New Army hand signals

[Frenchie]

You infantry grunts will remember the silent hand signals for use in combat. Here's a new version of them. Rated PG-13.

http://www.petebevin.com/archives/signals.html

[Rob Weaver]

That's great! Hand signals were less than useful to those of us who preferred to ride to war wrapped in 52 tons of rolled steel.

[tompritchett]

Hand signals were less than useful to those of us who preferred to ride to war wrapped in 52 tons of rolled steel.

Unless you were slowly driving that puppy in confined areas that required the use of ground guides. My favorite though was the brand new LT in my company who wanted to get his bearings by back triangulating from observable landmarks. In itself it was not a bad idea; the only problem was that he was taking his compass readings from the top of all that 52 tons of rolled steel.

[Rob Weaver]

Unless you were slowly driving that puppy in confined areas that required the use of ground guides. My favorite though was the brand new LT in my company who wanted to get his bearings by back triangulating from observable landmarks. In itself it was not a bad idea; the only problem was that he was taking his compass readings from the top of all that 52 tons of rolled steel.

I did that once just for fun - the compas just goes around... Army doctrine in the early 80s mandated that unless under artillery fire or NBC conditions, tanks operated unbuttoned, and in order to maintain radio listening silence, to use hand and arm signals. There are few that resemble the infantry signals. I am significantly shorter than average and all my TCs could see of my hand and arm signals were the tips of my fingers; the rest of me was covered by the hatch. In response, we developed a series of flag signals inspired by the signals we saw in photographs of Soviet tank formations and what I knew from the history of tanks in WWI. Using the gunnery flags
I could clearly direct my vehicles on the move.

[tompritchett]

Army doctrine in the early 80s mandated that unless under artillery fire or NBC conditions, tanks operated unbuttoned, and in order to maintain radio listening silence, to use hand and arm signals. There are few that resemble the infantry signals. I am significantly shorter than average and all my TCs could see of my hand and arm signals were the tips of my fingers; the rest of me was covered by the hatch. In response, we developed a series of flag signals inspired by the signals we saw in photographs of Soviet tank formations and what I knew from the history of tanks in WWI.

I remember seeing them in older manuals when I went in the late 70's when tanks moved in fixed formations. Then when we went to the bounding over-watch formations, they went out of fashion. Sounds like they came back in fashion after I got out.

[Rob Weaver]

The prevailing thought was that Soviet jamming would be so successful, that radio trasmition would be next to impossible. Visual communication was the big thing. We had to keep radio traffic down to a couple seconds each, and a lot of it was encoded words or numbers. Then along came secure communications and eveyone with a handset became chatty Kathy.

[7thNJcoA]

That was great frenchie! we used to have a signal in the marines for the officers they would give the signal for "cover me" folled by the middle finger it meant cover me in F'ed we then replied with the middle fnger and the sign for cover which meant F..... U im covered

[Frenchie]

Drew, ROTFL!

My brother wants to know, what's the signal for "I gotta go potty"?

[Ocaliman]

Drew, ROTFL!

My brother wants to know, what's the signal for "I gotta go potty"?

Ask any preschooler.. Usually signalled by a tugging at the back of the pants and repeated hopping movements.

[Rob]

Number 3 looks like an Al Jolson impression, complete with blackface...

"Swanee, how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old Swanee..."