Stig, since you enjoy history, this article is for you

[leomagnus]

 Stig, I think you will appreciate this 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lets-remember-french-paratroopers-once-193100844.html

Dean

[CROSSBOLT]

Looks like a "must have" vehicle for the coming civil war! Kymco know about this? Har, har!

[Stig / Major Tom]

Constructed to be airdropped.
But built too late to have helped, or to have been airdropped - as were some brave Legionnaires --  into the siege at Dien Bien Phu, where such mobile artillery would have been of no help to the French.
(as an old Army medic I was interested enough to track down a book written by a French army surgeon who survived that siege,  and the resulting death march after their surrender. The English translation is a very hard book to find!)
Stig

[Paco]

Constructed to be airdropped.
But built too late to have helped, or to have been airdropped - as were some brave Legionnaires --  into the siege at Dien Bien Phu, where such mobile artillery would have been of no help to the French.
(as an old Army medic I was interested enough to track down a book written by a French army surgeon who survived that siege,  and the resulting death march after their surrender. The English translation is a very hard book to find!)
Stig

Grauwin. Read the book many years ago.

[Stig / Major Tom]

Grauwin. Read the book many years ago.

For those interested:

In 1954 Paul-Henri Grauwin published his memoir,  J'étais médecin à Diên Biên Phu.

Several years ago I read of this book, and through the interlibrary loan system*, obtained James Oliver's English translation published in 1955.
This  old book came from the library in Philadelphia, in a box - and in such delicate condition that I had to sign a waiver to accept it on loan!

It was pretty cool to hold and read a book which was published so close to the actual events.

It seems that the latest edition of the book has been republished in 2015.

Stig
* sadly, the interlibrary loan system has been much curtailed, at least in Ohio, first by finances - and now by Covid.  I am now limited to books only available on a "public" shelf somewhere in OHIO. (universities, libraries, etc.)  At one time I had access to the biggest libraries in the USA. The original cost was $.25 for the postcard to let me know it was in. It was astounding that if a book was, say, on a shelf in the Chicago public library - I could check it out in my tiny village branch library!