It's always scary when people mention Air Force and using armored vehicles. In the armor battalions, one of the three tanks in Headquarters Company is the -66 vehicle and it belongs to the Air Force forward observer. You know, that "lost" looking major in Air Force uniform, wandering around...
They normally stay in their jeep during field exercises. But a decision was made to run them through the Tank Commander's Certification Course and turn them into instant TCs. While it seemed a good idea to some REMF buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, taking an airdale and putting them in a tank was a recipe for trouble. Especially when they had to go to gunnery.
The M-60A1 tank is equipped with a gyro-stabilizer that maintains traverse and elevation while the tank is moving. To stabilize, there is a control box with two dials, the gunner simply rotates the dials to hold the gun/turret steady. Simple, right?
Shooting with a three man crew means that the tank commander also has to act as gunner, which is why the TC position has the ability to move the turret and fire a weapon, many TCs are adapt at reaching into the gunner's position to flip switches, index ammo, arm the co-axial, etc.
Our airdale saw this being done and thought he could go one better, while holding the turret override control, he stretched his leg and tried to kick the switch for the co-ax...except he missed and engaged the stabilizer...and knocked both knobs out of adjustment.
Since he had the override engaged, the gun moved to max elevation, causing him to slip, and since he didn't let go of the override, the turret proceed to slew left at max speed. On the firing range we watched in awe as the turret spun about a dozen times before he released the override. We also got to listen to his terrified screaming and cursing over the radio circuit!
And Range Control couldn't help themselves: "Ahhhh, Hotel-66, please observe correct radio procedure!"