.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (christophercles @ Jan. 30 2002,11:06)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">America isnt, that fucktard is trying too.<span id='postcolor'>
Yeah, not the WHOLE of America. Just those religious morons they have.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I dont see what is to find stupid
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I laughed so hard I fell off my chair. I guess you have to come from a culture where nudity is a natural thing in order to appreciate the stupidity of it all. Man, you're covering up the little culture you have from your few hundred years of civilization, because you're so ashamed of your bodies.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Pete @ Jan. 30 2002,10:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">They might just give you economic sanctions in the U.N.
with the risk of sounding anti-american again...i would like to see that day come, we have set international rules and laws for a reason....that is for all nations to obey.
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That day will never come as long as U.S. has a veto right in the U.N.. It is funny that they (or the other countries) have that kind of right, because it implies that some countries are better than others.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And when we let the biggest kid break the rules and punish the little kids when they try to do the same, then those rules and laws become very unfair and useless.
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The one reason I despise U.S. so much is that they can never say it straight to your face. They ramble on and on about their good intentions, how they are the defenders of liberty. Why don't they just say: "We do this meddling crap because we are selfish like everybody else and since we have the biggest guns, we can just impose our every whim upon you as we please." I can understand the powerful doing what they please because they can, but I cannot listen to the crap they pour out to justify it without getting pissed.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (residuum @ Jan. 30 2002,08:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We have a force there which we think is what we need. They want us out. We say no. Why? Because we can. That part of the world desperatley needs western influence.
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They ask you to pull out and you do not, you become an occupying force, since it is their country and so it is theirs to say what goes. It is their country, since your country has recognized the government and sovereignty of Saudi Arabia. If you want people to think that your country represents something benevolent, I don't think you should go occupying other countries.
They might just give you economic sanctions in the U.N.
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I didn't mean that the americans are literally aliens, just that they might be, because their thought-set differs so much from that of europeans. Same holds true for the chinese for example. They have just totally different minds.
Anyway, I'm from Finland, mate. Oligo means something like 'few'. It has also come to mean a DNA-strand or peptide-strand of only a few units long in biotechnology slang. The latter is what my nick is referring to.
And about the X-33, well, that just happened to be the coolest piece of technology in development at the moment (Man, single stage to orbit!) and they went and frigging took it apart. Reminds me of the Avro Arrow case in Canada. First you lovingly put something brilliant together and then you slaughter it. I just love politicians...
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">So when are they going to close down the Internet? I don't know about you, but I haven't watched TV propaganda or read newspaper propaganda for years. The dumbed-down masses may still do so, but their opinion has never mattered anyway.
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They are constantly talking about regulating the Internet. You know, the terrorists might use it to plan evil stuff. And what comes to the dumbed-down masses, they are the ones cating the votes in elections. The people with power are picked by the dumbasses.
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It's worth remembering that, by definition, the decline of an empire always begins when it's at its strongest: I say the America empire is at that point today, and from here the only way is down.<span id='postcolor'>
You're probably right.
You know, it's nice to have a nice conversation for a change.
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Endless circle, you're saying? It might be so. But what IS going to happen is that the governments in their crusade to defend themselves are going to trample on the non-pissed off, non-troublemaker individuals. You know, better indoctrination, propaganda and brainwashing to prevent dissent ever from sprouting. This is a shame, because dissent is the driving force of human development. If nobody is unhappy, nobody wants to change anything and thus no more development.
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Technology is developing at an exponential phase. Currently determination can still beat technology (determined people brought down the WTC), but how long will that last? How long an invidual can still extract his revenge against the consensus? How soon dissidence becomes impossible?
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What you didn't consider, is the emergence of kick ass new technologies. Today, the imperialist country can wield technology almost magical compared to the tech of the british empire. We're not there quite yet, but pretty soon (I'd imagine) you can exert absolute control over every human mind with your technology. Then, nobody in the planet will be allowed to think anything except The Truth as shown on CNN. Resistance will be futile and you're stuck with that shit forever.
Thus, the adult countries of Europe should get their act together and keep to their sober ideologies.
