In Honor of our Military Members, what was your best&worst weapons moment?

[hub]

Best
Going out "smutting" with EOD in the ICBM box at the bombing range.

Wasn't sure what that meant or what I was getting myself into, then the EOD Master Sgt. said hey CPL you had better get in the truck were going to sit on top of a big hill and shoot bombs with a m40 sniper rifle all day. I can't explain the joy of shooting unexploded cluster bombs from 200-600 meters away with a real m40 and free ammo.(all day). Low Order hit yeah look guys I hit it and it's on fire and smoking, High Order hit and KABOOOM everyone knows you hit it and starts cheering. Talk about a reactive target, sometimes if several bombs were close together it would start a chain reaction and a few would go off with one shot.

 

[C-grunt]

More lows:

Being a 22 year old E4 in combat and am older than my lieutenant.

Hearing the shrapnel bounce off the outside of the Bradley from incoming Iraqi artillery. More low than that. (happened to my buddy) Being the only guy who had his rucksack on that side of the vehicle.

Incoming rocket into the FOB blows up your favorite port-a-john.

 

[DRYHUMOR]

Good one.

Being on a week long field exercise, being attacked day and night, and not firing a single blank. I gave em all away, and just said "bang" or "bang, bang, bang" (single and burst).

Needless to say, I went through weapons clean and turn in in no time. That first cold beer was great.

Better one.

I spent 2 years on an M60 team, at times as A and B gunner. Hated carrying all that load, but qual days made up for it. That, and cutting down trees at the end of the range.

Great one.

Getting off a C141 back in world, just after a rain shower, and smelling wet grass, trees, and flowers.

 

[C-grunt]

Great one.

Getting off a C141 back in world, just after a rain shower, and smelling wet grass, trees, and flowers.

+ 10 Million.

In 2003 when we landed in Georgia and the doors opened. That smell of the trees and rain almost made me cry.

 

[peyton]

We got issued a Bradley in 1984 and the M231 port gun. We loved shooting it, but only got a chance to use it a few times as intended on the gunnery range. Only safe and auto, and had to remember to bring gloves and a bunch of magazines. Here is a photo of it in Iraq alongside the M-2 machinegun. SPC McGinnis later was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor protecting his fellow soldiers while serving as the gunner in a Humvee, probably the same Humvee that is pictured.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

My best moments:
When I took out one support of a target with an M1 Abrahms tank round. We were maintenance and that tank was a floater. We maintained it but had to qualify with it once a year.
#2 when the drill sergeant's eyes bugged out of his head in basic training after I shot the 300 meter target 6 consecutive times in a row. There was a steady side wind coming from the left and I gave her a bit o kentucky windage.

#3 Winning a battalion 50 cal competition with Ma Deuce.

 

[AH-1]

best,I had a pilot bitching about the bore sight on his cobra w/the 20mm cannon.we had extra ammo so I went up and smoked every target.boresight sign off OK.

worst.I had a trooper run his fingers thru the 20mm delinker feeder during a hot rearm.we had to get the bird shut down clear all the weapons remove the delinker,feeder and send the troop(with the delinker/feeder) to the hospital to get his fingers out of it.side note he didn't loose his fingers.

 

[SammyIamToday]

Our Senior Drill Instructor got everyone who shot a possible on the Rifle Range in boot a whopper with cheese. Possible was 10/10 in the black on rapid fire at the 200 and 300 yard line. If you got both, you got two whoppers.

So yeah, right after eating two whoppers with cheese in about a minute getting smoked until those whoppers came up all over the quarterdeck was a pretty good payoff for being able to shoot.

 

[rossiscratch]

Worst: I went through Navy ODS(staff corps like Docs, nurses, lawyers, etc) this past summer, and we did nothing with weapons. Unless, of course, you count a fire hose.

Haha... I guess that's what kind of weapons training non-combatants get.

Good stories guys thanks for sharing.

