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Military Olio...

By The Armorer on January 30, 2006 | | Comments (18)

Tidbits of today in history...

1647 Scots agree to sell King Charles I to the English Parliament for £400,000;- they always were a thrifty lot, the Scots.
1781 Articles of Confederation go into effect. Starting the years-long process that results in the US Constitution. Keep that in mind when griping about Iraq and the efforts developing that constitution.
1933 Adolph Hitler named German Chancellor. WWII inches closer. Keep an eye on Hamas.
1943 Hitler promotes Friedrich Paulus to field marshal - because everyone knows German Field Marshals have had never surrendered (they committed suicide, instead - but Paulus declined the latter while accepting the former...).
1968 The Tet Offensive begins. Long month for those of us on the home front that year.
1972 "Bloody Sunday" -- British troops kill 13 Catholics in Derry

And just because I can:

Heh. Told 'em so, back in the day. There's a *reason* there's a Remington Rand M1911A1 in the Castle Arsenal... but no Beretta.

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18 Comments

By cw4(ret)billt on January 30, 2006 9:27 PM
The primary reason for dumping the M1911 twenty years ago was logistics. The bean counters reasoned that, since you can fill a particular volume of space with more 9mm ammo than with .45 ACP, it made sense to opt for quantity. I had a "barguement" with a couple of log guys once--they didn't want to hear that you might fire six to ten 9mm rounds to achieve the same results you'd get from a single .45 round. "That's lousy shooting." "No, it's what happens with a light bullet as opposed to a heavy one. Tell you what--let's stand six feet apart, and you throw popcorn at me and I'll peg shot glasses at you. After ten minutes, we'll compare lumps. Deal?" He wussed out. I even offered to spring for the popcorn...
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 30, 2006 9:52 PM
The Ghost of Ripley looms large over the Ordnance Corps yet.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on January 30, 2006 10:38 PM
Hmmmm. Where *is* Sigourney Weaver, now that we need her and her pulse rifle?
 
By MKL on January 31, 2006 2:43 AM
You'll want a Beretta now because they're becoming a collector's item....
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 31, 2006 5:39 AM
Nah, MKL. Well, okay - if I can get a combat-used one, legally (don't nobody show up at the door with the "present" of a written-off-as-a-combat-loss M92 in *this* day and age, thankyouverymuch).
 
By Blake Kirk on January 31, 2006 9:38 AM
Nah, The Beretta will hang around for years in the reserve components because they won't be able to make enough of the replacement .45 cal pistol fast enough to swap them all out in a short period. Me, I always liked the old M1911A1. But, then too, I always remembered the rules of engagement for the .45 I got from SFC White, platoon sergeant of our battalion scout platoon, who taught me to shoot the ugly old thing: 1. If the target is more than 10 meters away, an issue M1911A1 is not your best choice of weapons. Use a long gun if at all possible. 2. Aim center of mass. 3. Keep shooting until the target goes down. Crude, but effective. Now, what I want to know is, if we're bringing .45 cal pistols back into the system, so that ammo is goingto be available again, are we also going to pull a bunch of M3A1 SMG's out of depot storage? To be honest, when I have to go back to Iraq later this year I'd really like to have something heftier than just a pistol, and a grease gun would suit me just fine.
 
By Blake Kirk on January 31, 2006 9:39 AM
Nah, The Beretta will hang around for years in the reserve components because they won't be able to make enough of the replacement .45 cal pistol fast enough to swap them all out in a short period. Me, I always liked the old M1911A1. But, then too, I always remembered the rules of engagement for the .45 I got from SFC White, platoon sergeant of our battalion scout platoon, who taught me to shoot the ugly old thing: 1. If the target is more than 10 meters away, an issue M1911A1 is not your best choice of weapons. Use a long gun if at all possible. 2. Aim center of mass. 3. Keep shooting until the target goes down. Crude, but effective. Now, what I want to know is, if we're bringing .45 cal pistols back into the system, so that ammo is goingto be available again, are we also going to pull a bunch of M3A1 SMG's out of depot storage? To be honest, when I have to go back to Iraq later this year I'd really like to have something heftier than just a pistol, and a grease gun would suit me just fine.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on January 31, 2006 9:43 AM
When the West Orange OMS got tagged to repair all the Hummers that returned from DS/DS, the shop foreman called both EOD and CID. They spent a week collecting all the war detrius that some enterprising individuals stashed in various nooks and crannies--everything from live grenades to small arms. From *both* sides. Took one semi-load of explosives to the boom-site at Dix and one load of weapons to an undisclosed location--no, *not* my garage...
 