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If Wobble can be considered a typical U.S. adult with his opinions, then there apparently does exist an emerging gap of ideology between europe and the U.S. This ideological gap was also discussed in a recent article in Time.
Reading Wobbles text is like reading something written by an alien being. If he cannot grasp this thing about reducing force in Saudi Arabia (which is not even a total pullout!), then there is no space for argumentative discussion, since the basis of though are just too different.
I understand your words Wobble, but I do not understand the mind nor reason behind them. Â
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Borg-type civilizations are what Ian M. Banks calls a Giant Hegemonizing Swarm. These swarms convert everything (all mass) to their own image. GHS type events are one of the outside context problems a advanced, peaceful, starfaring civilization can encounter. You should all read The Use Of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, Look to Windward and Excession by Ian M. Banks. His other novels also rock.
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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wobble @ Jan. 28 2002,09:48)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes, seeing as how if not then its likley Japan would not have surrendered, and the emp ("god") had instructed the people of the Empire to die fighting or commit suicide before allowing capture or defeat.. and from what was seen in the island hopping up to that point it was obvious they would do exactly that.. evern man woman and child in the Japanese empire was ordered by their GOD to either die fighting or kill themselves.. and they would have done it... needless to say the number of dead would be well in excess of how many people the 2 nukes would EVER kill.
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I think you have all proven the point about them dying rather than surrendering. But why did you need them to surrender? Why not make peace? You already got the islands back. Just make peace and let them tackle their shit on their four islands, surrounded by hostile nations. They would have fallen in no-time and kicked their "god" out.
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">its an uncontestable fact that the dropping of the Atomic bombs saved more people.. allied and Japanese than continueing the war.. so no the US was not wrong in its decision to use them.
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I wonder how many people would have been saved by just containing the morons on their island. No man, the reason you used the a-bombs was that you wanted the war over as soon as possible so that your boyz could go home to eat some apple pie. Well worth wasting some civvies.
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">sucks to be proven wrong by a "blind yank" doesent it
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The reason I called you a "blind yank" (and I apologize for that) is because I doubt that you can come up with even one thing the U.S. has done wrong. So can you publicly point out even one such thing of your country? To show good faith, I'll reciprocate: Finland (my country) should have stood more firmly and not given even those few jews to the nazis. It's a shame our country did such a bad thing.
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">in hind sight it was the best thing that could have happened to Japan given the circumstances... it offered the lest possable loss of life.. and compared to the Japanese atrocities on its POWs, the holocaust, the Stalin purges.. as far as being "inhumain" it doesent even come close.. it was done for military reasons.. with the goal of winning the war.. the Japanese atrocities were done... well pretty much for fun.. the holocause was a sadistic attempt to rid an entire race from the earth, and the stalin purges were ruthless foundless murders carried out under the sadistic and practically insane whimes of a paranoid madman dictator.
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You're right in pointing out how evil those people were. We all agree on that. But dropping nukes on people (civvies or soldiers) is still wrong. It is an atrocity and no good intentions can justify it. I bet Hitler thought that he was doing good with his shit.
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">and as a final though: more civilians were killed in the Drezden(sp) firestorm when the RAF firebombed it than died in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki..
and all sides bombed civilian targets in WW2.. so dont dare try to make the US some sort of villian for doing it.. hipocritic ass.
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The firebombing of Dresden was an atrocity as well. So was bombing London and Stalingrad and Helsinki and whatever. Everybody who did it IS on some level a villain (includes my country). The point is to remember what you did and try to avoid it in the future. I'm not trying to be a hipocrite, but your country is also bad (although not the worst).
WHO has actually been in the army here?
in OFFTOPIC
Posted
I served in a heavy mortar company in the FDF (Finnish Defense Force). Eventually made it to PFC (we call it corporal), although I have no idea why they promoted me.
I got to shoot Sako RK 62 7.62mm and LMG. Mainly though I shot a bunch of rounds with the 88mm light mortar and a shitload with the 120mm heavy mortar. Also got to toss live handgrenades and blow up loads of TNT, plastique and frost penetration charges.
Man, once I forgot my earmuffs as we were lobbing 120mm grenades with maximum charge. The sound was so loud, I didn't actually much hear it. Funny.