Army Ducks - Torpedos, Tanks, And Mines...OH MY!
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The year is twenty-ten. There has been an ongoing feud between two rivals that many are unaware of. After the southern migration of the Canadian Geese, so many years ago, they have became a nuisance to us all. One inhabitant of this area is very angry at the fact that the Canadian Geese are stealing their food and ponds. They are beginning to join in massive flocks to create a force that is unstoppable. Their goal is to drive these geese back to their homeland. General Donald Duck has created an army of SUPER ducks!
I, Gen. Donald Duck of the Army Ducks, is calling you to join us in the war against the Canadian Geese. As a Geocacher and new recruit of the Army Ducks, your mission is to find caches at current Army Duck post while learning about the past wars and equipment used. Godspeed fellow Army Duck/Geocacher on your journey and hunt.
-General Donald Duck
The M60 Patton Tank was used and manufactured during the Cold War era. The M60 Series is a second-generation main battle tank (MBT) introduced in December 1960. It was widely used by the U.S. and its Cold War allies, especially those in NATO, and remains in service throughout the world today despite being superseded by the M1 Abrams. Egypt is currently the largest operator with 1,700 upgraded M60A3s, Turkey is second with more than 900 upgraded units in service, and Israel is third with over 700 units of Israeli variants. Although developed from the M48 Patton, another interim until replaced by the M60, the M60 series was never officially classified as a Patton tank, but as a "product improved descendant" of the Patton series of tanks. On 16 March 1959, the OTCM (Ordnance Technical Committee Minutes) #37002 standardized the vehicle as the 105 mm Gun Full Tracked Combat Tank M60. With the US Army's deactivation of their last (M103) heavy tank battalion, the M60 became the Army's first main battle tank during the Cold War. The M60 was the last U.S. main battle tank to utilize homogeneous steel armor for protection. It was also the last to feature the M60 machine gun and an escape hatch under the hull.
A Naval Mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel. Naval mines can be used offensively—to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour; or defensively—to protect friendly vessels and create "safe" zones. Mines can be laid in many ways: by purpose-built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines, or aircraft—and even by dropping them into a harbour by hand. They can be inexpensive: some variants can cost as little as US$1000, though more sophisticated mines can cost millions of dollars, be equipped with several kinds of sensors, and deliver a warhead by rocket or torpedo. Their flexibility and cost-effectiveness make mines attractive to the less powerful belligerent in asymmetric warfare. The cost of producing and laying a mine is usually anywhere from 0.5% to 10% of the cost of removing it, and it can take up to 200 times as long to clear a minefield as to lay it. Parts of some World War II naval minefields still exist because they are too extensive and expensive to clear. It is possible for some of these 1940s-era mines to remain dangerous for many years to come. Mines have been employed as offensive or defensive weapons in rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, and oceans, but they can also be used as tools of psychological warfare. Offensive mines are placed in enemy waters, outside harbours and across important shipping routes with the aim of sinking both merchant and military vessels. Defensive minefields safeguard key stretches of coast from enemy ships and submarines, forcing them into more easily-defended areas, or keeping them away from sensitive ones.
The Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo was the U.S. Navy's most common aerial torpedo of World War II. It was designed with unusually squat dimensions for its type: diameter was 22.4 inches (570 mm) and length 13 feet 5 inches (4.09 m). In the water, the Mark 13 could reach a speed of 33.5 knots (62.0 km/h; 38.6 mph) for up to 6,300 yards (5,800 m). The Mark 13 ran 12.8 knots (23.7 km/h; 14.7 mph) slower than the Mark 14 torpedo. 17,000 were produced during the war. Originating in a 1925 design study, the Mark 13 was subject to changing USN requirements through its early years with resulting on-and-off development. Early models—even when dropped low to the water at slow speeds—were prone to running on the surface, or not running at all. By late 1944, the design had been modified to allow reliable drops from as high as 2,400 ft (730 m), at speeds up to 410 knots (760 km/h). The final Mark 13 weighed 2,216 lb (1,005 kg); 600 lb (270 kg) of this was the high explosive Torpex. The Mark 13 was very similar in design to the Mark 14 and Mark 15 torpedoes which suffered from problems such as submerged running approximately ten feet lower than set, contact exploder duds and magnetic trigger premature explosions. The Mark 13 design avoided these problems with its larger diameter, lesser mass, lesser negative buoyancy, slower running speed and the lack of a magnetic influence feature in its Mark IV exploder. At the close of the war, the Mark 13 was considered one of the most reliable air-dropped torpedoes available.
Please don't climb on the tank and other equipment. Please be easy on opening this cache! Thanks!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ubyl zbyl! Vf gung n gbecrqb?