Veterans Day get together as a 11B I wasnt smart enough to be a 11C or a 11H

[Aristus]

17. Oh yeah. We called it 'punching the gun tube'.

We used a long, collapsible ramrod and several detachable tools that screwed on to the end. First, there was a round wire-brush that we coated with break-free and scrubbed the tube with it. Then we switched out the brush for a bell-shaped rammer, wrapped a rag around it and then swabbed all the gunk out of the tube with it. As with cleaning a rifle, we kept ramming rags through until they came out clean.

It took pretty-much the whole crew to clean the gun tube. Two or three guys road-ganging the rammer from outside the tank, and a guy inside to grab the cloth as it came through, and toss it back out to the crew to ram again.

Fortunately, we didn't have to do this too often; just during live-fire exercises. For field exercises, we kept the gun-tube covered with a rubber stopper to keep out dust and moisture.

The life of a tanker...