Afghanistan: Outgoing Mail

[ELB]

USMC photo by Sgt Lucas Hopkins, via Strategy Page.

[flechero]

That's a cool pic!

[C-dub]

What's all the red on the ground from?

[RogueUSMC]

red lens on a lightstick...

[der Teufel]

When I was in Vietnam, I was on perimeter guard duty one night and about 3:00AM I felt the irresistible urge to use the latrine. This was going to be a major transaction! I told my buddies (there were three of us in a bunker along the berm line) I'd be back, and hustled off along the road behind the bunkers toward the pit toilets. I accomplished my mission and was en route back to the bunker when the mortar crew sent one out. The noise seemed like it was about 50 times louder than standing next to an M-16 muzzle, and the flash went about 20 feet into the sky. I was maybe 50 yards in front of it.

My immediate thought was "I'm sure glad I'm on my way BACK from the latrine …"

[RogueUSMC]

When I was in Vietnam, I was on perimeter guard duty one night and about 3:00AM I felt the irresistible urge to use the latrine. This was going to be a major transaction! I told my buddies (there were three of us in a bunker along the berm line) I'd be back, and hustled off along the road behind the bunkers toward the pit toilets. I accomplished my mission and was en route back to the bunker when the mortar crew sent one out. The noise seemed like it was about 50 times louder than standing next to an M-16 muzzle, and the flash went about 20 feet into the sky. I was maybe 50 yards in front of it.

My immediate thought was "I'm sure glad I'm on my way BACK from the latrine …"

We had some reservists with us in the Gulf War to take our EPWs (POWs to everyone else...SMH...why they changed the name I have no idea)...

I was the one assigned to educating them on their role in the battery. Being as they had no real job until we GOT some EPWs, they were assigned to me as strong backs. They would be with my trucks replenishing ammo to the guns once firing commenced.

I saw gun4 about to do a fire mission and told the guys they could go watch. They said they didn't know if they should (I was just a Lance Corporal after all.) A few seconds later, the Captain said they could go watch...they ran to watch.

I walked up as the gun rocks were loading the M198 with a RAP round and M203 powder. Now, this is probably the most aggressive charge/round combination as far as the shooting of it goes. These guys were given foamy ear plugs when they got there and they had them in like good little boys...

The M198 howitzer is a separate loading weapon that weighs about 7.75 tons. A pintle is jacked onto a baseplate and the road wheels are cranked up off the ground. the trails are spread and spades are mounted to the end of them and are then dug into the ground about a foot and a half.

The procedure for firing requires the fuse to be attached to the projo (just like your mortar) and set...the roughly 100lb round to be placed on a feed tray...two people carry the feed tray to the breach...where it is rammed in and seated on the tube by two people...

...the powders are mostly adjustable charges. You might have call for a charge six green (in which case you take two of the eight charges off of the top and use the remaining six bags.) The breech is closed and a primer is inserted (looks kinda like a 30.06 blank)...and the lanyard is attached.

During this whole process, folks are yelling. The guy on the hooks is giving fire command info....the traversing guy is calling out his part of the telemetry...the elevation guy is calling out his...the tray loader is calling out verification of the round and fuse...the powder guy is calling out verification of his charge and confirmation that he sees the red primer pad before closing the breech...the gun chief is verifying everything...the lanyard is pulled and the gun fires. Once it is fired, the breech is opened...a wet swab is ran in there to cool the breech so your next powder doesn't cook off...and the process begins again (actually a lot of this process is overlapped when sustaining fire.)

It is all rather intense to the uninitiated.

Now, the fire mission in reference here used a RAP round (Rocket Assisted Projectile) with an M203 powder charge (this one is an all or nothing charge that is encased in a fiber container that incinerates when fired.) This charge was our biggest.

I told the guys watching that, when they heard, "STAND BY!", they need to cover their ears. They informed me that they were good (because they had their handy-dandy little foamies already in their ears.)

Crewchief: "STAND BY!"
Me: "cover your ears"
Crewchief: "FIRE!"

What follows serves to rock the known world of these reservists...

The Marine with the lanyard does a twist motion that pulls on the lanyard. This trips a trigger that initiates the primer that subsequently sends said 100lb projectile roughly 20 miles to it's intended target.

The breech recoils 4.5 feet on nitrogen-filled cylinders...the baseplate comes off the ground about 6 inches (remember this thing weighs about 7.75 tons?)...the spades move back through the dirt (remember them being dug in about a foot and a half?) about 6 inches.

Your head feels the thump from the ground transmitted from the soles of your boots and you would swear the ground dropped out from under you for a split-second...added to this was the kind of boom that your brain would have never considered existed.

I think a reservist or two peed themselves at that point.

[ELB]

Hope it got to the right address.

It was an illumination round, so they only had to hit the sky.

OK, they probably had to hit the right quadrant of the sky...

[ELB]

...
...added to this was the kind of boom that your brain would have never considered existed...

