Mark Plays With The Pig

The US Machine Gun M60 is a shoulder fired, gas operated belt fed light machine gun from the latter half of the 20th century.  It used a disintegrating link belt in 7.62 NATO.  It was used in infantry, cavalry, and a variety of other roles, both as an infantry weapon, and fitted to a host of vehicles.  The M60 was fitted to virtually everything that moved or flew.

Affectionately referred to as "The Pig", the gun was so named because after you carried it for a while, it started to weigh as much as a young pig.  PawPaw himself has huped the pig, and I much preferred to mount it to a vehicle.

The Pig was eventually replaced by FN's M240 machine gun. and FN's M249 light machine gun.

The M60 was in part responsible for my choice of branch during my early years as a soldier.  During one particularly grueling road march, we were ordered to the side of the road to let a company of tanks move through our march.  Those guys were riding, and that seemed preferable to me, because I'm a lazy sort who believes that motorized movement is always preferable to walking.   Two years later as we were completing pre-commissioning paperwork, I wrote Armor on my "dream sheet".

Quothe For Truth

 Been there, done that.

The M85 Machine Gun

 The M85 machine gun was well-known by soldiers of my generation, especially tankers who used it in the M60 series tanks.  It was a belt fed, recoil operated heavy machine gun that fired the .50 BMG cartridge.  It was lighter than the M2, weighing 65 pounds.

It mounted in the command cupola of the M60 series tanks and was considered the commander's weapon.  It used a push-through belt, unlike the pull-through link belt used by the M2. The gun did not have the familiar butterfly trigger of the M2, but fired either by pulling a handle on a chain, or by a solenoid attached to the elevation handle.

The M85 didn't make the jump to the newer M1.  The Army said that it was unreliable and maintenance-heavy.  Although I never had any issues with the gun.  The ones I used ran fine.  The commander's cupola had an optical sight for the gun, but most of us simply stick our head out of the hatch and watched the tracers 

In my opinion, the M85 had two major drawbacks.  First, it used a link system that was not compatible with the M2 ammo system.  Same cartridge, different links, so the crew had to be sure that they were drawing the appropriate ammo from the ammo point.  Second, it was a gun designed to be mounted in a vehicle.  It simply did not have the versatility of the familiar M2 Browning.

The ones I used ran good.  If the tank commander took the time to align the gun  with the optical sight, it was very accurate, but most of us simply watched the tracers.

I looked for a YouTube video of the M85, but can't seem to find one. It was pretty much out of service before YouTube was invented.

Kabul Update

 From the Washington Examiner:

I understand that the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division has told the commander of the British special forces at the Kabul airport to cease operations beyond the airport perimeter.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar U.S. military operations. I understand that the British officer firmly rejected the request.

Kudos to the Brits!  Our Major General Christopher Donahue deserved to be rebuffed in the strongest possible terms.  In fact,the simple observation that "Dickhead" Donahue has a Wiki page tells us all we need to know about the size of his ego.  A West Point graduate with all the correct merit badges and awards for valor,, at some point he lost the idea that his true mission is to protect the innocent. 

If this report is true, (and I have no reason to suspect it is not), Major General "Dickhead" Donahue should be immediately relived and on the first plane out of the Theater of Operation.  "Talents no longer needed in the Theater of Operations" should be underlined and highlighted on his retirement OER.

If true, (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) "Dickhead" Donahue has just damaged the reputation and history of one of the greatest American divisions in modern history.

Quinton Goes Flying

 Grandson Quinton is a PFC in the Louisiana National Guard, and the other day, they told him that they wanted him to get a chance to fly in a Blackhawk helicopter.  Some sort award for being a super trooper. So, he showed up at the appointed time.

US Army Blackhawk helicopter.

He was able to get a door seat, and they didn't close the doors.

An areal view of Camp Beauregard, LA, just outside of Pineville.

Flying in helicopters is fun.  Most of the time.  He said they were in the air for a half-hour and he really enjoyed it.

The Army PT Test

 When I joined the Army in 1973 we tested fitness with a PT Test consisting of five events.  Sit-ups, push-ups, the horizontal ladder, something called the run-dodge-jump, and a one mile run.  We all hated that PT Test because it required an actual facility.  And, it was hard to schedule time at the facility to conduct a PT test.

Then, in 78 or 79, the Army came out with a new PT Test that consisted of three events, Sit-up, push-ups and a two mile run. Commanders could schedule a test whenever they wanted to.  It was scored based on age, and gender.  40-year-old soldiers were not expected to run the two miles as quickly as 18-year-old soldiers, and females were likewise scored on a separate scoring grid. It was a simple test, and the standards were simple.  Simple to understand, simple to evaluate, simple to administer.

