2002-12-30 I'm sure the reason the author did not convert the metric data to FFU was because it would have been tedious and time consuming. In the 1930's there were no calculators or computers and all calculations would have to be done by hand. The author probably figured if the reader needed to convert FFU to metric or metric to FFU they could do it.
Also, in those days the conversion factors between FFU and metric were not as simple as they are today. This would have made a hand calculation even more difficult. What is ridiculous is the need to convert 0.30 inches as 7.62 mm instead of 7.6 mm. It is common to convert 2 place decimal inches to only one place in millimetres. I'm sure the tolerances on the dimensions is much more than 20 �m. FFU-ists always seem to over convert FFU to metric, but when it is metric to FFU, FFU is always rounded to sensible numbers. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Ressel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, 2002-12-30 08:47 Subject: [USMA:24274] If War Comes No, its not the Iraq version, this has to do with a book I found at a used book fair written in 1938 by R. Ernest Dupuy and George Fielding Eliot. It discusses the military situation in 1937, very spooky reading about how they thought the US should stay out of the war and that we would never be able to recover the Philippines if we lost them. What is interesting (at least for this list) is that the book mixes metric and English units throughout. One table of rifles for different countries is a real hodgepodge. The country and type of rifle is listed along with it effective and maximum range. Effective ranges are listed in yards for all countries while maximum ranges are listed in meters for France, German, Italy, Japan, Czechoslovakia and Spain, listed in Yards for Great Britain and the US and listed in paces for Russia. Most distance in the book are in yards and miles but almost all munition caliber are listed in mm. The main exception is battle ship guns all listed in inches. Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer, Region 4 (585) 272-3372
