Posted on 08/06/2007 5:37:38 PM PDT by Renfield
I watch the television sometimes, and I realize that one of the few things that hasn’t changed since my time as a grunt is the old M-2 .50 caliber.
Long ago, and far away....
Put 4 of those bad boys together in VN and you had
a quad 50,if you had a brave man in the seat it was
astounding what it`d do when there was incoming.
The `45 Colt,Ma Deuce ,B-52,some things just seem to work
He was a Marine hitching a ride on an Army Huey. One of his fellow passengers was a VC colonel being taken for interrogation. The prisoner, his hands still shackled, managed to seize the wait gun and turn it to the inside of the chopper.
You sure that wasn't a M-60? I never saw a .50 cal on any Army bird, of any size. The Marine CH-46 was the only bird I saw (and used) it carried on. And there was no way it could be turned to shoot inside the helo. An M-60 on a bungee certainly could be turned around.
CMOH recipient(posth.) SFC Paul R. Smith used a Ma Deuce to single handedly smoke 50 sandgoblins during the Iraq Invasion.
Six hits with .50 and he lived? I’m sorry to doubt. but I don’t beleive that for a second.
See #23. I’d say it was a M-60, 7.62mm.
Nope...probably a M-60 on a bungi.
Yup. NFW.
LOL. My golden will eat anything - except mcdonalds hamburgers.
Never tried to feed her an MRE.
One of my favorite stories is how Carlos Hathcock modified a .50 in order to take out a particularly loathsome sniper. Hence the Barrett was developed, winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever legs need to be running without their torsos.
Hueys used the .30 cal M60, rather than the .50 M2.
Cool, where can I get one of those? It would go good with my 81mm mortar, and 105 howitzer. Talk about a great 4th of July...
[Sidebar: And no you richard heads reading this, I don't have an 81mm mortar]
5.56mm
During the blitzkrieg on Baghdad I was glued to the tv watching the live footage.
There was a shot taken from about half a mile of a Bradley moving along the river bank. You could just barely see a few troglodytes about 100 yards in front of it. A chaingun tracer made a perfect line to one of the ‘targets’ and he just ceased to exist. Just a white stripe and then a small flash and that dink was a fine mist. It was almost as if he was hit by lightning.
Yes, White Feather bump; the accuracy of the .50 is astounding.
BTW, my dad was injured by a M-2. Hot shell casing rolled up his arm.
Very likely I was wrong on that. I heard the story third-hand and wasn't taking notes. That does seem more plausible, and someone who survives six .30 hits is still a tough old bird.
I am not sure why it took the army so long to adopt the .50 cal. Browning and Colt had it ready in 1917.
If a new design for a heavy machine gun is needed, somebody needs to dig up John Moses Browning. Fortunately it appears as if one isn't really needed. A little updating and the old girl is still good to go. New builds rather than a bunch of weapons that have been through the arsenal to be rebuilt so many times they have more seniority than any of the employees might be nice though. The arsenal *claims* they are as good as new... but I saw the same "claim" 30+ years ago for J-57 turbojets. It was about as far from the truth as "The check is in the mail", or "We're from the BATFE and are here to help you." Same now goes for the J-57's replacement (in non fighter applications) the TF-33.
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