Last year or so, they came out with something called the Combat Fitness Test.  As in all things Army, it complicated a previously simple metric.  And, it was age and gender neutral, based on the idea that if a 40-year-old Colonel was going to lead a bunch of 18-year-old Privates, he should be able to keep up with them.  And, it was gender-neutral.  If the girls wanted to play, they needed to keep up too.  I opined at the time that this exercise was doomed to fail.

Stars and Stripes is reporting that the Army is changing the way the test is administered and scored.  They have decided that there is a biological difference between men and women.

The Army could adjust how it scores its new Combat Fitness Test to account for the “biological differences” between men and women, a service spokeswoman said Friday.

Well, duh.  We've known that for years.  I served with female soldiers in various capacities during my entire career, and I respected and admired many of them for the competence and professionalism, but I never expected them to crew  tank, or serve in the Infantry.  We knew that there were biological differences.  I'm glad to see that the Army is reconciled to that immutable fact.

My beloved Army might not be terribly bright, sometimes, but it is certainly no place for social justice engineering.

Today in History

 On this date in 19991, elements o the US 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment slammed into elements of the Iraqi Army's Republican Guard divisions at a place on a map called 73 Easting.  It was a classic Armor/Cavalry battle that destroyed several divisions of the Iraqi army.

Your humble scribe was not there.  I was on active duty as an Operations Officer at Fort Polk, wishing I was there.

It doesn't seem like 30 years, does it?

Remembering the M3A1

 A great article over at Recoil magazine about the M3A1.

The old Grease Gun was named for its resemblance to the tool still used by mechanics today. Inspired by the British Sten and German MP40, and developed during early WWII, “the Greaser” was made almost entirely of stamped metal with only a couple of machined parts. Production cost was $15 per unit in 1943, equal to about $220 today. The Army touted it as more accurate than the Thompson, claiming a soldier firing an M3 full-auto offhand would keep 90 percent of his rounds inside a 6×6-foot target at 50 yards. We like to call this claim “absolute nonsense;” the Greaser was appreciated for its ability to spray an area with heavy .45 rounds, but nobody ever called it precise.

Nobody ever called it precise, but you could lay down a base of fire with it, and it was fairly easy to hit a half-silhouette at 50 meters.

The M3A1 was my favorite personal firearm during my Army years.  It was cheap, clunky, and inaccurate, but it was a helluva lot of fun to shot.  There was something cool about spraying .45 ball across the lndscape. 

Grenadier

 Where to begin?  The Army has this thing called theM203 grenade launcher, a direct off-shoot of the older M79 grenade launcher.  The M79 is a stand-alone weapon and the M203 is an accessory for the M16.M4 platform.  They both launch 40mm grenades.

I can train a monkey to use one of these things, and anyone can become competent, but some folks really shine with it, able to put those grenades exactly on target every time.  They have a knack for it, and those are the guys you want on the grenade launcher.

Grandson Quinton is a PFC in the National Guard.  He has drill this weekend, and crashes with us when he's at drill, because his unit is just a couple of miles down the road.  He came in last night and told me that he spent the day on a 203 range, as range support.  After they had trained the unit they were assigned to train, they switched sides and got to qualify with the M203, and burn up excess ammo.  I asked him how he did.

"PawPaw", says he, "I hit everything I aimed it at.  Qualified expert the first time out."

I told him that a good grenadier could put a grenade through a 12" window at 150 yards.

"Yeah", he says.  "I did that easy."

Hun!  Quinton is a grenadier.  How about that?

Helicopters

 The Army's much beloved heavy lift helicopter lifts off the deck of a US Navy ship.

CARIBBEAN SEA (Nov. 21, 2020) A CH-47 Chinook helicopter assigned to Joint Task Force-Bravo, takes off from the flight deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Comstock (LSD 45) in support of U.S. Southern Command’s Hurricane Iota relief efforts in Central America, Nov. 27, 2020. Comstock is deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations to support Joint Interagency Task Force South’s mission, which includes counter illicit drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Michael Frojd)

I never flew in Chinooks much, but I was talking to an old -47 crew chief who told me that there was so much hydraulics in the bird, that when it quit leaking, he was pretty sure that he was out of hydraulic fluid.

In other news, it seems that the Army is retiring the much beloved OH-58, the scout and admin helicopter that has serves the Army for so many years.  A buddy of mine at Fort Polk tells me that the old bird is bing replaced by a newer copter, the UH-72.  The old Bell helicopter was a manstay of the fleet since Vietnam, and now we see another old soldier being put out to pasture.

