A
Anonymous
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We knew it was just a matter ot time before Victor Charles realized their was a hole in their perimeter, so Rock sent out Beattie, Mc Combs, and Starr to rig up some Claymore mines. Now these things contain C-4, and 750 steel ball bearings, and are directional because the charge is shaped; just place, face outward, open the scissor legs, and aim it thru the sight, and stick the legs in the ground. Then you place an electric blasting cap in it, and hook up the wires which go back to your position. We stuck our end of the wires into the ground, and kept the chargers in our pockets. Why put the wires in the ground, simple; sometimes static electricity can build up & set them off. We also had another nasty little trick, to stop Charlie from turning them around to face us, or, remove them. We called it 'mousetrapping'; we would scoop out enough dirt from under the mine, stick a hand grenade in the hole, lever up, and then pull the pin. As long as the mine sat atop it, nothing happened; but if the mine was moved, BOOM! They also rigged smoke grenades with trip wires across access points, and to 'sweeten the
pot' a little, included some white phosphorous grenades. This stuff when it explodes, burns at 3000 F.; we kept the frags because we didn't have many, and the white phosphorous grenade has a burst Radius of about 40 meters- the guy that tosses one is likely to get burnt, and this stuff will burn clean thru you.
Every one is back, and then "the kid" [LT] decides we are going to go take out that A.A. track. And HE, is going to lead it, and guess who gets to go along, 'moi', sans radio, and Jim. I can still hear Rock saying, "there he goes again, with his god----ed, R.O.T.C. shi*t." Now how are we going to do this, simple- we are going to take an RPG we picked up from Charlie, and use that, and none of us had ever fired one. Brilliant! This guy should have been a general. We are running crouched down and
we find this track from the smoke coming out of the exhaust, and the reving of the engine. It's basically a tank chasis with an open top turrent containing 4, 23mm cannon. Guess what, the LT had lost his glasses, and couldn't see sh-t.
Jim motioned, "you do it", so I stuffed one down the tube, put it on my shoulder and looked thru the sight. BOOM; it's loud, and I hit the drive wheel at the back of the chasis, and severed the track. I'm hearing ,"great shooting". Only problem is I aimed at the turrent, about 15 feet away.[I guess they are supposed to be zeroed to the sight-not this one]Meanwhile this thing is spinning around & around in a big circle, but the great thing is that he can't drop his guns low enough to engage us. This time I use a little 'Kaintucky windage', and nail the turrent dead center. It catches fire, and those still alive start bailing, and Jim pops them one after another, including the driver, when he opens the hatch. Jim runs up and sticks a frag. under one that is still moving, so when they pick him up, BOOM! And he noticed a trailer full of cannon shells, about 30 meters away, so he also sticks a grenade under the top layer, a 'Willie Peter'[ white phosp.]
Suffice to say, we've been noticed and start drawing fire. Man those cannon rounds start cooking off in the turrent, green tracers going everywhere; now they have no velocity, but are high explosive warheads, and they can go off when they hit the ground. Then we hear yelling in vietnamese, followed by a LOT more shooting.The LT says, "lets go." We make like cowpie and hit the trail. We make it back at a dead run, and the Rock kinda figured we might have some company, so he has 3rd squad out in a hasty ambush. We never saw them. But 15 meters past them, they open up and cut down about 15 or 20 NVA.
But Rock did something smart, he had everyone using AKs, so there was no M-16s heard firing. I don't think Charlie's higher up knew we were there yet. Guess in the general confusion, those cannon and AKs sounded rightous to Charlie.[and what little shooting
Jim had done couldn't be heard because of the cannon shells.]
Everyone on the perimeter is real tense, and has their Matt Mattels up, eyeballs amost touching the peep sight. But no one shows up. Guess the NVA that came after us were just the security detail. But we spent the rest of the day digging and fortifying our position. The Captain brings over an M-60 machine gun
, and a couple of his guys, and they set it up on a tripod and T&E, transverse and elevate. What this does is allow you to lock up the back of the gun, and you move up & down , left or right by turning rotate wheels. This allows us to move the gun to change the point of impact, and then go back to 'zero.' You make up a 'range card', and write down something like "tree at 200 meters, out, and 50 meters right." So , it can be pitch dark, and if you need to move the 'beatten zone', look at the card, make the number of clicks needed, and you are on the target.
