Just when you think MGs make a lot of brass.....

[Compatriot G]

View attachment 317221

I remember the M85 being temperamental on low rate of fire. My TC at Ft. Knox told us to always use high rate of fire.

I was out at 29 Palms for a double CAX. I drove the 1st Lt.'s tank. He was firing on low rate of fire and getting jams every 3 or 4 rounds. I told him to switch to high rate of fire. He thought that was stupid. He then told me to get in the cupola and try it. I did and finished the belt with no jams.

 

[Bassat]

Thank you for your service.

What really scared people was for the first two weeks to a couple months of WW3, really could have been non nuclear.. It wasn't the nukes that scared leadership. It was pretty much just over after a full exchange. But Nato did envisage a scenario where WW3 kicked off and immediately didn't go nuclear.

Scenarios were run. It would have make the entirety of WW2 look like a picnic.. A million Russians come piling through the Fulda Gap, with whatever Nato had waiting.. Russian goal was to drive Nato off the continent, and that didn't mean out of france and stop like the Nazis... it meant throwing Nato into the Atlantic at LISBON PORTUGAL! All the while every air asset is at the russians.. Imagine the iraq road with Air Power shooting anything that moved 70 times more..

Meanwhile at sea, the Worlds most insane missile shooting contest kicks off as Russian strategic bomber assets streak out after the US Navy Carriers (along with the Russian Navy).. With the US Navy going ape crap on anything that so much as moved in thier direction.

It would have been batcrap insane..

That is the true terror of the Cold War.. not that the fact that nukes could end the world in the second, it was the fact that for a month or two, no one used nukes, and the most batcrap insane conventional conflict breaks out.. before someone starts to loose and hits the nuclear end it all button.

Thank you for appreciation of my (and bunch of others) service.

I do take exception to your statement that "weeks to months of WW3... could have been non-nuclear." WW3 was COMPLETELY non-military. We, the US of A, won WW3, hands down, without firing a shot. It started on January 2, 1981, when Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States of America. He was a staunch lover of America, and equally despised the Soviet Union. President Reagan chose to fight the Soviets on a battlefield they couldn't even compete on: MONEY. I enlisted on 14 June 1974, and was a junior NCO when President Reagan took office. All of a sudden, we had REAL training exercises, using really .223, .30, .50, 105mm, 8" ammunition, in real exercises. We had REAL coordination between combat units of Infantry, Artillery, Armor, air support, supply, and communications. President Reagan understood the fact that we did not HAVE TO FIGHT WW3, we simply had to completely prepare to fight it. He knew the Soviet economy could not keep up with a whole-hearted, balls-to-the-wall arms race. He was right. Soviet leaders spent their economy into ruin trying to keep up with Him (us, US). The Soviet Union totally collapsed. President Reagan declared total victory in Berlin, on June 12, 1987, when he announced to the world that the US of A had won WW3, and the Soviets had most assuredly lost. His exact words were, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." I will always remember sitting in my living room in South Bend on 6/12/87 when President Reagan's statement aired on the local news. I cried like a baby. I ran outside only to be amazed that the rest of the neighborhood did not seem to understand what had just happened. President Ronald Wilson Reagan had just declared total and complete victory in WW3. I, and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of other soldiers and civilians did not have to die to achieve this victory. He quite possibly also saved us from a nuclear armagedon. In my mind, and in my heart, for those exact reasons, Ronald Wilson Reagan will forever be the greatest president this country has ever known. And some current republicans (intentional lower case) refuse to continue his battle in Ukraine. Shame on them, shame on anyone who supports those kind of efforts.

 

[BigMoose]

Thank you for appreciation of my (and bunch of others) service.

