T___A

The T-55M

Comprehensive listing of T-55M mods by "CV9030FIN" on tanknet :http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=16797&p=419944 For readability, I copypaste it on this post, too: 
 
I have no competence beyond that listing. I've got a thin hunch about "CV9030FIN"'s identity and consider his knowledge very credible. 

An offical conscript tabloid, Ruotuväki told following in their article considering T-55M retirement  in March 2002:
 
As for the development of the T-55M, I find it very hard to obtain written literature. Esa Muikku scrapes the topic on his de-facto base book for Finnish armor enthuasist; The Finnish Armored Vehicles 1918-1997: 
It's of course worth mentioning that the FDF was not aware of the looming dissemination of the DDR and its NVA. When the T-55M project was finished, the FDF was about to have two war-time armored brigades equipped with T-72M1's, and one with T-55M. Ultimately the desicion was made to divert the T-55M's to Separate Armor Battalions. The quantity of vehicles suggest that two such battalions were formed.
I'm aware of two surviving museum vehicles, of which another, labeled Ps 262-25 is particulary interesting one. As far as I am concerned, it is possibly one of the modernization testbeds, and thus differs from the rest of the series for at least one detail: It's got add-on "Brow armor" on its turret, very similar to that of the Polish T-55AM "Merida". The vehicle is stored but not publicly shown by the Armour Museum.  Meanwhile, some undisclosed figure of T-55Ms continue to serve in the FDF; either in OPFOR role equipped with very elementary simulator equipment, but also in conscript service in the Armored Brigades Armoured Engineer Company, who utilize KMT-5M mineroller equipped T-55Ms. They are getting replaced by similarly roled and equipped Leopard 2 A4's possibly very soon. 


T-55M (Ps 262-1) of the Armored Engineer Co. unloading from train in execise "LÄNSI 11" Photo courtesy of the FDF, 2011.


T-55M (Ps 262-1) with KMT-5M attached during the same "LÄNSI 11" exercise. Photo courtesy of the FDF, 2011.


T-55M in typical camouflage with its KMT-5M attachments and yellow "OPFOR" marking visible. Unknown date (2012?) and photographist.

T-55M in Sipoo during exercise "HELSINKI 2000". At the time all of the T-55M were assigned to Separate Tank Battalions. One company (10 tanks) took part on the exercise.  Photo courtesy of the FDF, 2000.

Now, from the last photo a sharp guy notices that the main sights top unit/mirror is completely identical to the Yugo/Serb M-84's DNNS-2. I'd really like to know the story about it's development, as I know for fact that the T-55M's FCS is called Bofors FCS-FV/K. All of its capabilites match with datasheets of the DNNS-2. I've heard rumours of Yugo-Swedish joint development of the mentioned FCS, but nothing that I could doublecheck. Also most of  the FCS handles and components within the M-84 and the Finnish T-55M are if not identical, at least very similar. I hope I can provide photos some day to back it up.

In the Armour Seminarium 2014, held in the Armored Brigage 1.2.2014, following statement was given by Ove Engvist, Commander (resigned), Doctor in War Sciences and a writer, during his lecture about 100 56 TKs,  the coastal battery gun turrets based on the  T-55 turrets: "During maintenance and modernization of the gun turrets initiated in the late 80's, included installation of laser range finder equipped gun periscope sights made by Yugoslavian company "Iskra". The same Yugo-sight was considered to be used in the T-55M modernization program, but instead a Swedish option was chosen." If somebody could enlighten me about the Swedish-Yugo connection and development, I would be glad.

 

Was doing some cooking, and decided I might as well clean my Mosin since I had the stuff out;
 

TIL the coat of arms of God is usually depicted like this:

General chats of many popular games should be Purged, with many "posters" finding themselves in Gulags.

Hello fellow members, a newcomer here.