The Lyster Bag

 My introduction to Army field sanitation came in June, 973 at Fort Knox, KY.  We got water from a canvas bag that had been in use since 1910.  Let me introduce you to the Lyster Bag.

Purification of drinking water by the use of liquid chlorine was developed in 1910 by Major Carl Rogers Darnell, Professor of Chemistry at the Army Medical School. In the same time period, Major (later Col.) William J. L. Lyster (1869-1947) of the Army Medical Dept. used a solution of calcium hypochlorite in a linen bag to treat water. Lyster's method became the standard for U.S. ground forces in the field and in camps, implemented in the form of the Lyster Bag (also spelled Lister Bag).

 The bag had spigots around the base for filling canteens.  I saw my final Lyster bag in 1998, long after they had gone out of general use.  Our Battalion Sergeant Major had one, in which he had fitted a shower head to the bottom of the bag. The shower head had a pull-rope valve. We would hoist a convenient Private into a suitable tree to affix a block-and-tackle, then fill the bag with water,   Taking a shower in the field is a simple pleasure not to be overlooked.

Drinking Water

 Drinking water is important to troops in the field, and it's important to hurricane survivors who might not be able to access water during their recovery.

Grandson Quinton is working at a FEMA warehouse on Camp Beauregard.  He was put on orders ater Hurricane Laura and has been  there ever since, pushing supplies to the folks who need it.  Tarps MRE's and drinking water.  It's honest work, and they're paying him.

Today, he came home with a little carton of water, what they're pusing out to the hurricane relief effort.  It's a one-liner carton o water, bottled in Georgia.

That didn't surprise me much, as I'm sure that lots has change in the 20+ years since I retired.  What was interesting was the expiration date on top of the carton.  Best used by December, 2031.  That's right.  Over ten years in that carton.

In 1973 I ate C-rations that had been packaged in 1946.  Those pork patties had been dead longer than I had been alive.

When I was in the black-boot army, we used to get water our of something we called a water buffalo.  I would not walk past a water buffalo without filling my canteens.

That is an M149 Trailer, Water, 400 gallon, affectionately known my soldiers of my era as a water buffalo.  The Army has changed a bit over the years.

Quinton is Home

My grandson, Quinton returned last night from Fort Lee, VA.  He got here about 10:00 pm last night and we chatted a bit before I retired to bed.  Quinton is 18 years old, and chose to become a Small Arms repairer, MOS 91F.  He is currently enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard.

After he dropped his bags, we talked for a bit abut what he had worked on and learned.  I asked him which is favorite gun was, and he gave me a two part answer.  He said that his absolute favorite gun, from a maintenance standpoint, is the old M2 machine gun.  I concur.  It's been a favorite or everyone who ever fired it or worked on it.  It's a fairly simple design, robust and easy to understand.  It's been a favorite of GIs since 1933.

He told me that the most interesting gun he worked on was the M777 howitzer.

And, when asked the opposite, which he liked the least, he told me without hesitation, he detested the M9 pistol.  He claims that it's a complicated bit of kit, with lots of springs and maintenance problems.  He did tell me that he's a fan o the M17/M18 pistol recently adopted.  From a maintainers perspective it's simple and intuitive.  He says that he likes that pistol a lot and is thankful that the M9 is on it's way out.

I didn't think to ask him if he was trained on the 1911.  He's out a Camp Beauregard right now, turning in paperwork and meeting his new bosses.  He will hang his hat here until college starts later in August, or whenever they decide to open the dorms.

Regulations

I passed through Camp Beauregard yesterday.  Camp Beauregard is a post of the Louisiana National Guard in Pineville, LA.  As a retired officer I have access to post facilities.

When I approached the gate, I greeted the MPs at the gate, showed them my ID.  The Sergeant at the gate (wearing a mask) pointed a little device at my ear and took my temp.  98.4, and she waved me through.  So far, so good.

I proceeded to the post barber shop and walked to the door to find it locked.  A notice on the door told me that the barber shop was closed until the Covid has passed.

What?  When I entered the service in 1973, the very first thing the Army did to me was cut my hair.  They were serious, and it was mandatory.  During my entire career, I enforced the hair regulations.  Period.  Once a month I sat in a barber chair and complied with a regulation that made sense.  Soldiers were clipped and clean-shaven.  Shortly before my retirement in 1998, I stopped by the brber shop and got right.  It was the military thing to do.

I need to call the Post Sergeant Major and ask him what kind of pissant post he's running.  I am outraged.

My Personal Favorite

My personal favorite submachine gun.  The grease gun.  Specifically, the M3A1.  Very simple gun, it was something that could be made in any competent machine shop and cost the Army about $20.00.