 

[bja5006]

worst: went through Navy OCS this past winter. had to leave all of my "girls" at home for 3 months. like rossiscratch said, nothing but firehoses up there in chilly Newport.

best (military): overlooking a .50cal/CIWS shoot from the bridgewing of my ship.

best (civilian): breaking in my new Colt Commander. 500 rounds in a couple of days

 

[usmc1371]

Best: being company high shooter in basic, one round away from tieing the range record, after being told by both PMI and DI that "F*#@ing hunters always tank the range and can't shoot for crap".

Good: being company high shooter 9th ESB in okinawa, with the wind blowing so hard my target came out of the carrier twice while I was shooting the 500 yd line.

Loudest: Line charge!

Good: watching tracers go up towards unmaned aircraft while fixing runways at Taqudam Iraq
Best: watching cobras pour fire out of the sky after the jack ass who was shooting an AK at a remote control plane.

Good: setting off bangalor torpedo
Bad: everything that had to do with said bangalor befor it goes boom.

Sam, I got a carls JR burger for company high shooter in basic. Kept it down for thirty seconds... aka qtr deck.

 

[rangerruck]

two; both happened to me in New Zealand a while back. Training exercises on both. One - a dude with me, and an instructor , on a training run throwing live grenades. this guy COULD NOT THROW!!!! Don't know how he made it out of basic- his first throws goes straight up and forward, about 10 total feet!!!! i thought for sure we would get an airburst and be killed by dropping shrapnel. the instructor dude, chewed his ass out, then gave him another one, told him two take 2 steps back in the big cement foxhole / bunker we were in, and throw the next one more forward. He did; straight into the cement top lip of the bunker- the grenade bounced up about 4 feet and came down, and sat right there- on top of the cement lip. Againg I waited for sweet death- the instructor grabbed it backhand style and flipped it forward.
The next chewing out, was even more radical, and included tossing the guy off the range forever.

Same area, two man clearing teams, small row houses, setup with popup, out targets, open windows, doors, booby traps etc. About 100 yds long, with a small like street down the middle, houses on each side. Idea is to see how far you can go , without screwing up and 'getting killed'. All live fire - ar's, grenades, and 203's, smoke, you name it. All the rest of the peeps, soldiers, and VIPS, are standing to rear about 50 yards, so their is one rule only,
DON 'T SPRAY IN A HOUSE, AND SWIRL OUT TO THE OTHER SIDE- becuase during that move, you will temporarily be pointing your weapon rearward back at all the vips and everyone else waiting to go. So point your weapon straight in, fire /spray/ grenade, whatever, and back it straight out.
A wimpy friend of the first dork, A guy who just was not army made for, at least not infantry, does it twice in a row on the first two houses. New Zealand instructor chews his ass completely off, then bans him forever.

 

[PandaBearBG]

Conducting a MOUT training exercise with 120 Marines with a full convoy complete with 50 cal, SAWS in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of downtown! Despite the news preparing the public it was quite a sight in the middle of the city and the sound of hundreds of blanks going off was pretty deafening.

Having an 81 HP short round burst over your head, the concussion blowing off your helmet and earplugs mysteriously popping out of your ears and painful ringing for a week.

 

[w_houle]

Cool: Almost every firing mission with the M-102
Not cool: Having the projectile from gun 4 (M198) explode 300 meters out of battery.

 

[hddeluxe]

BEST: Watching an ONTOS work out on an enemy position South of Hue City.

WORST: Having a 4.2 mortar have a short round inside your lines.

 

[datruth]

mine are pretty simple

Best:When I became armorer for my company
Worst: When I became armorer for my company

 

[ddc]

Worst: Summer of 1970. West of Chu Lai. My day job was as a Huey pilot in an Air Cav troop.
I had accumulated too many flight hours so was kicked off the schedule for a couple of days.
A friend who flew one of our OH6A observation little birds (our unit had Hueys, Cobras, Loaches(sp))
asked me if I wanted to be the left front seat (door gunner) on a milk run.

