Fire Base vs Base Camp

[39mto39g]

Most of my tour was spent out of some fire base somewhere, couple hundred (at most) guys out in the middle of knowhere, We would patrol just about every morning depending on what mortors were on the fire base, is how far we would venture out, 81s you could have a nice days walk, 4.2 it was real work.
When I did get to a base camp, that was a different world, I liked the fire base much better. Except when VC wanted your hill. Pleiku comes to mind as a huge base camp. Im not real sure what Dak To was, Kinda in the middle, smaller than a base camp but bigger than a fire base. fire base usually had a gils name that the BN comander knew. (marry Lou) was his wife.

Just thinking out loud.

Ron

[Bill Farnie]

Firebases were O.K. as opposed to being on an operation in the bush and setting up NDP's.
Would run patrols, OP's and at night LP's and ambushes out of a firebase.
Base Camp was great, although we hardly ever saw ours but the few times we did it was heaven. Hot meals from the Bn. mess hall , cot's to sleep on , showers and getting what we needed from S-4 just to mention a few "luxuries".
We still had to go on LP's and ambushes sometimes out of Base Camp but it was not as hairy or scary like in the boonies.

Most of the 101st firebase names had something to do with the Division as opposed womens names but there were a few of those that were named by the 1st Air Cav and the names were kept by the 101st when the 3rd Brigade took over Camp Evans from the Cav at the end of 1968.

[MontanaKid]