I was issued one as a tank commander.  Well, actually, there were two assigned to the tank.  One in the loader's area and one in the commander's area.

Louisiana Covid Count

The Louisiana Dept of Health is reporting 20,014 confirmed cases of Covid-19 today, an increase of 761 cases since yesterday.  Our hospitalized count today is 2067, up only 13 cases since yesterday.

My home parish of Rapides is reporting 159 cases.

Belle and I ate crawfish today.  She had to get out to get stuff for Easter tomorrow, and she stopped by a boiler on the way home.

We heard from grandson, Quinton.  He is currently at Fort Lee, VA.  On Monday he begins training for MOS 91F (Small Arms Repairer).  He reports that he is a two-man room and likes his roommate.  A two-man room is a little bit different than what I used in AIT.  I was billeted with 40 of my best friends.  He also reports that when he has completed servicing or repairing a firearm, he will have to perform a function-check, but this will be with blank ammo in an indoor range.  No live fire during AIT.

Tomorrow is Easter, ad I wish you all the peace and joy that comes from the risen Christ.  It's a holy day, and while the churches may be empty, the tomb was empty on that morning, too.

Dead Soldier

Belle was making cocktails and mentioned that the one bottle was a "dead soldier".  I got her another bottle and my memry went back to the summer of 1976.

I was a shavetail lieutenant, a fantastic example of military manhood, and a platoon leader in the 4th Battalion, 37th Armor at Fort Knox.  My platoon Sergeant, "Big Al" Senese, was an E-7 recently out of Germany, but had entered the service from The Bronx, New York.  His military bearing was exemplary, and his grasp of profanity was graduate-level.  At this particular time, he was "going off" on the hapless crew of my 25 tank.  I heard the term "dead soldier", and my interest was piqued.  I was sure that if there was a corpse in the tank, my company commander would probably want a name.  Sergeant Senese fixed me with a baleful glare, a snappy salute, and informed me that this particular dead soldier was in the form of an empty pint gin bottle, that he had found in the driver's compartment of the tank.  This offended his military decorum and he truly wished that I would go away so that he could take remedial action.

I spun on my heel and left Big Al to his remedial action.  I had work to do in the company, and he seemed to have this well in hand.  Sergeant Senese was the first of a long line of stellar NCOs who taught me more about the military than all the books ad Army regulations could ever teach a young officer.

Getting Fired

It's been interesting to watch the horror show of LTC Vindman being relieved of his duties at the NSC.  The libs act like it's some act of retribution, and that Trump is some sort of grouchy old meanie to fire that heroic veteran who has shed blood for his country.

Yeah, not so much.  Vindman had orders to the US Army War College.  He's going to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania to further his military education.  This is a rather prestigious posting for senior field-grade officers.  Not everyone gets to go.  He will be out of his high-stress White House job, furthering his education.

On the other hand, he was relieved from his duty at the White House, I suspect primarily because he testified against the Commander in Chief.  I'd love to see his Efficiency Report.  I bet it is spectacular with verbiage about lack of judgement.  Vendman, in the lingo of such things, "stepped on his own dick, in spectacular and public fashion.  The Army doesn't keep officers who do that.  I suspect that as soon as the news cycle loses interest, Vindeman wil be told that his retirement date is approaching rapidly.

And that's okay.  Every officer knows that day will come, and it's nothing personal.  Step aside for the good of the service.  He'll draw a nice retirement, and probably launch another career, just like many retired officers (myself included) have done.

Shot, Ove

Courtesy of Strategy Page, we get this photo of soldiers firing a mortar in Afghanistan.

Soldiers from the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team fire their mortar system in support of operations in Laghman Province, Afghanistan March 5th, 2019

Commanders call mortars "hip-pocket artillery".  Most military formations have a mortar section assigned to the unit, a little bit of indirect fire that they can put into the fight quickly while they coordinate bigger guns.  Hooray for the mortar crews.

Old Armor - The M4 Series Tanks

You're not going to get a full review of the M4 series tans, but I was watching a YouTube video on the vehicle and happened to notice the bumper number on the tank.  Turns out, it's the bumper marking for the 4th battalion, 37th Armor regiment, the very first armor outfit I was assigned to as a shavetail lieutenant.

Bumper marking at bottom left: 4-37 Armor.

I thought that was cool, so I'll embed the rest of the video in case anyone wants to learn about the M4 series tanks.  I was assigned to that unit in 1976-77 at Fort Knox KY.  My tank was bumper number C-26 and it was named Cap'm Crunch.  This tank has bumper number B-7, and frankly that number doesn't make any sense to me.  It may have made sense during WWII.

At any rate, here is the whole video.