The captain even gave us an ANPVS-2, STARLIGHT SCOPE,
which turns the night into green day. At 6 pounds, it is heavy, but talk about a 'weapon from another galaxy', boy this is it. But we can't zero it until after dark, and the sooting starts. Just hope we have the time.
We chow down, and await sunset. But Rock has something in mind to make Charlie BE AFRAID OF THE NIGHT, AND TO FEAR THE DARK.
pot' a little, included some white phosphorous grenades. This stuff when it explodes, burns at 3000 F.; we kept the frags because we didn't have many, and the white phosphorous grenade has a burst Radius of about 40 meters- the guy that tosses one is likely to get burnt, and this stuff will burn clean thru you.
Every one is back, and then "the kid" [LT] decides we are going to go take out that A.A. track. And HE, is going to lead it, and guess who gets to go along, 'moi', sans radio, and Jim. I can still hear Rock saying, "there he goes again, with his god----ed, R.O.T.C. shi*t." Now how are we going to do this, simple- we are going to take an RPG we picked up from Charlie, and use that, and none of us had ever fired one. Brilliant! This guy should have been a general. We are running crouched down and
we find this track from the smoke coming out of the exhaust, and the reving of the engine. It's basically a tank chasis with an open top turrent containing 4, 23mm cannon. Guess what, the LT had lost his glasses, and couldn't see sh-t.
Jim motioned, "you do it", so I stuffed one down the tube, put it on my shoulder and looked thru the sight. BOOM; it's loud, and I hit the drive wheel at the back of the chasis, and severed the track. I'm hearing ,"great shooting". Only problem is I aimed at the turrent, about 15 feet away.[I guess they are supposed to be zeroed to the sight-not this one]Meanwhile this thing is spinning around & around in a big circle, but the great thing is that he can't drop his guns low enough to engage us. This time I use a little 'Kaintucky windage', and nail the turrent dead center. It catches fire, and those still alive start bailing, and Jim pops them one after another, including the driver, when he opens the hatch. Jim runs up and sticks a frag. under one that is still moving, so when they pick him up, BOOM! And he noticed a trailer full of cannon shells, about 30 meters away, so he also sticks a grenade under the top layer, a 'Willie Peter'[ white phosp.]
Suffice to say, we've been noticed and start drawing fire. Man those cannon rounds start cooking off in the turrent, green tracers going everywhere; now they have no velocity, but are high explosive warheads, and they can go off when they hit the ground. Then we hear yelling in vietnamese, followed by a LOT more shooting.The LT says, "lets go." We make like cowpie and hit the trail. We make it back at a dead run, and the Rock kinda figured we might have some company, so he has 3rd squad out in a hasty ambush. We never saw them. But 15 meters past them, they open up and cut down about 15 or 20 NVA.
But Rock did something smart, he had everyone using AKs, so there was no M-16s heard firing. I don't think Charlie's higher up knew we were there yet. Guess in the general confusion, those cannon and AKs sounded rightous to Charlie.[and what little shooting
Jim had done couldn't be heard because of the cannon shells.]
Everyone on the perimeter is real tense, and has their Matt Mattels up, eyeballs amost touching the peep sight. But no one shows up. Guess the NVA that came after us were just the security detail. But we spent the rest of the day digging and fortifying our position. The Captain brings over an M-60 machine gun
, and a couple of his guys, and they set it up on a tripod and T&E, transverse and elevate. What this does is allow you to lock up the back of the gun, and you move up & down , left or right by turning rotate wheels. This allows us to move the gun to change the point of impact, and then go back to 'zero.' You make up a 'range card', and write down something like "tree at 200 meters, out, and 50 meters right." So , it can be pitch dark, and if you need to move the 'beatten zone', look at the card, make the number of clicks needed, and you are on the target.
The captain even gave us an ANPVS-2, STARLIGHT SCOPE,
which turns the night into green day. At 6 pounds, it is heavy, but talk about a 'weapon from another galaxy', boy this is it. But we can't zero it until after dark, and the sooting starts. Just hope we have the time.
We chow down, and await sunset. But Rock has something in mind to make Charlie BE AFRAID OF THE NIGHT, AND TO FEAR THE DARK.