Guns of Vietnam (contd)

[Byron]

Perhaps combat troops called them REMF's as we were frustrated with having so much combat. It was a REMF that processed my paperwork to come home. More power to him. He did his job and I got home mid Oct 69.
Vern served his duty in Nam as an infantryman,both tours. It is not necessary to question his credentials. We came home to a hostile America, so no questioning of duty. I was in The 4th Inf and whoever carried the 79(we rotated its use) was not issued a handgun. Our CO was in the process of getting some for us when we took 70% casualties on March 5-6,1969. The 79 could be effective in close range as we had canister (shotgun rounds) in 40 MM. A little doctoring up and they were more effective. Almost free,Thank your Dad for me and tell him Welcome Home. Byron

D Co,3/8th Inf,4th Inf Div 68-69

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I've always been curious, why are there so many unissued Mosin-Nagants on the market if there was such a rifle shortage? Or are they actual wartime pieces? I could swear I heard most of them were unissued.

Wartime production eventually caught up with and passed needs -- and Mosin-Nagants were also made in other countries, including Finland and the United States.

Then explain the Uzi that the Israelis used so well during 4 wars

The Israelis mostly used them as secondary weapons for people with other duties.

and the US Secret Service issues to presidential details--see Reagan shooting attempt and then explain why the HK MP5 and USP are the darlings of every Special Forces group the world over including the USA...

Boys like to play with toys.

But in real combat, when people hide behind walls, rocks, logs and so on and shoot at you, you want penetration.

 

[Dr. Fresh]

Byron, I had no idea they made shotshells for the 40mm. Very informative.

 

[Leadbutt]

Dr. there where a couple of different rounds "made" up on a trail issue,,we had a few that where loaded up with fleshets, that where useless, the buckshot rounds worked well though

Saw a few different shotguns while there, Savage 520 pumps, 37's, Winch 12's and even a couple of the older 97's

When I didn't have to carry U.S. issue I carried what I brought in, SKS/ AK's
a very Nice MAT-49 that the VIet's had converted over to their TOK round, saw K's used and their wheren't S&W knock off, saw Ausie's use a Britt surpressed pistol later explained to me as one of the WELROD models, and the French had all kinds of lend lease stuff left off. Never had the chance to shot one, but watch a fellow shot a STONER,,America messed up on not jumping on that one full time IMO.

 

[Byron]

Leadbutt, do you recall the shallow opening on the buckshot round as you looked down on the top.We used some steel balls breaking down a claymore,skimmed it over with wax from an 81 mortar. Not sure if it increased effectiveness but I like to think it did. Byron

 

[Byron]

I hope the picture is attached. It shows my ruck and a 79 with a canister round in the helmet. This was at the Dak To airstrip. The man to the right is Eddie sanders in my squad. He made it back. Byron

If the picture does not attach, someone tell me how to do so.

 

[toivo]

I've always been curious, why are there so many unissued Mosin-Nagants on the market if there was such a rifle shortage? Or are they actual wartime pieces? I could swear I heard most of them were unissued.

My understanding--I don't have a source for this--is that the Russians tooled up in the later years of the war, as Vern said, and really started cranking them out. Add to this the fact that the war ended not so long after the introduction of the "Model 44," and the fact that the Mosin was very quickly replaced by the SKS and AK-47, and presto, you've got boatloads of surplus Mosins hanging around.

I don't believe that most of the Mosins were unissued. You see a lot of arsenal-refurbs, but not a lot of pristine ones. I haven't seen that many Mosins in my life--maybe a couple dozen--but I've never seen a Russian Mosin that looked unissued. I do have an unissued Mosin, but it's a Finnish M39, dated 1970. (That's the barrel date--it's a Finnish barrel on an older Russian-made receiver, like all M39s.) I think they were using them for marksmanship trainers at that point.

