Smoke

[39mto39g]

The training with smoke was impractical for VN.
Did anyone ever use any smoke for anything other than landing a chopper? I mean like for manuvering? I always felt that If I could through something out there it might as well be a gernade. A WP if you needed smoke cover. Or maybe a CS.

Ron

[DMZ-LT]

Threw a smoke down a hole once thinking we would see where it came up . It never came up.

[SuperScout]

Sometimes smoke in triple canopy would be totally dispersed and practically invisible before it rose above all the vegetation. On tour #2, I had a battalion commander who mde us carry signal mirrors, and didn't want us using smoke, but to flash him a signal with our mirrors. Onliest problems was that where we were, the ground hadn't seen any sunlight in about 134 millineums, again due to all the vegetation.

[BLUEHAWK]

So, I take it that smoke is useless/impractical in heavy vegetation... would it have any use on beach landings or desert maneuvers?

[Bill Farnie]

We only used smoke on LZ's where it could be seen fairly easy. Like SS said , in triple canopy jungle it would be dispersed and hard to determine where you were trying to mark with it.

[usmcsgt65]

As LT said, it was good for throwing down holes.

[Andy]

We threw smoke down holes and covered the holes with PCP that was often mounted on the sides of our vehicles, remember PCP? We did get smoke come up from other openings once or twice but you had to use more than one canister. On occasion we used smoke and CS then pulled back from the hole. Most of our gas masks were back at base camp.

On one occasion we threw smoke out for a pair of jets. The smoke ran along our line East-West. Our CO told them to drop their stuff just north of the smoke. Very loud, very effective. We were in rice paddies during the dry season so the smoke was easy to see.

We also used smoke to cover ourselves when pulling back from a fight. Let Arty and air blast the wood line then moved forward again with a lot more ease.

For signaling one platoon to another while on a clover leaf or whatever, we usually used star clusters. Even during the day they were easier to see than smoke.

Stay healthy,
Andy