I just finished reading  the exhaustive Ukrainian armor -thread among few other great threads, and felt like I shall contribute something to this forum in return.
Hopefully I can drag other authors with me into this thread, but I restain the right to start the topic with the vehicle, of which retirement has caused most butthurt among Finnish armor community. That is, of course, the T-72M1, "Seittenkakkonen" (Finnish for "semdesyatdvoyki" / "seventytwo"). All data presented here is translated from public Finnish articles and seminarys.

In this post I focus on the initial acquirement process of the T-72 from the USSR, and in later posts I will adress the NVA-deal, some interesting modifications and last, the disqualification of the T-72M1 in the FDF.



A Nižni Tagili T-72M1, produced somewhere between 1985 and 1988, in AALTO-2004 exercise with reservist crew. The attached combat simulator equipment is Saab BT 41. Photo most likely courtesy of the FDF.
T-72M1 in Finnish Service The acquisation and preparations
 
During the 60's and 70's the Finnish land force's fist was one <sic> Armored Brigade, which main battle tanks were T-54's and T-55's delivered from 1959 to 1972. During 1975-1977, The parliaments defense commitee proposed the renovation of armored equipment. The next committee left its memo in 1981, which suggested acquiring armor from the USSR, utilizing possible bilateral trade. Such procedure was usual way of business in heavy machinery and equipment between Finland and USSR at the time. This would enable the FDF to form another war-time armored brigade.

In  May, 1979, The T-72 Ural, among armor workshop trucks and other armored vehicles was presented to the Finnish delegation in Vystrel training centre in Solnetshnogorsk. In December another delegation was sent to examine the T-72, first in theory at Malinovski armor academy and in practice at Vystrel. Memos from both trips review the T-72 very suitable for the FDF's usage, and to be a vast improvement in contrast to the T-55, but it was also considered to demand more service due its complexity. The buying process was initially started, but during may 1983 the Soviet counterpart notified for the Finns surprise that more modern, T-72M and T-72MK-tanks would be available. These vere reviewed by the Finns later in the same year. Later the acquisition refined to apply T-72M1 and T-72M1K's.

Training in Odessa

The process started to materialize, when a 22-men delegation formed of personel from the Headquarters, Armored Brigade and depots took a trip to Moscow in early September 1984, and continued from there to Odessa, where instructors and maintenance personell received their training.  The journey memorandum is still held secret by the headquarters, but a good overview in to their studies was publicly presented by one of the participants in 2014.

The course were held in military academy in Fontanskaya street. Gunnery took place in Khornomorskje, driving studies in Štepanivka near Kiev,  and deep fording training was held near the town of Nikojalev. The academy was a combined arms cadet academy, and held participants from satellites such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola, Mosambik, Afganistan and Mongolia, but also equipement course students from a countries whose ties to the USSR were little looser, such a Finland and Algeria. The cadet courses lasted for five years, of which the first one consisted of only studies of Russian language.

The delegation was led by colonel Tauno Ylänne, while their soviet counterpart was army captain. The students were split into three courses: The instructors, weapons and electrics, and service & maintenance. The Finns attending the course were no greenhorns; all had solid experience on the T-54 and the T-55, the most experienced elders even beyond that, from the T-34-85. They shared the views of acquisition delegations and considered the T-72M1 remarkably advanced in terms of  fire control, night vision and loading automatics <no way...> compared to its predecessors. The cultural difference between the instructors and students was wide: The Soviets wanted to call their Finnish students comrades, which the delegation refused to accept. The instructors had gotten used to the low knowledge level of their students, thus for example the training for the command (K)-models navigation apparatus started from the basics of trigonometry.