 

[Leadbutt]

Byron, nope I don't remember looking at the front and seeing that, but hell its been what 40 years dam near, the one blooper carried was modified in a big way no sight , no butt stock just one cut down to a BIG pistol grip, Big Mike was a point shooter supreme

 

[Pack]

The Bren was at best a makeshift firearm, made out of desperation, with junk parts but they worked, killed lots of "Bosch" and the side magazine meant they could fire and more importantly reload from the prone position...QUOTE]

The "Bren" was a licensed variant of the Czech zb26, which was a first-rate weapon, as were all Czech armaments of the interwar period:

"this LMG became one of the most successful infantry small arms of the interwar period. It is believed that the ZB factory turned more than 120,000 ZB-26 guns between 1926 and 1939 in a variety of calibers (the most popular being its original 7.92x57 Mauser). It was exported to twenty-four European, South American and Asian countries, both in its original form and in the slightly improved ZB30 version. Large batches of ZB light machine guns went to Bolivia, Bulgaria, China, Rumania, Turkey and Yugoslavia. Exports continued up until 1939, when Hitler’s Germany took over Czechoslovakia. The Germans quickly recognized and adopted a good weapon when they saw it, and the ZB26 immediately became the MG 26(t) in German service. The Waffenwerke Brunn (the German name for ZB during the occupation) kept turning out the ZB26 LMG in significant numbers, and these machine guns were issued to Waffen-SS and various occupation forces. It must also be noted that the ZB26, in its improved ZGB33 version, eventually became the Bren, an extremely successful light machine gun widely used throughout the British Commonwealth between the late 1930s and the 1980s."

Source: http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg52-e.htm

I also noted that many mentioned sightings and reports of WWII-era German weapons in use by the VC and others in Vietnam. These are most often chalked up as "captures" emanating from the USSR. This is certainly plausible, and likely accounted for a substantial portion of the examples seen.

Others, however, would have been captured from Waffen-SS men (German, French, and Eastern European) in action with the French Foreign Legion in Indochina, 1946-1954. Their role and numbers are still debated, but I believe Wehrmacht arms remained in use with many. I won't post all of the links here, but if folks are really interested, it's become a popular enough topic that google will suggest "waffen ss indochina" and/or "waffen ss in vietnam" if you start typing enough of either.

If you've seen "We Were Soldiers", a movie I really loved, you will notice in the final scenes involving the bayonet charge, the NVA machine gunner (just before beging shredded by machine gun fire himself) is aiming an MG34 right at Col. Moore, and there are a great many K98k/vz24/Mauser-pattern rifles among the pile being collected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPr9g3EVz-o

 

[j-easy]

my uncle was in Vietnam carried a 12ga pump shotgun for most of the war, had a m16 but didn't like it, had a bad experience with a a malfunction that ended up with him running down some godforsaken road dropping parts everywhere trying to fix it while getting shot at

 

[justashooter in pa]

actually, the bren was a simplified version of the czech ZB series in terms of design, but not in terms of machining. the ZB 26 and 30 had gas tubes that were seperate from the receiver, screwing into it with fine pitch threads. the bren, and the later ZB37 had a receiver with integral gas tube that was part of the solid billet from which the receivers were machined. the bren was regarded as more durable in this regard.

Back to topic, I am reading The New Face Of War, which was written by Malcolm Browne in 1965. He was a reporter for the AP, embedded from 1961 forward. He took the photo of the bhuddist Quang Duc, who burned himself in Saigon in 1963.

Browne indicates that the friendlies carried thompsons, Armalites (before they were issued to our GI), and a variety of other fun stuff. They liked the M79, especially.

The bad guys were ill equipped during this period, with approximately 30% of them having "sky horse guns" made from pipe and planks and scraps of plumbing, and the rest having only improvised weps.

He indicates that the guerillas of the Iron Triangle were largely equipped with freshly captured US weps as opportunity allowed, or older captured french weps. He wrote about the "lance gun", which was essentially a rocket hung on a yardarm of a pole stuck into the ground and aimed at a road or canal the government forces were expected to use, and electrically detonated by an observer.

