Yup, and the silly bugger tried to convince me that enemy helicopters would follow the demi-banderoles all the way to the gun positions and wipe out the guns... "all your fault, Calnan, you and those pink tents!"
He also ordered the batteries to camoflage paint three sides of the aiming posts so that enemy spetznaz couldn't find the gun positions based on the red and white barber poles... ten tons of truck times six, two tons of gun times six, more noise and smoke than you could handle sometimes and he was worried about some one inch diameter red and white aiming posts... holy rat poop, Batman!
Then again, on my very first day on an M109 gunline after surviving Phase training, I had the BSM come up to me, perform a perfect sniper check and suggest to me that my rolled up sleeves and hairy arms would give away the gun position... of course I couldn't hear a word he said because the gun we were standing beside had just belched a twenty foot long tongue of flame as it launched a 155mm round sixteen klicks downrange. I had trouble seeing him clearly as well; the thick cloud of cordite smoke was stinging my eyes and obscuring my vision... nonetheless, being a keen young 2nd Lieutenant, I rolled my sleeves down to set a good example to the troops.
Maybe we need a new heading: "The Gun Shed".
Mike