The Finns were taught like they had no prior experience of the armor branch, but these issues was to be solved quickly. Not every participant was fluent in Russian language, or understood it at all. The three interpreters included in  the delegation could not be serving all need simultaneously, but with help of colleagues the students kept up. The Finns also had translated the technical documentation of the T-72 on their own, which greatly helped the self-studies. The translation was done by a major called Ari Puheloinen. He would later become the commander of the defense forces. A tankist to the bone, he left service for retirement in 2014,  driving a BMP-2 in the streets of Helsinki. 
Instructor's training consisted of 300 hours, of which over a half was spent for combat vehicle course and a degree. Relatively little time was used for weapons and gunnery training, and the emphasis of the studies was on the cassette autoloader which represented new technology for the Finns. The maintenance group instead, focused on the repairs and evacuation, and also carried out a degree to attest their 336 hour training. The studies took place from Monday to Saturday, from 0800 to 1500 followed by a three hour self-study time. The method of theory followed by self-studies was seen successful, and was later to be applied on the training of conscripts.

In the  exams the Finns cheated abundantly : The interpreters had heard the correct narrations many times over, and despite of what the student sobbed them in Finnish, they provided the correct answers for the instructors. On the other hand, the Finns repeatedly broke the 2,8 km  long tank driving tracks speed records for a great nuisance for their instructors. Practical training remained a bit thin; no full-calibre shots were fired, and deep fording was presented only as an exhibition. The combat frog, MT-LB was also presented for the students, and later it was chosen to be bought also. The students returned in Finland 27.10.1984.

The tanks arrive

The first 15 T-72M1's and T-72M1K's of the order of 60 tanks, crossed to border on a railbed 13.12.1984 and were transfered to Siikakangas depot for acceptance and modifications. Also a "work brigade" of two russian mechanics arrived to fix faults and deviations noticed in the acceptance checks. The new vehicles and its systems were put on several tests during 1985 in order to examine and clarify its features and performances.  The tanks were localized with Finnish light package for road usage, Finnish plates in instruments, fire extinguisher and such minor things. The Odessa men were called in May for a week to recap their studies, exercise driving and perform so called "driving licenses" for the tank in order to start its usage on the Armour Brigade. The first batch on tanks, 3 T-72M1's and one T-72M1K was delivered from depot to the Armored Brigade in May, where they were used in public presentation and in additional training for the brigade staff.  In autumn 1985, 10 tanks more were delivered and the conscript training (production of war-time troops) begun.  In the next summer the Armored Brigade received next 13 tanks to start training in another Tank Company and a first T-72 cadet course. For the next decade they would be training two T-72's companies concurrently, until the second unit switched to modernized T-55's in 1996 in order to fulfill new troop production demands.

The rest of the tanks were delivered in four batches, 15 in February 1985, 10 in December 1986, 10 in Apri 1987 and 10 in September 1988, respectively. All the delivered tanks, 54 T-72M1's and 6 T-72M1K were new and were shipped straight from Nižni Tagil. The exported vehicles represented a productions from November 1984 to August 1988, there were some degree of structural differencies, which caused minor problems with spare part fitment and documentation. Configuration was usual for the type, but the GO-27 gas/radiation meter lacked from all Nižni Tagili vehicles. This wasn't the case with Warsaw Pact T-72M1's.

Later the war-time Armour Brigade rosters were adjusted and changed, which created a demand for three more T-72M1K's. These were amidst very interesting political situation, in December 1991. They were equipped with brand new radio gear R-173 and R-134 and new R-174 intercoms.

Training equipment

In addition to the tanks them selves, a large assortment of training equipment was acquired. It consisted of UDS-172 demonstration tank (a cage model of the T-72, nowadays shown at the Armour Museum), demonstration turret SAZ-172, autoloader training apparatus, demonstration main gun and broad range of cut-models of various equipment. In 1993 started training with three TOPT-3 turret simulators, which were modified in Finnish-Israeli co-operation. The modifications allowed to train the turret crews of whole platoon in a classroom.