Browne called the VN conflict a war of ambush, which the superior humintel of the communist forces and protracted and meticulous planning of the governmet forces enabled. He had few good words for American technology in the jungle, and particularly disliked the M113 amphibs.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

He was a reporter for the AP, embedded from 1961 forward.

There were no embedded reporters in Viet Nam. The first war with enbedded reporters was Desert Storm in 1992.

He had few good words for American technology in the jungle, and particularly disliked the M113 amphibs.

The M113 is not an "amphib." It is an Armored Personnel Carrier with limited swimming capability. I commanded a Mechanized Infantry company on my second tour, and the M113 is a superb vehicle, both automotively and as a fighting vehicle.

 

[JR47]

I would be more than happy to compare DD-214s. I was in-country from 5/66 until 4/69, with the only breaks for R&R and leave. I was in the Rung Sat Special Zone. My issue weapon was an M14, until 11/67, when I carried an M16 for three weeks. After the third one failed, I was re-issued, along with the rest of the group, the M14.

Obviously, our hero feels that his personal experiences were mirrored by everyone else over the nearly 10 year period of the Vietnam conflict. In every area of Vietnam, to boot. When we arrived, the ARVNs were still using M1 Garands, and M1/M2 carbines. Heck, they still had 1919A4 MGs. I even saw a few 1919A6s with them.

The VC had a hodge-podge of weaponry, with very few AK47s, but many Model 44 Mosins, and the Chinese Type 53 rifles. I currently possess a Mauser k98 that was a Vietnam capture.

I long ago realized that many of the posters who were in Vietnam never imagined that everyone else wasn't there at the same time as them, and that what they saw in their little corner of the world didn't encompass everything anyone else saw. When I arrived, the majority of the Marines and Army were using the M14, and the M16 was for certain SF groups. Our group worked with the Stoner 63 and 63A, while another group had some Remington automatic shotguns for a brief period. There were a lot of odd armaments and ordnance tried out in Vietnam. I ran into an SF group that had some G3s in 1968.

The Russian Mosin Nagants that are for sale as "new" are usually arsenal reworked after WWII units. The Soviets were determined that they would never again be caught without sufficient weaponry again. They stock-piled old Soviet weapons, German weapons, and even forced Warsaw Pact countries to do the same.

I do remember various A-Teams being armed with M1A Thompsons, Madsens, Carl Gustavs, Mat49s, Browning HPs, even a Tokarov or two. The M3 was issued to many trucks, probably left over from Korea. n the First Gulf, a number of M1A Abrams still had M3s, as did the Sheridans with the AirBorne units.

FWIW, the current Marines in Iraq have taken some "personal" arms with them. There are a few Kahrs, S&W 3913, and other small 9mm autos riding as BUGs in the AOs over there. I have a son-in-law who's still there, and one who just returned. Onbe is a K9 MP with the Army, the other in the Marines.

 

[JR47]

Also, the British Webley were issued in .45 ACP with moon clips as they found prior to the First World conflict that the .38 wasn't very good and they went to the .455 Webley which meant with a little cylinder work and now available in .45 ACP...The .455 Webley Mark 6. British Revolver adopted in 1915. Muzz Vel of 600 fps. "Prior to the acceptance of the Browning HP-35, this revolver was a standard issue sidearm of the British army...

World War II
A box of World War II dated .380" Revolver Mk IIz cartridges

The official service pistol for the British military during World War II was the Enfield No. 2 Mk I .38/200 calibre revolver,[11] but owing to a critical shortage of handguns, a number of other weapons were also adopted (first practically, then officially) to alleviate the shortage. As a result, both the Webley Mk IV in .38/200 and the .455 calibre Webley Mk VI were issued to personnel during the war.[12]

The .455 cartridge was a service revolver cartridge, featuring a rimmed cartridge firing a .45 bullet at the relatively low velocity of 650 ft/s (190 m/s). The result was a cartridge and handgun combination with relatively mild recoil, but with good penetration and excellent stopping power. It was rated superior to the .45 Colt in stopping power in the disputed US Thompson-LaGarde Tests of 1904 that resulted in the adoption by the United States of the .45 ACP cartridge.