My comparisons were LZ Professional and Chu Lai. I was never on another firebase and only saw the air bases at other larger basecamps. I was told by others that LZ Professional was more primitive than most other Americal firebases. But I don't know that from personal observation. The base became better constructed over the year I was there. I had been established not long before I got there by the 1/52nd Infantry. We took over from the 1/52 in early March and had been there month when I first got to Professional.
Of course it's all relative and since I spent my first eight months in the field with Charlie Company, LZ Professional seemed like a palace, when we would get to take our five-day turn at providing perimeter security.
It was not big. Probably 200 men was the total at any one time. Maybe a few more, we had a 105 battery from 1/14, the 4.2 mortars from our Echo Company, and one thing maybe less common than on other firebases; since our steep forested mountains made hauling the heavy weapons around with the line companies impractical, we had them on the fire base. The 81 mortars from the companies were arranged in a battery on the fire base. The 106 recoiless, quad 50, and the line company M2 "Ma-duce" 50-cal macineguns and 90 mm recoiless became added firepower on the perimeter bunkers. So that would be different from a firebase in a area where a company might carry those heavy arms with them. We eliminated "weapons platoons" in our AO. Those with the 11C mortarman MOS spent the first half of their tour with a rifle platoon in the field, then would rotate into the company's 81 mm crew as slots opened up. There was an electric generator on the hill and the interior working sites had electricity, such as TOC, the Aid Station, Arty HQ and FDC. Perimeter bunkers where the rotating line companies stayed and "sleeping bunkers" for mortarmen, etc, did not have eletricity. There was no plumbing of any kind. We had outhouses, called "$hitters," were the feces was collected in a half 50-gal barrel with diesel fuel and burned periodically by those drawing the detail. Urination was accomplished at "pi$$ tubes" which were arty packing casings, one end sank in the soil, with a wire mesh on top. There were a few gravity showers. Usually just a crude frame of 2X4's over a pallet, with an empty napalm cannister as a water tank with hose, spigot and shower head punched into the bottom. You hauled your own water for those. Water was provided from a ville called Tien Phouc about 10 miles away. We had a "water liason" man with the SF unit there who saw that the "water buffalo" water trailers were filled and clorinated from the well there. They would be brought to LZ Professional slung beneath a Chinook helicopter. There were no usuable roads. No land vehicles, armor or otherwise, traveled in our AO.
Later in my tour, improvements would be made. The crudely constructed sandbag bunkers on the perimeter, which were often just piled sand bags, around dirt floors with sandbag-covered metal panels thrown over for a roof, some of which collapsed in the monsoon, were rebuilt on a more even perimeter line line by engineers with a frame and plywood interior walls, reinforced on the outside with sand boxes (dirt filled arty and mortar round wood cases) and sandbags.
The firebase was more linear than round. A good thrower could pitch a rock across the base at many points. There was not much open space. It was close-in and cluttered. It rose a few hundred feet over a narrow valley. It was very defensible against ground attack but vulnerable to indirect fire from higher ground in the surrounding mountains, especially to the south. Arty always had a messhall, A small affair. Later a mess hall was built from our infantry battalion. It was kitchen and serving line only, you packed your food somewhere else to eat it, preferably back to your bunkers, we avoided gathering troops in clusters or "cluster-fuc!s as we called them so that one enemy mortar round looping up from the valley or surrounding hills would't cause quite so much grief.
Chu Lai, on the other hand, had a lot of creature comforts. It was a sprawling base with Marines and the Americal Division as HQ, there was a sall naval port facility. The Airforce had a base for receiving C-130s there and the Maines flew fighters from MAG 1 out of there. Plumbings was mixed, some areas had plumbing, some mixed plumbing, i.e. potable ruing water, but still outhouses. But there were showers available in a lot o places. Grunt could get a two-day respite at a standdown center, which was near a beach and had plumbings, hot showers and an air conditioned barber shop. There was a big PX, a big metal wareouse-like building. You could buy all kinds of goddies there and even expensive stero equipmwent, if your home base had a place where you could use it. There was TV, broadcast by AFVN, a Servce Club, USO. It was one of the sites on the Bob Hope Christmas Tour.
Relatively casual military dress was allowed on LZ professional, with wrinkled fatigues and scuffed up boots. One exception to that: "Steel Pot on your head at all times!!!"
Rear guys had to have better looking fatigues, boots that a recent relationship with a can of Kiwi, and baseball caps were the order of the day. Rank and insignia was worn there, of course. Passing officers expected a salute. Sleeping quarters in Chu Lai for most rank and file rear area types was usually not air conditioned, but there was electricity. You would be on regular GI bunks in plywood buildings with metal roofs and screened windows for ventilation. Air conditioned trailers were available for the brass.
For night life, there were Officer, NCO and EM clubs. EM in the Americal were allowed only beer, but hard liquor could be served at other EM clubs, i.e. at hospitals. The more established rear units had stages in their clubs where live floor shows might be available from Korean, Philipino or even Austrailian bands, with bikini clad girls..the works.
The EM club in the 1/46th trains area in Chu Lai, by comparison was little more than a shack were you could get cold Black Label beer and packaged snacks. Our guys in the rear liked to go over to the neighboring 423rd Med Bn area, which had a realtively large club with stage acts. We had a shower stall in the aid station back in the TRAINS area. There was no hot water heater, but our senior 91C, named Ruffin, jury-rigged one using a small metal tank set on top of a hot plate. It worked.
The fire base had no formal entertainment area at all. We had a refrigerator in the battlaion aid staion ...er, for the penicillin, you see... and it seemed to have plenty of extra room for beer and soda.
Drinking on the bunker line was proibited. On the first day out of the field, when we took our five day rotation of perimeter security at Professional, we would sometimes get a steak fry and were rationed two cans of cold beer. But that was it. At least officially -- but always unofficial lattitude adjustment lubricants were available on the fire base. GIs will be GIs.

[39mto39g]

Good to see you posting. were you drunk when you wrote the last?
50mm machine gun, 900 mm recoiless.
I shot a 90 recoilless ones , Recoilless my ass. I don't think I would pull the triger on a 900mm recoilless or a 50mm machine gun.
Hows Montana these days.

Ron

[MontanaKid]

Clean and sober these last 17 years. My excuse for the slips on this last post? Dazed and confused as always, lol.