Playing baseball with tanks and rocket launchers

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    Last night, NTV attempted to determine the speed of a baseball fired from the barrel of a tank. To conduct the epic experiment, they enlisted the help of the Cambodian military, which saw the TV show as a means of spreading PR about how Cambodia is now a peaceful nation with a professional military.

    Cambodia’s military initially responded to NTV’s request by suggesting that the experiment be conducted with a rocket launcher (RPG) instead of a tank:


    The attempt ended in a spectacular failure. The baseball, which had been taped onto the rocket, fell off the moment the weapon was fired. The rocket propelled grenade blew the dummy batter into pieces, making it impossible to continue with the experiment.

    After the disappointed NTV crew returned to Japan, they got a call from the Cambodian military promising that they could come back and use a tank.


    The program claimed that the Cambodian military made a modification to the type of shell fired by the T-55 tank so that it could launch a baseball. However, the actual loading of the gun was blurred out as a “military secret,” so it is impossible to know whether or not some fakery took place. A baseball did appear to come out of the cannon, and NTV measured its speed to be 327 km/h (about 203 mph).

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    Bonus Clip: As part of the promised PR work for the Cambodia military, NTV had actor Takatoshi Kaneko participate in some military drills with their troops. Below is a clip of Kaneko freaking out like an idiot at the sight of firearms.

    [If you liked this post, you'll probably like our older post about rocket launchers being fired at bulletproof glass!]

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