I do take exception to your statement that "weeks to months of WW3... could have been non-nuclear." WW3 was COMPLETELY non-military. We, the US of A, won WW3, hands down, without firing a shot. It started on January 2, 1981, when Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States of America. He was a staunch lover of America, and equally despised the Soviet Union. President Reagan chose to fight the Soviets on a battlefield they couldn't even compete on: MONEY. I enlisted on 14 June 1974, and was a junior NCO when President Reagan took office. All of a sudden, we had REAL training exercises, using really .223, .30, .50, 105mm, 8" ammunition, in real exercises. We had REAL coordination between combat units of Infantry, Artillery, Armor, air support, supply, and communications. President Reagan understood the fact that we did not HAVE TO FIGHT WW3, we simply had to completely prepare to fight it. He knew the Soviet economy could not keep up with a whole-hearted, balls-to-the-wall arms race. He was right. Soviet leaders spent their economy into ruin trying to keep up with Him (us, US). The Soviet Union totally collapsed. President Reagan declared total victory in Berlin, on June 12, 1987, when he announced to the world that the US of A had won WW3, and the Soviets had most assuredly lost. His exact words were, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." I will always remember sitting in my living room in South Bend on 6/12/87 when President Reagan's statement aired on the local news. I cried like a baby. I ran outside only to be amazed that the rest of the neighborhood did not seem to understand what had just happened. President Ronald Wilson Reagan had just declared total and complete victory in WW3. I, and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of other soldiers and civilians did not have to die to achieve this victory. He quite possibly also saved us from a nuclear armagedon. In my mind, and in my heart, for those exact reasons, Ronald Wilson Reagan will forever be the greatest president this country has ever known. And some current republicans (intentional lower case) refuse to continue his battle in Ukraine. Shame on them, shame on anyone who supports those kind of efforts.

My scenario is if we had a hot war, instead of a Cold war for WW3. But I agree.

Reagan was a great president.

 

[spencer rifle]

Checked out many 5" guns on museum ships. The cartridge elevators and magazines are super neat.

The amount of sheer freaking ballistic weaponry on those ships was nuts.

The 5"/38 was the right gun at the right time, especially with the VT fuse. With a base ring mount, average one round every 4 seconds, with possibly 22 rounds a minute for a little while.

 

[BigMoose]

The 5"/38 was the right gun at the right time, especially with the VT fuse. With a base ring mount, average one round every 4 seconds, with possibly 22 rounds a minute for a little while.

Shame the Navy never deployed its upgraded replacement further then it did.
The 5-inch/54-caliber Mark 16 gun



Same fire rate and targeting ability as the shorter 38s, bit with a longer flatter shooting gun.

Meant for the Montana class.. only showed up on the 3 midway class carriers.. and some Jap Self Defense Force destroyers.

 

[ratames]

Thank you for your service.

What really scared people was for the first two weeks to a couple months of WW3, really could have been non nuclear.. It wasn't the nukes that scared leadership. It was pretty much just over after a full exchange. But Nato did envisage a scenario where WW3 kicked off and immediately didn't go nuclear.

Scenarios were run. It would have make the entirety of WW2 look like a picnic.. A million Russians come piling through the Fulda Gap, with whatever Nato had waiting.. Russian goal was to drive Nato off the continent, and that didn't mean out of france and stop like the Nazis... it meant throwing Nato into the Atlantic at LISBON PORTUGAL! All the while every air asset is at the russians.. Imagine the iraq road with Air Power shooting anything that moved 70 times more..

Meanwhile at sea, the Worlds most insane missile shooting contest kicks off as Russian strategic bomber assets streak out after the US Navy Carriers (along with the Russian Navy).. With the US Navy going ape crap on anything that so much as moved in thier direction.

It would have been batcrap insane..

That is the true terror of the Cold War.. not that the fact that nukes could end the world in the second, it was the fact that for a month or two, no one used nukes, and the most batcrap insane conventional conflict breaks out.. before someone starts to loose and hits the nuclear end it all button.

If you ever want to read a good story about the potential outbreak of WW3, check out Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. It's one you won't be able to put down.

 

[actaeon277]

Torpedoes don't leave a brass casing behind.

Just saying.

 

[indyblue]

I remember in the 70s one just about every milsurp store had them for sale. I should have bought a few back then.

They’re pricey now

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I remember in the 70s one just about every milsurp store had them for sale. I should have bought a few back then.

They’re pricey now
View attachment 317366

Look on ebay for "trench art". Some folks got pretty creative with them making vases and such.

 

[indyblue]

Look on ebay for "trench art". Some folks got pretty creative with them making vases and such.

Vases, lamps, incense burners, all kinds of things. At one time I think they were almost as popular as lava lamps.

 

[johntheplinker]

Thanks for the refresher. I taught ground-mounted (tripod) M2. I'm not sure I EVER knew the .50 cal on the tank was not M2. Hell, we ring-mounted 'em on 5T trucks and GOERs. Oh, and thanks for the picture. We didn't work with armored cavalry. IIRC, 1st AD worked with 2/2 Air Cav Bamberg. Our primary function was to die in the Fulda gap, slowly enough to hinder the Soviets on their way in. At least Uncle Ronnie would thrown the book at 'em. Joe Weiner... oops! Biden is afraid to **** them off.

