Anarchist Bomb?

[sfga6970]

I believe that an army within "the Army" is based on history. In the past, communications and the ability to move was restricted. Therefore, separate commands were assigned to different operations. A good example would be the Civil War "Army of the Potomac" versus Lee's "Army of Northern Virginia". The military is very traditional and tends to keep terms in use that are rooted in history. It is similar to your service, why was there an 8th Air Force and 9th Air Force within "the Air Force" (although until after WWII it was the Army Air Corps)? Tradition dictates most of the designations even though the composition of the units change with the times.

As for the Marine Corps, I believe that they are similar in their unit structure but you will have to ask a Marine for the specifics. I know that they have squads, platoons, companies and battalions similar to the army but their support structure is both Marine and Navy combined. As an example, their medics are Navy corpsmen.
I can't speak for the Marines, but I have great respect for them and hope that a qualified Marine can answer your questions about their service and how it is organized.

[BLUEHAWK]

Thank you, again... I understand that much better now when you used the example of Civil War armies.

Of course, when I was serving, the Air Force had flights, squadrons, wings and commands etc., in lieu of our former 8th AF (et al) and Army Air Corps designations. Nowadays I'm a bit out of touch with how they designate units, but can tell from seeing the many many shoulder patches now common that they have definitely expanded things considerably.

I, too, hope a Marine might see this inquiry.

[PHO127]

He would still be on the floor rolling in tears. And then there is ARTILLERY the king of battle. We have light howitzers (105mm), Medium howitzers (155mm) and heavy howitzers (8inch) we got 155mm guns and 175mm guns and MLRS and Air Defense Artillery and Aerial Rocket Artillery and high explosive and white phosphorus and flechets and illumination and propaganda shells and quick fuses and time fuses and proximity fuses. fixed and semi-fixed ammo. We can come up with the most unusual combinations such as HEKJ or WPKJ (High Explosive or White phosphorus with a time fuse set to .2, .3 or .4 tenths of a second. Fondly called Killer Jr). I once called in a battery one of illumination with a 50 meter height of burst to try and set some bamboo on fire.

[BLUEHAWK]

Pho -

What is a "propaganda shell"?

Yer friendly local non-gunny

[PHO127]

Come in 155 and 8 inch sizes, same type of operation as a leaflet bomb. A hollow steel casing filled with desired leaflets and a very small ejecting charge and time fuse. When fired over a specific target the shell will then eject the leaflets over the area. When the 25th division stood down from combat the 1st battalion 27th infantry was designated as base camp defense for Cu Chi Base camp. Cu Chi had about 8,000 meters of perimeter to defend, we had 1 infantry battalion and 1 artillery battery of 6 M102 105mm howitzers. During the standdown we were attacked by a regimental size unit that came in from the south and west of Ann Margaret gate, on a point where I had displaced 3 howitzers. The 3 howitzers fired a combination of beehive, HE and WP into the attackers, direct fire. By empty casing count the 3 howitzers fired 720 rounds in approximately 16 minutes. We did not bother to count the body parts.

[BLUEHAWK]

Pho -
Amazing...
Okay, here is a question I will attempt to phrase intelligently:
If 3 howitzers firing 720 well-placed rounds can reduce a regiment to uncountable body parts in 16 minutes, then under what conditions and by what means (if it were OUR guys facing those howitzers) would that scenario have been most likely to fail?
I am assuming that "direct fire" means relatively horizontal aiming rather than high trajectory lobbing?
A silly question perhaps, too, but what were your unit's riflemen doing while the howitzers were firing? And, how many men are required to fire a single howitzer once?

[Sgt_Tropo]

Man-o-man, Pho. with a 15 second cyclic rate of fire, you must have had some tired loaders, when all was said and done. Them shells aint 'xactly light, especially loading over 200 in just 16 minutes. The Psyco Vets were definitely at Ch Chi and working in high gear. Glad you made it and made Chuck pay the price, in spades !

[PHO127]

Bluehawk, A frontal assualt on an emplaced light artillery position is suicide. There is no way for infantry to win. they may continue the assualt until the artillery runs out of ammo but the cost would be astronomical. This action was just pure luck, the three howitzers were moved after dark to their positions and just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The infantry was also engaging the NVA with all small arms in the sector probably a couple of squads at first and re-enforced to about a platoon. The infantry mortar sections, the 4.2s and 81s provided illumination then alternated with illum and counter battery/mortar fire on pre-selected areas. I have spent only a very short time actually in an artillery unit so the crew details are slow to come and Colmurph and Arty Sgt can give better data than I can. As I remember, there is a crew of 5 on a 105 plus ammo handlers, Chief of section (runs the gun and gives the command to fire), Gunner (opens and closes the breech, sets the elevation and pulls the lanyard to fire) Asst gunner sets the deflection and traverses the gun and crewmen 1,2 and 3 that load the gun. For those of you familiar with Cu Chi this was where the rice paddys were south and west of Ann Margret gate near the runway. They came in using the water for cover.

[MORTARDUDE]

Sid :

I hadn't heard about this attack on Cu Chi. When did it happen ?
I left about the middle on Nov. '70. When did the 25th Division pull out ?
Sounds like quite a battle. Did they come from the area of the old Filhol rubber plantation ? Thanks.

Larry

[PHO127]

It was late November possibly early December. We turned over the base and moved to below Xuan Loc a little south of FSB Blackhorse sometime in Mid December. No, they did not come from the Filhole, Filhole had been cleared and was just a vacant plain ( heavy brush and vines) all the way to the river. they came across the rice paddys