First usage experiences and maintenance 

When the users had got familiar with their new tanks and their most common faults and issues, a repair training was initiated with the Soviet counterpart, based on earlier agreements.  The field maintenance troop was trained in Kiev, and the major overhaul training was held in Moscow, Atamanovka and Saransk. The Soviet union broke up meanwhile, and changes in organizations caused a few years break in the training. When the training resumed, qualitative problems arose as some of the organisations supposed to train the Finns weren't yet familiar with the T-72 them selves, as they had just took over functions which were had been located in the Baltic states.  Additional training was bought from former DDR, where their biggest tank repair factory in Neubrandenburg, now operated by company called SIVG provided the Finns training for the repairs in transmission and sighting complex TPD-K1. Some testing equipment were also bought from SIVG, which proved to be excellent and some still remain in use while the T-72 is long gone. Discussions with the Russians in 1993 were held in order to find out at which phase and in what scale  they applied interval repair to their vehicles. While the Russian procedure was not applied "as-is" in Finland, the discussions strengthened the Finnish perceptions of the tanks usual wear and tear.

The overhaul literature and technical drawings were bought as full series in their whole broadness. Spare parts were bought per manufactureres guidelines, but adapted in the light of Finnish experiences. Repair equipment and tools  was purchased both in metal and in paper (to be manufactured by the buyer, if necessary). Finnish repair volumes didn't correlate at all with huge quantities of Russian workshops, and thus it was not necessary to obtain a specific tool for every single work phase. 

After "just" couple years of use, malfunctions started to appear in the V-46-6 engine, on its head gaskets to be more specific. The problems were examined, among other means, by instrumenting one engine. The instrumentation proved that the cooling usage after heavy duty before engine switch-off had major effect on the internal temperatures of the engine. During repairs it was observed that measurement, machining if necessary, and hand-picking the bi-metal gaskets with accuracy of 1/100 mm cured the situation in some extent.  Even thou the cooling was given big attention in use, the problem of coolant and pressure leaks between the block and the heads  followed the tank thru its whole lifespan, and appeared to be unrelated to the origin of the engine; both Russian-made and later Polish-made engines suffered from it.

The experiences with the T-72M1 in the FDF were mixed in their nature, when compared to our other tank at the time, the T-55M. The tactical mobility of the T-72 superior, but it suffered from its slow reverse speed in typical fire position action. It had less daily maintenance subjects and adjustments than the T-55, but the final drives in the sprockets was noticed to wear prematurely. 2E28M stabilizer, the autoloader and the sighting complex TPD-K1 suffered from small defects and malfunctions thru the lifespan. The ammunition provided to the T-72M1 was outdated, especially the 3BM15 APFSDS lacked performance. As for Fire Control Systems, the differences were such big in favor of  the T-55M that it not a huge wrong to declare that the T-72M1 did not have one. Meanwhile the T-55M presented a superior night figthing capability with its gunners image intensifier, and its Belgian 100mm sabot ammo was considered capable for the mission.


A Nižni Tagili T-72M1 on an OPFOR mission, 28.6.2012 in the Armored Brigades 70 year anniversary. This vehicle is a rare example, as it retains the fording tube. It was not usually carried in the Finnish T-72 .Photo: Niko Juvonen
 

Sources: Panssariseminaari 2014. (The armour seminary 2014).  Parolannummi 4.2.2014. Lecture: Colonel (ret.) Kari Haapanen : Odessan miehet - Suomalaiset T-72 koulutuksessa Neuvostoliitossa. (The men of Odessa - Finns in T-72 training in the USSR.) Panssarilehti 4/2014. (Armor magazine 2/2014) Esa Muikku: T-72 Suomessa. (T-72 in Finland) ISSN 1235-3469. Lecture, 4.11.2014, Armour Guild, Parolannummi, Hattula: M.Sc.(Tech.) Esa Muikku, Millog Oy technical chief: T-72 Suomessa 13.12.1984-28.12.2006. 

I'm a bit early but fuck it, today marks the 153 anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. 

While everyone is quick to quote his Cornerstone speech I like this speech of his because of the eerie prescience of it:

Well one does need slaves for the marijuana plantations...