Funny you should mention 2/2 Cav. Spent some of my best years there, and it was armored from about 1948 to 1992, never was air cav. Ours odds of survival weren't much better than at Fulda, our position was astide an old section of autobahn that ran from Plauen with its Soviet Guards tank corps to us at Hof with our cav troop. Our job was basaically to give 1st AD time to sober up and take out as many T72s as possible before being over run, then take to the hills and create mayhem in the Soviet rear if there was any of us left. We were told that the brass had written off everything east of a line from Fulda to Coburg to Nurnburg so we could expect little to no support except what the regiment itself could provide.

 

[johntheplinker]

The M60 tank initially had two POSes
M73/M219 7.62 coax. COMPLETE junker... replaced with ether a M60 or M240 coax.
M85 50 bmg in the Comanders mini turret. Never could be replaced as the M2HB would not fit the commanders mini turret.

The M60 was awesome.. but the MGs on it did suck.

View attachment 317192

Oh god, the M219. A little before my time but I heard plenty about them, and nothing good.

 

[BigMoose]

Oh god, the M219. A little before my time but I heard plenty about them, and nothing good.

M219, the gun they claimed was 3 times better then the M73.. no literally, some officer renamed the later versions of the M73 to M219 because 3 times 73 = 219.

You can't make this crap up. LOL

 

[johntheplinker]

M219, the gun they claimed was 3 times better then the M73.. no literally, some officer renamed the later versions of the M73 to M219 because 3 times 73 = 219.

You can't make this crap up. LOL

Holy cow, so obvious. When I was at Knox other students, I guess M60A1 trainees, would be carrying around these long archaic looking things and they all had really long faces. Like they knew it was a POS and wishing they had a 240 like we did.

 

[Creedmoor]

I remember the M85 being temperamental on low rate of fire. My TC at Ft. Knox told us to always use high rate of fire.

I was out at 29 Palms for a double CAX. I drove the 1st Lt.'s tank. He was firing on low rate of fire and getting jams every 3 or 4 rounds. I told him to switch to high rate of fire. He thought that was stupid. He then told me to get in the cupola and try it. I did and finished the belt with no jams.

My son was 3rd LAR at Palms. Sugar cookie baby.

 

[Vodnik4]

Funny you should mention 2/2 Cav. Spent some of my best years there, and it was armored from about 1948 to 1992, never was air cav. Ours odds of survival weren't much better than at Fulda, our position was astide an old section of autobahn that ran from Plauen with its Soviet Guards tank corps to us at Hof with our cav troop. Our job was basaically to give 1st AD time to sober up and take out as many T72s as possible before being over run, then take to the hills and create mayhem in the Soviet rear if there was any of us left. We were told that the brass had written off everything east of a line from Fulda to Coburg to Nurnburg so we could expect little to no support except what the regiment itself could provide.

If one can extrapolate backwards the Russian performance in Ukraine to how Soviets could have performed at the height of the Cold War… do you think it would have gone as bad, “writing off everything east of … line”, etc? Were NATO estimates of Soviet capabilities exaggerated?
(With the caveat that the modern Russian army is only a shadow of Soviet army at their height, etc).

 

[johntheplinker]

If one can extrapolate backwards the Russian performance in Ukraine to how Soviets could have performed at the height of the Cold War… do you think it would have gone as bad, “writing off everything east of … line”, etc? Were NATO estimates of Soviet capabilities exaggerated?
(With the caveat that the modern Russian army is only a shadow of Soviet army at their height, etc).

The Soviet army was much better than the current Russian one. The level of corruption was much less, and they at least trained their troops. The capability and quality of equipment between NATO ground forces and Soviet forces was much closer at least until the mid 1980s. As way of example, the T72 was close to being equal to the M60A1 and Leopard I, and there was a lot more of them. Soviet artillery also vastly outnumbered NATO tubes, but we had better fire control and all was self propelled. One area the Soviets had a major advantage over NATO was short and medium range conventional missiles. They had a bunch, especially tactical missiles, while we had,...a few. Also their individual soldiers had had limited exposure to the free world, and no doubt many beleived what they were told about the decadent and corrupt west so would have been more likely to actually fight. I also saw the quality of the average post Vietnam US soldier. Dismal comes to mind. The average German conscript in early 80s, might fight, might run. That changed drastically in the early 80s, the misfits either shaped up or got the boot.