The Webley never needed moon clips, which didn't exist until well after WWII. The original issue for the Colt 1917, and the S&W 1917 revolvers were clips that held three bullets each, or a half-moon clip. The ,455 Webley cartridge was a rimmed round. The real issue caliber for WWII Britain was the .38/200. The .455 guns were pressed into service as losses overwhelmed manufacturing capabilities.

It wasn't until well after WWII ended that imported Webley revolvers had the rear of the cylinder machined to accept these half-moon clips, loaded with .45 ACP rounds. The .45 ACP was never a standard British caliber.

 

[Byron]

JR, a lot of troops served in many capacities in Nam. I note you were in the Navy and I Thank You for that. Have a lot of friends who served in the Navy during that time. I think we who served in the infantry,Army or Marines have a different perspective on the war from where we were but yet all saw the violence that as a result bound us together. I respect all who served no matter when.
When I got there, the 16 worked well. I kept mine clean and it never jammed.I recall opening a crate of ammo and each box was marked "Dupont Powder" which as I understand was the original powder that worked well in the early period of Nam.
I note you are from NW GA. I was raised in Catoosa County.Byron

 

[DougDubya]

JR47 - I believe you meant to write .38/200, not .30/200, which never had existed.

Also of note - decades before the Judge became the ultimate in revolvers (sarcasm, my friends) - some Tunnel Rats had been issued Model 29's converted to .410 shotshells - mainly because the shotshells could be fired in a sealed system which limited the potential for auditory injury in a confined tunnel.

 

[chuckusaret]

I've always been curious, why are there so many unissued Mosin-Nagants on the market if there was such a rifle shortage? Or are they actual wartime pieces? I could swear I heard most of them were unissued.

I have seen reports that there were over 12 million produced not counting the ones from Finnland and the USA. I have 91/30 from Russia, fun to shoot and very accurate. In fact we put about a 100 rounds thru it today.

 

[Detritus]

I also have never seen an M14 Sniper rifle from those dates

Ok, I wasn't there, wasn't even born till over a year after Saigon fell. But if Vern and the other gentlemen who WERE there don't mind. I'll try and answer the implied question.

just b/c someone hasn't heard of or seen one, Doesn't mean much. Friend of mine has a Model 700 variant Remington says they never made.

First off Lack of a Sniper School does not preclude sniper rifles of a given type. in the case of the M14 family, once the army setup the schools, the arrival of the XM-21 variants was as i understand it rather quick.

as to the M14, and the time to which Vern was speaking about having a Sniper configured model there of.

the M-14 always featured a method of adding a scope mount. those in charge of design wanted to have a means to make a "Sniper rifle" or at least "DMR-type rifle" out of it if needed, without major surgery such as that required to make an M1C/D

Also fairly soon after the rifle was adopted, a number were accurized for match use. just like the garand eventually was.

Now, accurized M-14s were already in the system, the means to mount optics to the rifle are "in system". whether or not it was official or not the rifle config Vern describes was available to an officer determined to get his hands on it.

and in fact when the (X)M-21 showed up it was basicly just that, an M14 accurized in a manner similar to "National Match" examples, with optics mounted to it.

 

[JR47]

Yes, I was in the Navy, and operated with Riverine forces, and the Marines in the Rung Sat. We performed WBLV interdiction, delivered marine elements for patrol and ambush, and later in the tour, performed the ambushes and patrols while working with SEAL Teams 1 and 2, ourselves. I wasn't a SEAL, and have never claimed to be. Nor was I a LRRP, Green Beanie, Pathfinder, or Sog member. However, I have engaged the enemy with small-arms from the ground side, on multiple occasions, and for more than the average patrols contact time. There were any number of times that I would have just as well traded my position for one on the USS New Jersey. However, to assume that the Branch of service qualifies one to make judgments is a bit hard to take. Yes, the infantry had a different job than a chopper pilot, but does his job automatically render him less experienced in his observations?