I had someone on the Wargame: Red Dragon forums actually try to claim to me the Chieftain (all variants btw) was "completely immune to all 115mm rounds on the frontal arc from any range."
 
Not surprisingly, said poster is one of the most well known retards on said forum.
 
I guess those 250 Chieftains and M60s lost for the trade of 50 T-62s and some lighter tanks in Operation Nasr just all happened to get hit on the side or some bullshit.

A Ronson to surpass Metal Gear.

The gunnery manual says:
"In general, main gun and fixed machine gun fire (fixed machine guns exist on strv 103 only) shall be opened from a stationary tank. With the strv 101/102 (Centurion) main gun, fire may be opened on the move at targets up to 800 meters away, for example if you unexpectedly come upon an enemy or during the storming of a position. With strv 103 main gun and fixed machine guns, fire may be opened on the move at targets up to 200 m away, provided that the ground is even and that there are terrain features behind the target (such as a treeline or a backslope) that can catch any misses.
 
With the turret machine guns on the strv 101/102 and the commander's machine gun on the strv 103, fire may be opened both from a stationary tank and on the move."
 
Further on, it says:
"The enemy is expected to use large numbers of AFV's against us. Therefore, we must fight in such a way that we can win even if we're outnumbered. This requires both firing fast, in order to increase the likelihood of disabling enemy targets, and firing well, in order to disable the enemy before he disables us while using the least possible amount of ammunition."
 
Then it emphasizes this even more, and has an outlined box with some particularly important maxims:
"In tank duels, the tank that fires first will win four times out of five.
 
The tank that gets the first hit is four times more likely to win.
 
All tank fire shall aspire both to hit with the first round, and to disable the target with the first hit.
 
A well trained tank crew shall be able to hit with their first round and disable the target within 10 seconds of opening fire."
 
 
In other words, the manual heavily emphasizes well aimed fire and discourages firing on the move. Firing on the move is something you may do under exceptional circumstances when surprised by the enemy, or at extremely short distances, or possibly in order to attempt to keep ATGM crews and the like suppressed.

Let's make fun of Brick Fights appalling lack of recent historical knowledge.
 
Khand: wow you actually have a profile?
Khand: What are you some sort of NERD?
Brick Fight: confirmed
Khand: where the fuck do I spend MB coins?
Khand: btw
Brick Fight: dunno, I can't do FOBs. My connection is shit enough that it freezes my whole computer when I have connectivity issues
Khand: this game is so historically inaccurate
Khand: I have yet to see a single South Effrican Abrams or Type 99
Brick Fight: You can get the Abrams by doing the Armored Squadron side op
Khand: nah
Khand: thats an olifant
Khand: also
Khand: you
Khand: missed the joke
Brick Fight: Yeah, it's a weird amalgamation
Brick Fight: I did I'm sorry
Khand: how do not know of
Khand: the glorious saga of
Khand: brock7142?
Khand: this outrage must be posted
 

My favorite:

Why not:
 
"NEXT! On TFBTV, We take some beat up, barely working (well, less so then then usual anyway) examples of the INSAS, SA-80, G36, Bushmaster ACR, and CZ-805, disassemble all of them completely, throw them into a mixed pile, and give some random abducted gun show personalities 48 hours with some basic tools to make a decently functioning automatic rifle out of them or they and their family get deported to Guantanamo Bay for life! This weeks series premiere starring Nutnfancy!"
 
I would watch the shit out of that.

Nah.
 
See. This is why graphs like this are pretty much useless with all the key points being easily explainable. Let's look at the key points in history.
 
First off. Prohibition. That's easy with Organized Crime taking advantage of the Volstead Act and the inability of the Feds and state and local municipalities to deal with criminals wielding high-powered automatic weapons. It is no surprise that period of time has the highest amount of LEO deaths.
 
Let's look before Prohibition. Police officers are a recent phenomenon in human history. The increase in the amount of cops being hired coupled with the increased population of the United States accounts for a lot of the increase in officer deaths. This is coupled with Labor violence from the 1880s to the 1920s (also accounting for the high 1920s Prohibition era death toll).
 