Air and naval it was no comparison, NATO was vastly superior. To counter NATO air superiority the Soviets had huge amounts of ADA, with MANPADS organic down to company level. That would have made it rough for our air, especially helicopters. The big thing for fixed wing air was going to be bases. How long would any paved runway last before it was blasted by a barrage of medium range missiles.

It was mentioned in a post above about the 1st AD in Bamberg. Their forward positions were not far outside Bamberg, about 50k from the border. Ours were within sight of the border. Bamberg was our rear area, where we spent time when we weren't on the border, at Graf, or in the field. Other than the 2nd ACR and a few German recon units, that was it for the first 40 klicks from the E. German and Czech borders. Depending on where we were in our cycle, we would have been deployed either to the ghost autobahn(real bad), Rudolfstein crossing (bad), or Bad Steben(might have a chance). All places where the Soviets could come across in battalion+ strenght(Bad Steben) to division(ghost autobahn) in our sector of the border. No way to defend that with 3 cav troops, a tank company, and a howitzer battery.

Another fly in the ointment that hasn't been mentioned. Chemicals. Nukes have been mentioned but chemicals would have been used first, and plentifully. IIRC Soviet division commanders had authority to use them at their discretion. Also those medium range missiles fired at our air bases? Guess what a few of those would have carrying? That was another area the Soviets had it over NATO forces. Not to mention they trained with the real thing, built their doctrine around their use.

Good lord that was long. To sum up, IMHO if it had kicked off during the 1970s, I would have been highly surprised if NATO could have stopped the Soviets and Warsaw Pact forces anywhere east of the Rhine as long as it stayed conventional. After about 1983 or 4, it would have been tough but the Soviets might, might, make it to the Rhine in places. After 1986, the Soviets would have been fools to even try. Had it gone nuclear, it wouldn't have mattered.

Oh one last point. Comparing the current russian performance in Ukraine to cold war Soviet army. Many of the better Soviet military leaders and units came from Ukraine so level of competency from that alone would have higher.

 

[Vodnik4]

Thank you for the in-depth reply! That is an awesome summary.
The change in early 80s is the above-mentioned Reagan shake-up?

 

[MrSmitty]

Thank you for appreciation of my (and bunch of others) service.

I do take exception to your statement that "weeks to months of WW3... could have been non-nuclear." WW3 was COMPLETELY non-military. We, the US of A, won WW3, hands down, without firing a shot. It started on January 2, 1981, when Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States of America. He was a staunch lover of America, and equally despised the Soviet Union. President Reagan chose to fight the Soviets on a battlefield they couldn't even compete on: MONEY. I enlisted on 14 June 1974, and was a junior NCO when President Reagan took office. All of a sudden, we had REAL training exercises, using really .223, .30, .50, 105mm, 8" ammunition, in real exercises. We had REAL coordination between combat units of Infantry, Artillery, Armor, air support, supply, and communications. President Reagan understood the fact that we did not HAVE TO FIGHT WW3, we simply had to completely prepare to fight it. He knew the Soviet economy could not keep up with a whole-hearted, balls-to-the-wall arms race. He was right. Soviet leaders spent their economy into ruin trying to keep up with Him (us, US). The Soviet Union totally collapsed. President Reagan declared total victory in Berlin, on June 12, 1987, when he announced to the world that the US of A had won WW3, and the Soviets had most assuredly lost. His exact words were, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." I will always remember sitting in my living room in South Bend on 6/12/87 when President Reagan's statement aired on the local news. I cried like a baby. I ran outside only to be amazed that the rest of the neighborhood did not seem to understand what had just happened. President Ronald Wilson Reagan had just declared total and complete victory in WW3. I, and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of other soldiers and civilians did not have to die to achieve this victory. He quite possibly also saved us from a nuclear armagedon. In my mind, and in my heart, for those exact reasons, Ronald Wilson Reagan will forever be the greatest president this country has ever known. And some current republicans (intentional lower case) refuse to continue his battle in Ukraine. Shame on them, shame on anyone who supports those kind of efforts.

Wow, just wow! I never looked at it that way... I loved Reagan, he was my Commander-in-Chief, and would have stormed the gates of hell for him! I just wish my time in (81-86) would have qualified for the National Defense Ribbon... Just a personal thing for me...

 

[Bassat]

I was in Graf when President Reagan was shot. BN CDR jumped up on a table in the beer hall. "The President has been shot. YOU are on full alert, IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Report to your unit. MOVE." Worst buzzkill, ever!