When the US Army gave up Fort MacArthur in San Pedro (south of Los Angeles) California, the US Air Force took it over to use as base housing for USAF people stationed at Los Angeles AFB, just up the 405 about 20 minutes when there was no traffic (which was never!). Fort MacArthur was named for General Douglas MacArthur's father, so it had been there since cavalry days, and had the parade ground to prove it. The parade ground had flag poles at one side, next to a little towed artillery piece. Not Civil War era cannon, maybe WWI? between the WWs? It was small, probably easily towed by a Jeep, long thin barrel with a bore of maybe an inch or two? Not really sure, just that it was a very small piece, cool but not impressive like a Palladin. It was there for ceremonial use.

I organized a retirement ceremony for one of our Colonels, and the ceremony included a Retreat Ceremony at the very end, About the last thing to happen was the US Flag being lowered to the playing of the National Anthem, and at the last note of the Anthem the cannon was to be fired.

With a flight of airmen and a lot of well-wishers, we had a crowd of a couple hundred, and I was standing at the very back where I could see everything. Everyone was at attention facing the Flag when the last note played and the Security Forces airman pulled the lanyard,

Wowzer!

It did not go bang or boom. It gave a stupendous CRACK!! that caused all two hundred people to bounce straight up in the air and back down again. I felt it in the center of my chest. If you've ever been very close to a lightening strike and lived to tell about it, it was a crack like that. I could hear car alarms from the neighborhoods around the base going off.

Alas, these were the days before everything was on video, I really wish I had a recording of that, it was pretty funny to see.

[oljames3]

Artillery night firing lights up the ground around the piece. Mortars get a little red glow. 155mm, such as the M109A6 below, turn night to day. In this picture, the light you can see through the rear hatch is from the blast. At night, we use red lights inside the cab of the howitzer. The blast is obscuring the end of the tube, but you can just see the flames coming from both baffles of the double baffle muzzle break. You can clearly see flame coming from the bore evacuator. The tube has just begun to recoil.

During Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course at Fort Sill, OK, I had the opportunity to train with several Marine Captains. I already knew to expect high standards of them as my younger brother was a Marine Infantry officer. They worked hard and partied harder.

And, yes, RougeUSMC, there is nothing quite like the experience of firing Red Bag (charge 8). Charge 7 White Bag comes close. You feel the compression wave in your chest before your brain registers the sound. Then you ride the beast as the whole chassis rebounds.

Some minor differences between the M198 and the M109. One man (Number 1) loads the howitzer. He picks the 100 pound round off of the floor, holds it chest high, and lays it on the loading tray for hydraulic ramming. For manual ramming, he loads it into the breech by himself and rams it by himself. And the M109A6 seldom uses the recoil spades. Rather, we lock out the transmission. Even if the gun shifts, its own GPS and inertial navigation can adjust for the displacement.

Lord knows I miss the guns.

[RossA]

I was in the Infantry and we used to hear those things going over our heads.

[crazy2medic]

I have a Question
I read a story sometime back about a firebase in Vietnam being overtun by the Vietcong, that in order to stop them the Gunners loaded the guns with flechette rounds set to go off as they exited the muzzle, the gunners screamed "beehive, beehive, beehive" and pulled the lanyard, everybody on base the understood english went to the ground and the flechette rounds pretty much killed everybody that was standing, stopped the attack cold, has any of you guys ever heard this story?

[oljames3]

True story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive_a ... nnel_round

I trained with the M546 APERS-T flechette round https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m546.htm at Fort Sill, OK, in 1973.

The 155mm and 8 inch howitzer had a mission that produced similar results; Killer Senior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Junior

This quote is from the web site for 2/19FA, before my time. I enlisted in 1CD in 1973. This is part of the battalion's history as I learned it in the mid '70s. I wore the PUC while assigned to B 2/19FA, 1CD.
https://www.1cda.org/history-2-19fa.html

In 1966, the battalion participated in Operations LINCOLN, CRAZY HORSE, NATHAN HALE, THAYER I and THAYER II.  In December 1966 while at LZ Bird, B Battery earned more honor for the battalion in heavy fighting involving small arms and "beehive" rounds.  Several of the Troopers were awarded decorations for valor and the Battery was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation along with other units at LZ Bird.

[RogueUSMC]

*snip*You feel the compression wave in your chest before your brain registers the sound.*snip*

You ain't kiddin'!

I was dispensing ammo at PTA on the Big Island and we spotted out truck forward of the tube (because it was a shorter walk to where the ammo was stored under the net.)

We were handing rounds down over the side of the 5-ton when folks stopped coming to get ammo...

They shot that gun and the down blast shoved me down in between the skids of ammo and the siderack of the truck. My kevlar was the only thing that kept my head from going down in there with the rest of me. They had to unstrap all the ammo and drop the siderack of the truck to get me out...lol...I was sore for a week.

I don't know that I even heard the gun fire!