Then you see a period of 40 years of lowered police officer deaths. Radically lowered. This can be accounted for in part by the repeal of Prohibition. But also America's cult of Law and Order. The Great Depression in the 1930s saw a radical decrease in crime - ironically - since a large part of the population was too poor to commit crime. This is an actually phenomenon. In the 1940s, a large segment of the young male population was off killing Krauts and Japs. And in the 1950s and 1960s we saw the aforementioned Law and Order cult dominate US society where cops were regarded as square-jawed heroes and not the stooges of corporations, the railroads, etc. This period of time saw the end of Labor strife with radical labor groups being displaced not by corporations, but by moderate union groups. (See Dave Beck and "Beckism").
 
It wasn't until the late 1960s and 1970s with the onslaught of drugs, the Counter Culture and race riots that there was a radical increase in crime in the 1970s (which was a dirty, filthy, miserable violent decade). 
 
In the 1980s we had the "War on Drugs" which folks laugh at now but which did give a weapon to police for apprehending and incarcerating criminals. This is coupled with better technology (bullet proof vests, better Emergency Room procedures) better communication techniques and training (No longer was it expected that a single cop take down a gang of criminals) and greater access to on-the-spot criminal records.
 
Today, when a cop pulls over a car, he will know if it is stolen, he will know if the registered owner has warrants out for his arrest. If there is a suspect at large, he has that information instanteously on the computer in his patrol car. When a cop makes an arrest of a potentially violent suspect, there will be multiple officers on hand, all wearing body armor with years of training at their disposal and an arsenal of weapons should things turn violent. 
 
If white meth maggot or hispanic/black gang banger wants to throw down on the cops with his Taurus 9mm, he is at a severe disadvantage from a tactical viewpoint; particularly since we know that handguns aren't very good at killing human beings in the first place.
 
So training, technology and communications. Especially since the 1970s.

It's a Sturgeons House miracle!
*Hail Satan Carols are sung as General Winter covers the land. The Clan of the comieboo gathers for a festive meal of roast Wehraboo beast and the elders exhort on head spacing, thrust vectors and armor penetration values from primary source documents.*

Well one does need slaves for the marijuana plantations...

John C Breckenridge of the pro-slavery faction of the Democratic party earned 28% of the vote in California.

The first time they raised the minimum wage in the US,  620,000 people died.

Alright then, here's the rest:
 
Challenger Manual 1
 
Challenger Manual 2
 
M1A1/M1A2 TUSK 1/2 Manual
 
T-72B Manual
 
T-64 1984 Manual
 
I'll post more tomorrow. Tired now
 
OK, more:
 
M1 Abrams Procedure Guide
 
Not sure if this would be relevant in 2015, but Soviet Tank Recognition Guide
 
Challenger Stowage Illustrations
 
Armament of T-72
 
T-72M1 Technical description and operations manual: (no idea why it's supplied in pages. oh well):
 


 
I also have manuals of jets and helicopters, but not sure if they apply here.

Seattle has just instituted a $15 Minimum wage which will be rolled into effect over the next couple of years. It's at $11 now as I recall. There have been price increases for consumers and some restaurants have eliminated tipping. However, Seattle's economy with Amazon and whatnot has shrugged off most of the effects so far.

American junior officers have terrible initiative, they virtually never launch unprovoked invasions of foreign countries, nor do they frag their generals for not going along with it.

im just proud they are actually celebrating defeat of Nazi's

Hi AMX, welcome to the forum!

I went ahead and moved your thread to Open. Feel free to post in Mechanized, but intros should normally be in Open with the other miscellaneous topics. I'll refer you to the Beginner's Guide and the Forum Structure threads for info on how to start posting:
 
As the title suggests, please read this post before you yourself posts.