By cw4(ret)billt on January 31, 2006 10:00 AM
Blake - The M3 was handy for cleaning out bunkers, but you had to get within fifteen feet of a firing port to do it properly. A 2.75" FFAR from 500 meters would do the same thing, albeit without that *personal* touch.
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 31, 2006 10:18 AM
Don't listen to him, Blake. I *loved* my Grease Gun. Practice with it, you can shoot single shots, more accurately than with a .45, to greater ranges, and then there's all that firepower if you need it just by squeezin'. And I never minded the six fully-loaded mags I carried around. But then I wasn't a pencil-necked sunken-chested marathon-running geek for whom six 30 round magazines of .45 constituted 40% of their body mass. I hardly noticed it. And since, in the Army of the 80's, shooting pistols was considered passe', I had lots and lots and lots of ammo to shoot. Other units were happy to let me have their allocation. I had to rebarrel my M3 *twice* which bemused the Ordnance guys at DISCOM. But then they were already bemused with me when I rehabbed all the M1911A1's I had in the arms room, too. Heh. It was *such* fun to take a .45 from a DIVARTY staff officer who griped about how the 'old piece of shite' was so worn and crappy it couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I'd listen sympathetically, take a magazine, load the pistol, and put 8 into the 9/10 ring at 15 meters in rapid fire, lay the pistol down and say, "Yep, this weapon system *does* have a flawed component. Well, rather it does when *you* are a component of the system anyway. Works just fine for me, however. Care to learn to shoot it?"
 
By spurwing plover on January 31, 2006 10:21 AM
CHAMBERLAN was made the fool of by the nazis and we all know what happened to CHARLES I of england he lost his head over some to do
 
By cw4(ret)billt on January 31, 2006 10:37 AM
Ask V17 about his M3 and the time he collected some bullet holes going from the inside of the Huey to the outside instead of vice-versa...
 
By John of Argghhh! on January 31, 2006 11:03 AM
Operator Headspace and Timing is a separate issue...
 
By Blake Kirk on January 31, 2006 6:07 PM
I'm old enough I used to have to teach the M3A1 to brand-new privates in 19E (M48/M60/M551 crewman) OSUT at Knox. I always used to love to watch the expressions on their attentive little faces when we taught them how to cock it: "Grasp the magazine well firmly in your left hand with the muzzle of the weapon pointed downrange. With your right hand, open the ejection port cover. Place the index finger of your right hand into the large hole in the bolt and pull the bolt to the rear until the bolt is engaged by the sear." We'd almost always get a least one "Drill Sergeant, you want me to put my what where?!?!" Yeah, the grease gun has its quirks, and it's never been the safest piece of ordnance in the industry, but it was simple, and reliable, and ever so tolerant of dirt and crud, and when you shot somebody with it, he went down. Like I said, I can't think of anything else I'd rather have as a sidearm in Iraq.
 
By Blake Kirk on January 31, 2006 6:18 PM
cw4(ret)billt wrote "A 2.75" FFAR from 500 meters would do the same thing, albeit without that *personal* touch." Well yeah, Bill. And when I was in M60A3's I always figured the best way to suppress a bunker was to put a 105mm HE round through the slit, though WP through the slit would do if I didn't have any HEAT or HEP. But I started out in airborne infantry, and we were pretty light on stuff that would reliably take out a real bunker from any decent sort of standoff distance.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on January 31, 2006 10:19 PM
Good point. And from my perspective, I've always thought putting spinning rotors anywhere near deployed parachutes--with or without people still attached--was an exceptionally stupid idea.
 
By Justthisguy on February 1, 2006 3:21 AM
Hey, I'm just a skinny old geek, and *I* adhere to the slow but heavy bullet theory, seeing as both of my pieces shoot the .45 caliber projectile. Oh, JoA, I see what you mean, about what you said, about why you didn't make General. Couldn't you have kept yer mouth shut long enough (in good conscience) to become a Colonel?
 
By John of Argghhh! on February 1, 2006 6:11 AM
My mouth didn't do that, JTG. My thyroid did.
 
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