Garands in Vietnam?

[transformerguru]

critter, I heard that about WW2 vets in the South Pacific say that also

 

[LeibstandarteAdH]

even the arvn fources has m16's by mid war.

There were a lot more SKS's then most people realize

 

[offthepaper]

Thanks for the responses guys.
Lots of good info here on the Garands in VN.
Anyone else have input on som eof the weapons they saw used by the different forces during that war?

 

[kragluver]

My wife's uncle is a Vietnam vet. He told me that enemy troops were often armed with a wide range of weapons including a lot of US weapons. A good friend of his was KIA by an M1 carbine.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

even the arvn fources has m16's by mid war.

That's true. Even the Cong were using some by '70.

 

[Rifleman 173]

I was in Nam in 1969/70. In those days the RF/PF troops were armed with the M-1, BARS, Grease guns, Thompson submachineguns and so on. RF/PF = Regional Forces/Popular Forces troops which loosely equated to our National Guard/militia forces. These "second-line guys" got armed with the older stuff while the active duty South Vietnamese got the more modern stuff like our M-16 rifles. Other troops, like the mercenaries, got armed with captured or foreign firearms. It was not unusual to see a guy from Cambodia working for our side armed with a captured Chi-com or Russian AK-47 type rifle. Sometimes old French firearms were issued to certain groups of people like Mountengard fighters. Some of these French firearms had been used by the French Army, captured by the communists and then re-captured by the South Vietnamese or Americans to be re-issued to people on our side. There were also supplies of foreign made firearms, like some SMLE rifles from India being used in Viet Nam. Heck, in some of the really backwards places, very old cap and ball rifles were actually used by some people. You name it, and it was probably used over there by somebody somewhere. And then there was the special ops teams with all their firearms too....

 

[KABA]

I was in Tien Phouc in March/April 1969. There was a local civilian defense force there. One of the members was a fourteen year old kid. He couldn't have been more than about 4' 2" tall but was carrying an M-1.

When I teased him about how small he was relative to his rifle one of the older villigers assured me that the kid was, "Numbah one, He crocodile beau coup VC."

 

[ojibweindian]

My father carried an M1; was in VN in the early part of the war, 62-63 I believe.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

Some of the Vietnam era Legionnaires I used to know related that more than a few had the M1 in the days of the 1Rep.

I also knew a gentleman who related that he had a Thompson sub gun that was passed on to him by a fellow G.I. Apparently, it was a legacy gun and was considered lucky because everyone who carried it made the flight back home... he left it for another guy when he got flight back to the states.

 

[Lonestar.45]

Dad was 3rd Battalion 5th Marines in Vietnam '66 - '67. He said he saw everything carried over there. A LOT of SKS's, AK's of course, and most of the VC snipers used Mosins or old French bolt actions.

He said the VC snipers sometimes would leave a bolt action rifle in a creek or rice paddy and work the fields as normal, then when a target of opportunity presented itself (US troops thinking they were entering a friendly village), they'd pluck it out of the water, pick up their bullet they hid in the dirt, skinny up a tree, pop a shot, skinny back down, drop the Mosin back in the water, and go back to work. Several of them were very good at it unfortunately and it took them a long time to figure their system, but once they did they cleaned them up.

 

[wideym]

Somebody needs to see if the Viet goverment will re-import those old WW II guns. They are problably sitting in some warehouse collecting dust and rust.

 

[Ian Sean]

My dad was in MACV 1965-66, he carried a Garand, and was training the ARVN he was with with Garands/Carbines and other WW2 leftovers also.

He also carried a Walther P-38 as his side-arm, ordered it out of the Spiegel Catalog. Dad always was/is different...then again the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

 

[Trebor]

Somebody needs to see if the Viet goverment will re-import those old WW II guns. They are problably sitting in some warehouse collecting dust and rust.

They can't be imported for several reasons.

The first is that the U.S. has a ban on US mil-surp stuff entering the country from Vietnam. In fact, the U.S. will yank the U.S. licenses/permits of any importer/exporter who deals in ex-U.S. weapons from Vietnam.

The large weapons dealers would love to get their hands on that stuff to sell on the open market. It's not just rifles, but aircraft, helicopters, tanks, spare engines, spart parts, etc.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff is not stored well, so the longer it sits, the less value it has.

Don't forget that any of the full-auto stuff is automatically non-importable.

There are pictures on the web of piles of completely rusted out U.S. arms sitting on open concrete pads. The story I've heard is these are from Vietnam. When the warehouse burned down around them the guns were left in the open to rot. A google image search for "thompson rusting" or some such might turn the pics up.

 

[GRIZ22]

When I got to Vietnam in 1968 there were still many ARVN units with M1s. ARVNs mostly had M16 by 1969 but many PF and RF forces still used them. Because of their size most SVN liked the M1 carbine better. After Tet 1968, it was mostly NVA we were fighting. VC forces were pretty much devastated by Tet 68. The VC made much more use of captured weapons and used anything they could get their hands on. I know of one American who got his Purple Heart by being wounded by a VC armed with a Garand.

 

[spiroxlii]

Despite the fact that the M14 was adopted in 1957, my father, who enlisted in 1958 was issued a Garand as his first rifle. He took that rifle with him to Korea, and it wasn't until he was already on the Korean DMZ in the mid 60s that he was finally issued an M14. He didn't keep the M14 long, since he was issued an M16 in 1968, when he was sent to Vietnam.

Once he was in Vietnam, he carried nothing but the M16. He admits that the M16 was more delicate than his old rifle, but he kept it clean, and it never failed him. He did like the fact that it was easier to lug around an M16 and a few mags than it was to carry an M14. He remembers one Lt who bought into the "M16s are crap peashooters" rumors. That Lt asked for an M14 instead. After carrying it for one day in the field, he came back dragging the M14 on the ground by its sling and asked for his M16 back.

My father (an E6 at the time) chewed the younger Lt out hard for treating his weapon that way and told him he could have his M16 back after he thoroughly stripped and cleaned the M14 that he had been dragging.