First, it's appropriate for me to introduce this forum to the new posters that may be reading this. Sturgeon's House is a forum for those concerned with technical topics. Those of us that make up the core of the website are those who value good information over bad, who value the best sources and documents over those poorly executed. We thrive on sharing primary sources with each other and discussing them. As I once said on another forum, it doesn't matter if the airplane looks good, it matters how well it flies. That's how we feel about sources and documents here on SH. It has to make sense, and it has to fit within the ever-refining context in which it exists. In short, SH is a document-based forum, in the same way that 4chan is an image-based forum. 
 
Before you post, I think it's fair that you know that in this forum I intend to hold everyone to a - relatively speaking - higher standard of posting. It's my goal to make this forum a place with not only a high signal to noise ratio, but also a place with a high level of cultivated humor and levity. So at once, I expect posters to take posting seriously, but also to not take posting seriously. It's easier than it sounds, I think. Perhaps, instead, I should say: "The quality of posts should be high, but the subject need not be serious."

If you're new to the forum, the safest course of action to being accepted here is to try to post sources without commenting on them, and to pay attention to the forum Nobility (they are tagged as such). If you find something interesting, post it without making any comment of your own. For instance, perhaps post a documentary and ask "what does the forum think of this?". Be sure to pay attention to the responses you get, especially those of the Nobility. They should tell you a lot about how we do things at SH, and what a good or bad document looks like.

If I were a new poster here, I'd tackle technical subjects first (by posting sources without commentary), then once you've gotten a few likes from the Nobility, maybe try your hand at humor or the more recreational areas. I would not try to post anything about politics or religion until you are very well established on the forum.

I do not enforce any moral codes here on SH, only anti-obnoxiousness and anti-spam rules. Your language will not be censored, but your content may well be, especially if it contributes nothing to the discussion or is otherwise a deliberate attempt to reduce the value of content on this website. The lack of censorship here at SH is not an excuse to be a cad.
 
There are three basic guidelines to posting at SH that were for a long time unspoken but understood by everyone here. However, since we have grown in membership, it is worthwhile to state them openly:


1. This forum was created to be a place where technical discussions can take place without drama. That is a burden every single poster needs to bear, and it comes before anyone's honor, reputation, etc.
 
2. No one on this forum is an "untouchable"; not even I am, though as a general rule it's stupid to piss off an admin.

3. Any shitstorms that occur are to be worked through, and must not be allowed to wreak permanent havoc on the forum's membership. This is the Internet, and no grudges or bad blood are really very real. If you have a problem, you can work it out like adults. There is no "or else", just work it out.
 
4. Keeping the post quality high here is a group effort. Think of it like a group hike - you don't have to like everyone you're marching with, but if someone stumbles or trips up you pick them up and help them, you don't break your own leg in escalation. Posting here is like that - if someone else, regardless of what you think of them - falters in posting well, do what you can to keep the conversation on track and the posting quality high.
 
 
Lastly, I recommend you read over BabyOlifant's posting rules, which, while they don't always fit exactly right on this forum, are a good starting point to posting well:
 
Quote
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Since this forum is primarily intended as a place to collate and discuss research, I have decided to integrate relevant blogs as subforums within each forum category. Not only does this organize the blogs according to their usual subject matter, it also allows posters to reach the blogs easily, without having to use the blogs tab. Further, it also allows me to integrate other relevant websites that may not be blogs into the site where they belong (e.g., Logical Increments).

Currently, blogs and sites listed as subforums come from my blogroll and bookmarks, but if I've missed any or if there are good blogs that belong here that I do not read, please PM me with the link(s).

The integrated external links are being updated all the time to keep the forum relevant, so be sure to look for new sites every time you log on!


----
 
Finally, be courteous to other members, try to keep your posts relevant and informative (you have many resources at your fingertips built right into the forum itself if you don't have anything off the top of your head), and you should get along fine. People here value quality posting over all, so start making as many substantial contributions as possible until you find your feet. We like member who post docs, pictures, good blog posts, etc.!