Nice quiet day before the ***** hit the fan and we were in contact. John is throwing the OH6A around the sky like it was a bull at a rodeo. At this point I started getting nauseous. Vomit is just a moment away. Air sickness coming on... oops, there it is. It was fairly common for even experienced aviators to get sick when flying low in an OH6A for the first time. I had heard the stories and just laughed them off.

We are right on top of the trees and John asks me to put down some suppressive fire on left hand turns. I pulled out the front seat's CAR15 and a box full of loaded mags and attempted to meet his request. Jam'o'matic! I'd beat on that POS, vomit, and finally clear it. Insert another mag, vomit, it jams, clear it, and go through the same exercise 30 seconds later.

At the end of the day I am completely dehydrated. My hands are bloody and bruised from beating on the POS CAR15. They looked like I used a concrete wall for a punching bag.

Following this incident it took me 30 years to get to the point where I would trust a AR15 type rifle. Even today after thousands of rounds without a problem there is still a place in the back of my mind that is always surprised when I pull the trigger on my AR15's and they go bang.

 

[Steve Marshall]

Worst: We were at Graf qualifying on 114's. Due to some regulation, everybody had to get time in. After I was done, another gunner shot my 20 and neglected to clear it. We saddled up on the fly. When we got to the tank park, I started to remove my barrel and was blown off the track with the barrel in my hand.
Best: Somewhere northwest of Chu Lai. We were getting mortared and Spooky was called in. If you've never seen 3 miniguns being fired at night, you've missed something.

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

the M14 was a real stopper, a real combat rifle and then the politicos went with the M16, a piece of no man stopping crap forced on us. still a piece of ####, a 5.56 dont compare with a .308. I am alive today cause I had a M14 in my hands and every chance I got I dropped that worthless M16 for an AK.

 

[Steve Marshall]

I am aware of at least one grunt who was fired on by us due to him shooting an AK in a firefight. He wasn't hit but had to change his shorts several times.

 

[AH-1]

I guess I gotta throw this in here...

I enlisted with a green card(canadian) to work on snakes (AH-1G) now that blew their minds.I got my american Citizenship in 1975 and the army gave me a 1/2 day off for doing it.

pete

 

[Rob96]

Best was going through M60 school.

The worst was when I was in the Phillippines on a fire team. We were patrolling the base perimeter and I was in the turret with my M60. All of a sudden we got bombarded with rocks from people on the other side of the wall. A big rock hit my M60 mount, breaking it, causing my M60 to go flying off of the Hummer.

 

[Art Eatman]

Worst: Summer of 1954, being downwind of a honey-wagon on the highway into Inchon. Oxen do NOT move quickly.

Best: Getting off the troopship in San Francisco, back to the Land of the Big PX.

Most fun: Running a bunch of ammo through the Quad .50 of my M16 halftrack; and "liberating" a 600-round box of Carbine ammo for messing with seagulls on the beach at Inchon--full auto.

 

[cologuy]

Two best moments.

1) Helping detonate 4 semi loads of "unserviceable" MK82 and MK84 bombs somewhere in the desert in western Utah (from a mile away, the shock wave was still enough to rock you back on your heels) and 2) Watching my 12-year-old get to fire a SAW at a charity machine gun shoot a couple of years back.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

It didn't happen to me, but I was there. While on guard duty (MP company), a fellow put his M16 in the passenger seat "handle" of an M151, a Jeep type vehicle (it was mounted on the dash in front of the passenger seat) with the barrel protruding out to the right. While on patrol, the driver backed the vehicle a little too close to a tree, and snapped the rifle in half at the mag well pin. It didn't come to "management's" attention until formation after duty, where the spec/4 had to say, upon inspection by the lieutenant, "I broke my rifle, Sir." while the entire squad was laughing to tears.