gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Army - Combat Infantryman)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2010-04-22 08:14 am
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My first job in the Army

I carried one of these. 23lbs plus 800 rounds of ammo.



Damn, those things were fun!

[identity profile] dafydd.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
I'm pretty sure someone has shown you this one, already. That weapon's come a long way...

[identity profile] john-appel.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
First for you, last for me. As an E5 in the Scout Platoon I was supposed to fill a Bradley gunner slot, but the platoon sergeant asked another E5 & I who were ETSing not long after our next annual gunnery if we minded letting a couple of promising E4s take the gunner slots, since they'd be around longer, and we'd lead dismount teams. So my RTO would pack his M203, and I'd take either the M60 or my M16, depending on what we were dismounting to do.

PITA to lug but boy howdy, cut loose with a burst and watch the crunchies scramble for cover. :)

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 02:09 pm (UTC)(link)
It's that sound. The M-60 sounds like a machine gun is supposed to sound.

My only complaint in carrying it was it was a stone bitch to do bounding overwatches when you were the Pig Man. Bouncing to your feet and moving in 5-5 second rushes is much easier when you're carrying a M-16.

[identity profile] caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
Got to fire one off the shoulder. Was surprised how doable it was. And how the balance was a bit better than the M249A1 SAW's. The one my National Guard section had was utterly reliable... but when they put it in a mount to test it and it grouped something like a foot and a half at whatever range they tested it. (100m or less), they took it away from us and gave us a temperamental one that wasn't shot all to shit...

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Sounds like the barrel was shot out in the first one. I'm surprised they didn't just change that out.

[identity profile] caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 08:53 pm (UTC)(link)
From what I was told by an armorer a while later, the barrel was shot out, but the trunnion was probably stretched or something so fitting another barrel wasn't an option. The whole gun had to be depot rebuilt and/or replaced.

That old gun--in 1990-1991--had supposedly seen time in Vietnam before being shipped off to my unit.