Tracers

[39mto39g]

We were going out for night ambush, There was 6 of us, The Lt made every one that was carring a m-16 make up a full clip of tracers and the machine gunner make a belt of nothing but tracers, He wanted us to fire full auto for the first clip (everybody) and then save ammo. We did this once and it was real impressive , we didn't stick around to see what happened.
It looked like a whole company fireing. Talk about standing out.

Ron

[Bill Farnie]

I've heard of this being done. Maybe an impressive display but doesn't sound like that good of an idea especially on a night ambush. Talk about giving your positions away not to mention a chance of "melting" the 60's barrel if it's in bad shape to begin with.

[39mto39g]

It was only 200 rounds.

I once fired 1500 rounds in a m60 without letting up on the trigger. That was so cool.
We could only keep ammo for a week and then had to get new stuff. Our week was up and no contact, so we got resupply and had to get rid of old ammo. we had 1500 rounds for the 60 and the machine gunner asked me if I wanted to fire it off, Lets see, 19 year old and 1500 rounds with a machine gun, ah- OK. That jungle didn't have a chance.

Ron

[82Rigger]

M60 ammo link sequence during VN was normally 4 rounds of M80 ball and 1 round of tracer M62.

I was under the impression that the M62 tracer round was designed so that it wouldn't start tracing until it was out aways from the muzzle...to prevent it from being traced back to the weapon.

Could be wrong on this.

Airborne! Steve / 82Rigger

[39mto39g]

I belive that would be wrong. As far as I remember, they come out tracing. You don't want to be in that spot after you fire. Stick and move, Rocky, Stick and move.
We were only shooting at a small group, Im sure they were dead before they hit the ground, We left in a hury and didn't check.

You know, now that you mention it, I don't really remember them tracing from the barrel, Huummm, you could be right.

Ron

[Andy]

You could be right about the tracers. Never thought about it before but with a bullet traveling at 2,000+ feet per second, hard to tell when it did light up. However, if Charles was firing at any distance at all it was still pretty easy to determine where he was when he fired tracers. No doubt the reverse was true.

Except while sitting behind a 60 in a chopper, never remember firing more than 5 or 6 round bursts, usually 3 or 4 rounds. Changing a barrel during a fire fight was always very annoying. Of course doing a "mad minute" was a far different situation.

Ron, tracers on an ambush? We NEVER brought any tracers on a bush. Matter of fact we sprung 3 ambushes and twice never fired a shot, just claymores and or frags. Even if you do a shoot and scoot tracers don't sound like a good idea. Of course, we never tried it. Wonder what the Lt. was thinking?

I never heard of getting rid of all your ammo every week, wonder if others did the same thing? Our basic load was 5,000 rounds per 50, 2,500 rds per 60, around 1,000 rounds per 16 and about 90 rounds per 79. Along with a few cases of claymores and LAWs. Of course there were days when we used all that plus, but just getting rid of it all that each week, never did it.

Hey Rigger, did the 50 cal also have a delay on the tracer? The only delay I was aware of was the M-79. An HE or WP (WP was always my favorite) had to go out about 18 feet to arm itself.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[39mto39g]

Tracers on ambush is not a good idea in my opinion either, We only did it once and we never stayed to check and see what happened.
The change all your ammo every week started when I was in the 25th, We used to get bad ammo lot numbers, so BN said from now on we change all ammo every week, and when we switched to the 4th we just keep doing it, seemed like a good idea to me.
Kinda like a weekly Mad min.


There arn't many people out there that can say they fired off 1500 rounds in a M-60 without lifting off the trigger, I did.


Ron

[82Rigger]

.50 Caliber M17 TRACER

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

BULLET TIP IDENTIFICATION COLOR: MAROON

BULLET WEIGHT: 635 GRAINS

BULLET TYPE: TRACER, M17

MUZZLE VELOCITY: 2860 FT/SEC

PRESSURE (MAX AVERAGE) 54,000 PSI

ACCURACY (MEAN RADIUS): 20" AT 600 YARDS

TRACE: THE BULLET SHALL EXHIBIT A VISIBLE TRACE OF
FULL LUMINOSITY FROM A POINT 100 YARDS FROM THE WEAPON TO A POINT NOT LESS THAN 1600 YARDS.

[82Rigger]

HE grenades fired from the M79 traveled at a muzzle velocity of 75 meters per second, and contained enough explosive within a steel casing that upon impact with the target would produce over 300 fragments at 1,524 meters per second within a lethal radius of up to 5 meters. Stabilised in flight by the spin imparted on it by the rifled barrel the grenade rotated at 3,700rpm, this in turn after 14-18 meters of flight armed the grenade.

For close range fighting the Army came up with two types of M79 rounds. The first was a flechette round which housed approx 45 small darts in a plastic casing, these rounds were issued on an experimental basis. Later this round was replaced by the M576 buckshot round. This round contained twenty-seven 00 buckshot which on firing was carried down the barrel in a 40mm plastic sabot, which slowed down in flight so the pellets could travel in their forward direction un-aided. The M79 could also fire smoke grenades, CS gas, and flares

[Andy]

Steve, that's about the third time I've seen info on M-79 ammo. They don't include the WP rounds! I know we had 40mm WP's, hell WP rounds are center piece in more than one interesting story. Wonder if the WP round was one of those experiments that was discarded, if it was, bad move. A man can get wounded and still fight but once your butt is on fire the only thing in the world you think about is, "Put the damn fire out!"

Ron, they must have cleaned up the bad ammo thing, at least down in III Corps by the time I got there. Of course legs and airborne did lots of things different than Mech. I do recall our 81mm's getting some bad ammo lots and just burning them up as H&I fire. "Short Round" used to scare the hell out of me. But no rifle or machine gun ammo problems. We would also have problems with LAWs if they were exposed to the rain or standing water. Getting rid of a couple of cases of LAWs was alway a real hoot. If they didn't fire, a little C-4 and a big bang was nice. Once we quietly placed some LAWs in a tunnel opening and had a Fire in the Hole. We had dust come up from another, previously unnoticed hole so we blew that one too. Great fun.

Stay healthy,
Andy