Been watching this documentary on on-demand. Lots of in country footage. And now that I know more about the history of the M14 I notice them more in the films. Surprisingly large. Number of them being toted along with M16. Sometimes they are in parity.
And the ARVN soldiers are still sport various version of the M1 carbine even into the 70's. I just found these details interesting.
Another item. On a brown wart navy patrol boat they had a grenade launcher. It had a big hopper and the operator turned a crank on the side like an Olde Timey movie camera. With every revolution, bloop, crank, bloop, crank, bloop, another grenade would spit out. And it was pretty compact looking. Never seen one before.
(Ed: originally the title read 'Vietnam Nam'. Gah! Nam nam? Idiot.)
That was the Honeywell Mk 18 Mod 0 Grenade Launcher. It fired the same low velocity 40x46mm rounds as the M79 and M203. This is in contrast to the high velocity 40x53mm rounds fired from the Mk 19 Mod 3 and most Western automatic grenade launchers.
ReplyDelete"And now that I know more about the history of the M14 I notice them more in the films. "
ReplyDeleteOnce I bought a Z3, they were everywhere. Seems like every other car I notice on the road is a Z3.