My exact point was that not everyone experienced the same thing in Vietnam. Our combat roles changed over the several years I was there, as did our armaments, vehicles, and communications gear. An infantryman in the Rung Sat operated in a far different environment than one in the Highlands. Marines in Khe Sanh operated differently than those in Hue. Marines in the same areas, years apart, found themselves with different weaponry, and fighting a different foe. After Tet, the VC were virtually gone, with the NVA assuming the major roles.

It all goes back to when you were there, and where you were, much more than what you did in combat. My observations came from my experiences of the time. Trying to put anyone's experiences out there as THE Answer, as I've tried to point out, only means that the poster ignores the length of the conflict, and the size of the AO. Blanket statements about the M1A Thompson's effectiveness, and who used them, and where, are rife with error. The same for the M3 SMG.

Heck, Riverines routinely saw more combat than many front-line troops of that time, period. Unlike John Kerry, we didn't feel the need to get in-country, make a video, put ourselves in for medals, then head for D.C.

 

[84B20]

I could never forget the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP, pronounced lurp). They had the best food aside from eating on "the economy", much better than the "C" or "K" rations. Not to get off topic.

 

[EAJ]

And in the AIR ABOVE Vietnam our A-7 Corsairs armaments included:

Mk 82-84 GP (dumb, laser, etc.) Bombs
CBU’s
Vulcan M61A1 6-barrel 20mm Gatling gun
AIM-9 Sidewinder Air-to-Air Missiles
Zuni 5” Air-to-Air/Ground Missile Pod
Mighty Mouse 2.75” Air-to-Air/Ground Missile Pod

Seems so long ago, but most who served remember it like it was yesterday. God bless all who serve and or sacrifice.

VA-82
USS America
72/73

 

[Gryffydd]

and the US Secret Service issues to presidential details--see Reagan shooting attempt and then explain why the HK MP5 and USP are the darlings of every Special Forces group the world over including the USA...

Just like Vern said...they're for special uses--notice the "special" in special forces. Good for SF and the SS does not make them good for Infantry.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

I turned 18 years old in 1971. In 1972 ,I talked to an Army recruiter (Sargent Burton,IIRC)with the intention of enlisting. I caught him in a lie that resulted in my not joining up(if he lied about my MOS,how many other lies did he tell me?). This turned out to be the biggest regret I have, that of not serving. I cannot make up for it,I can only thank those who did,particularly those of that era. GOD bless you all.

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

sort of echo JR47. I was up near the DMZ, I Corp U.S.N. enlisted. served in Riverine force. near as many Marines as sailors in our unit.
I was first on a towed-into-place arty barge that was tough duty, constant shelling around the clock at times. I was glad when the barrels gave out and we got pulled off that scow. small arms were varied with the Marines haveing the modern guns.
was then sent onto a 'monitor' that again had as many Marines as Navy personell but there were more small arms carryed by crew and when I got my hands on a Thompson w/a stick mag I would not let it out of arms reach. rinsed the weapon and mags in diesel from the fuel lines to engines and never once had a jam likely fired 5K shots. I got pretty good at resting the fore end on the fireing port edge and dumping the mag into the riverside bushes. seeing the branches and fronds drop was a 'feel good moment' for me knowing a hidden enemy was likely scared to death if not actually hit.
arms varied considerably with Navy haveing M1 Carbines and pump 12ga mostly. Marines had 79's and M16's mostly and .45 pistols both branches had.
U.S. Navy enlisted 6/68-6/72.

 

[84B20]

This poster might give you an indication of some of the weapons the "enemy" were using.