Consistency - ever heard of it?

[FierceKitty]

I always think in parsecs. Helps to get the Big Picture.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

But isn't a parsec like a light year, a measure of time ?

[Techno II]

No, Matey.

It's a unit of 'length' equivalent to roughly 19 trillion miles or 31 trillion kilometers.
That nice Han Solo has got a lot to answer for.

You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's.....But that's just peanuts to space.

Cheers - Zaphod.  

[goat major]

Astronomers were amazed to find out that 1 parsec is also the same as 1 hex in Traveller. What a coincidence

[Raider4]

Was taught 'Feet' and 'Inches' as a kid...BUT, THEN, 'they' went 'Metric', so never have been able to get my head around 'fractions'!

I was taught metric only in schools, but grew up around people who only thought imperial. So feet, inches, yards, miles, gallons and pints all ake sense to me.

The thing I never got was fractions of an inch. In understand what 3/16" means - I just can't visualise it.

So: 'Big' is in 'Yards / Feet / inches', 'Small' in mm!  

Bit like temperatures - hot is Farenheit, cold is CentigradeCelsius (in the UK at least).

Although when an American says it's 12° outside, don't think "Oh, that's pleasantly mild", okay?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Although when an American says it's 12° outside, don't think "Oh, that's pleasantly mild", okay?

Although that would be a heat wave for a Canadian.

Blame that nice Mr Barker for the Imperial/Metric mixes, all his ancient rules had metric bases and moves in inches.

[Scorpio_Rocks]

UK building industry has always used both simultaneously - plaster board etc has always been sold as "x mm" thick in "8' x 4'" sheets

[goat major]

And the UK steel industry although notionally metric sells in dimensions that are based on imperial ..... so a 254x146 beam is 10" x 5  3/4 inches

[Steve J]

The same with timber and mdf sheets, which are basically still imperial measurements, but now converted to the nearest equivalent cm.

[Raider4]

And the 76.2mm gun was popular in WW2.

Why 76.2mm? That's an odd figure. Why pick that? Oh, it's 3 inches . . .

[Orcs]

You have to be careful when quoting calibre when looking at Russian stuff, certainly post ww2.

In Viktor Suvorov's book 'Inside the Soviet Army' he states that even though a weapon may have a calibre in its name,  It does not mean that is actually the calibre of the weapon.

They change the 'official calibre ' to avoid  supplying the incorrect ammunition. I no longer have the book, so cannot mention the specific weapons h quoted.

eg a rocket with a real calibre of 150mm, may be called a 155mm rocket. So when you call through to request additional ammo the person at the end knows its for a rocket launcher and not a 150mm howitzer.

 

[Raider4]

Yeah . . . I'm pretty sure the ~35k T-34 tanks produced (not using the 85mm gun) and the ~14k SU-76 both had 3"76.2mm guns fitted to them.

And also yeah . . . I'm aware that (e.g.) the Comet tank had what was known as the 77mm gun, just so they could differentiate. But again, it was fitted with a 3"76.2mm.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Same applies to some German weapons such as the sK100mm which is actually 105mm.

[Last Hussar]

Wasn't the 17 pdr ammo referred to as 77mm to make sure you didn't get the wrong 76mm?

[fsn]

I thought the 17pdr ammo was 17pdr, but the short 17pdr fitted in the Comet was 77mm.