By way of follow up to discussions of early siege weapons and hand weapons:
And the question of how armored plate can be put to use, leads to Marvin John Heemeyer (10-28-51 to 6-4-04), a welder who ran a muffler repair shop, and modified a bulldozer who used his vehicle to express his displeasure in Granby, Colorado on June 4, 2004.
Heemeyer had secretly modified a Komatsu D355A bulldozer by adding layers of steel and concrete, intended to serve as armor. He used this to demolish the Granby town hall, the former mayor’s house, and several other buildings.
“It is interesting to observe that I was never caught”, Heemeyer wrote. “This was a part-time project over a 1 1⁄2 year time period.” He was surprised that several men, who had visited the shed late the previous year, had not noticed the modified bulldozer “especially with the 2,000-pound [910 kg] lift fully exposed … somehow their vision was clouded.
Now the subject of a documentary …more here. It’s the story of a man, beloved by all, known for his kindness, who was pushed too far by local government.
One thing is sure, nothing in the police arsenal could stop him. And how would the dozer stand up to a six pound iron ball fired from a Civil War era Napoleon gun or a Parrot rifled gun? I think that it would hold its own.
This Day in History
The kingdom of Granada falls to the Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I, and the Moors lose their last foothold in Spain.
Located at the confluence of the Darro and Genil rivers in southern Spain, the city of Granada was a Moorish fortress that rose to prominence during the reign of Sultan Almoravid in the 11th century.
In 1238, the Christian Reconquest forced Spanish Muslims south, and the kingdom of Granada was established as the last refuge of the Moorish civilization.
Granada flourished culturally and economically for the next 200 years, but in the late 15th century internal feuds and a strengthened Spanish monarchy under Ferdinand and Isabella signaled the end of Moorish civilization in Spain.
On January 2, 1492, King Boabdil surrendered Granada to the Spanish forces, and in 1502 the Spanish crown ordered all Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity.
The next century saw a number of persecutions, and in 1609 the last Moors still adhering to islam were expelled from Spain.
There was of course this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_(film)
for inspiration.
Great movie. Most people don’t have the stones or the hardware to ‘stick it to the man.’
And the way the FBI and BATFE work, well, get three discontented people together to bitch about something and most likely at least one is an FBI or BATFE (or both) informer or a plant. Reasonable chance two of the three are Gubmint stooges. And you can most likely tell as the person egging everyone on and offering to provide explosives is… the Stooge.
Yes, we both worked in that industry, didn’t we, Beans?
And also this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Nelson_(criminal)
Ed, that movie synopsis reads like the possible future we are looking at nationally.
Heemeyer. I knew him slightly having made a few sales calls at his shop. Was never inside his shop and nothing about him jumped out. The town of Grandby in general wasn’t highly regarded (speed trap) but Olson’s Cafe and Bar was open 24/7 for decades. A decent stopping place when going from NW CO to Denver or back.
He sealed himself inside with a rifle and had firing ports but never used them even when cops were attempting to climb on the dozer (hampered by layers of applied grease).
As a rep for a factory built housing company (UBC compliant, not mobile) I had a few dealing with the city officials. On the asshole curve of small town assholes, they were far ahead of the curve.
Heemeyer made a statement on his way out and didn’t hurt anyone.
Your personal contact with him is interesting
He was interested in one of our modular homes but nothing came of it. I had a dealer in Fraser we did five or six houses with, two withing the city limits of Grandby.
He played a different game in the end.
Lucky for the town he wasn’t that proficient a driver or he would have been able to get out of that basement per dozer operators I’ve talked to including my cousin Lee Hoth who ran one for thirty years at a Moffat County coal mine.
I would have put a flame unit on it and what couldn’t be crushed would have been kissed by napalm.
I hate people like me who always try to one-up the guy without actually building the dozer. The problem with the dozer where I live is that it would take me days to arrive at the thing to be destroyed. And I’d have to stop and gas-up over and over again.
And then, in 2003, Spain let the Moors take over, effectively, as the Spanish rolled over due to islamic terrorism, first pulling all it’s forces from the GWOT and then bending over to the islamists.
Ferdinand and Isabella would have very sharp words and very sharp swords to use on the globalistic Spanish of this day.
As to the Killdozer, when the local government just butt-copulates you to death, what are you going to do? Guy went from a very successful shop to fines and fees and services cut off because he didn’t stroke the local political leaders.
There should be the idea of Killdozer in everyone’s heart. Ragnarok comes in large scale or small for us all. (And I’ve been saying for over 20 years that the real pushback will come when some widower who has no children and no other family just friggin decides to not take it anymore. Beware the true Lone Wolf, for he has nothing to lose, even in death.)
An armed citizenry.
You simply have to be willing to trade your life for that of the target. The Divine Wind tried, but didn’t have enough pawns and planes. The Assassins of (circa) 1200 did a better job of it.
Ousting the Moslems from Grenada was a great, illustrious, triumphant day for Spain and the West. The ‘dozer story is cool too.
Back in 1982, on the outskirts of the DFW Metroplex, two boys 16 and 17 hot wired a GM T-Rex dozer and set it loose unmanned as a prank (no dead man switch on the seat). The dozer traveled a mile across an Interstate, striking one car, and through heavy woods before striking my house at 11PM, with my family and I inside (my wife, two young children and a young female friend of my wife’s). It had knocked out the electricity in the area, and in the dark I couldn’t see inside the cab. The machine was built to clear land, and would disengage when hitting an obstruction, roll back and race the engine to hit forward even harder until the obstacle was crushed. I ran out onto my front porch as the dozer bashed the front of my garage multiple times. Thinking that it was being controlled by a person, I fired six rounds of 12 gauge (3 buckshot, 2 slugs) into the roll cage enclosed cab and engine compartment from my 870 riot gun (18” barrel, extended magazine, metal top folding stock and pistol grip). The rounds did little damage, with one slug ricocheting back to hit the side of my house. The dozer completely demolished my attached two car garage and the two cars inside (one a great IH Scout that I wished I still had today). My family and I escaped to run up the road to a neighbor’s house to call for help as the machine continued its rampage for another half mile until it hit a large oak tree and bogged down in soft sand. Even unarmored, a large dozer is a formidable piece of equipment and not easily stopped by gunfire! The culprits were arrested later that night and convicted of felony criminal mischief. Fortunately, none of us were injured.
Thank you for the first hand account. I’m happy that none of your family was hurt – but the loss of the IH Scout must have given you some pain. I love Scouts. I don’t own one – but sort of an equivelent.
Patient, intelligent, Old Men are not to be trifled with.
Especially if they own a bulldozer….
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