For a long time, personal weapons for tankers was limited to a pistol per man and maybe a submachine gun or two for the crew. The US started to move away from this during WWII when the crews of tank destroyers were issued M1 carbines. When the TD Branch was closed after the war, tankers went back to a M1 TSMG or a M3 Grease Gun.

When the M1 Abrams entered service, a M16 was issued with the tank, it was strapped in place under the TC's stand and was a welcome addition as the M3 was finally departing service (too many rebuilds of worn-out weapons).

I was surprised at the decision to remove the M16 when M1A1 was fielded, the official reason was that too many tankers were complaining about the length of the M16. Since the intent of the weapon was to arm a dismounted tanker, the length of the flaming thing shouldn't have been an issue.

As for myself, like many other tankers, I owned two personal weapons that rested in the arms room. Officially for targeting shooting and hunting, I had a Remington 870 pump shotgun with a folding stock that would have rode with me in the TCs hatch; for those times when somebody was crawling up the sides with a satchel charge. My second was a semi-automatic CAR-15, just in case I had to go dismounted.

My first sergeant used to ride me about both weapons, that is until I found out that he had pulled a few strings and had a M-14 waiting for him.

Yes Virgina the Beretta M9 is a wonderful pistol, but then so many US tankers were scrambling for M1911A1s, and every long arm they could scrounge, steal or requisition for the duration....

Considering that their rifles, automatic rifles, most of their machine guns and all of their grenades were obsolete, utter pieces of crap, I can't blame them for resorting to bayonets. :D

Wow learn something new. Didn't realize that M1 when first issued had M16 aboard. Yeah I agree with you that it didn't make sense to take them off the M1A1s.

It one of those things when people who were in charge of planning failed to realized that if the tank was disable and crew survive they would need something to defend themselves with.

Interesting combination of personnel weapons. I totally get the shotgun. Another weapon that seems to never be issued enough.

In my M-1A1 we dumped the M-3's and picked up 4 M-16A2's.

Are they still using the M3? I thought they were due for replacement by the M4.

It was originally issued for the dismounted OP that tankers put out at night. When it first showed up, there was a lot of confusion about how to stow it, since the manual said strap the M16 this way, but don't load a magazine and remove the sling as they might get caught when the turret was traversed. Me, being a dumbass, slapped a magazine in, wrapped the sling around the barrel and strapped the M16 in so that the magazine faced into the turret (backwards, in other words) and never had a lick of trouble!

And then had several of the transition instructors tell me that what I did was impossible. This was usually followed by my patented blank look followed by a rather pointed glance at what I had done. Gee! Guess you shouldn't have told me that I couldn't do it!

I checked with a NG tanker buddy of mine and tells me that the ole M-3A1 is still sitting in their arms room, two per M-1A1 and 2 per M-88. The damn thing just won't go away!!!!

I think it all depends where the unit is based at and where they went. I also heard that some tank units had been issued M4s due to the fact that once over in Iraq, they may be pulling dismounted duty... No it doesn't surprise me that M3 are still in some armories too. It like the M1911 when they replace them with the M9. It one thing to say so on paper and another to actually get to the point where it done....

Back when I was in the regiment all our A2's had a pair of M4's stowed in them, at least till our CO gave them to heavy because he didn't want us to get "too agressive".

An officer worried about cav being too agressive?!?! :eek:

And this was a cav officer? What was he, one of those Judge Advocate weenies "tasked" over to Armored Cavalry so he could get command time?

Telling a trooper not to be too agressive is sort of like asking a hooker to become a virgin...its a fine sentiment, but the chance of that happening is slim and none...and slim is out of town!

WPPA and daddy was a general, and he was being groomed for stardom. This is the joker that had a hard rule that only troopers with assigned rifles could have ammo, and a max of 210 round less any expended without prior clearance from an officer- top couldn't even give it. Got pulled from my tank because I was caught stealing ammo from hq platoons stash and put on mid to 8 radio watch in the TOC an the assigned bitch for every patrol that came along (here- you get the radio and the 240...). Thankfully about two-thirds through the tour we got a new CO who fixed the ammo problem, got us some more M4's and told us there was no such thing as too much force. He heard about what I did to get in the doghouse and promptly got into a fight with top to see which of them got me as a driver, but wound up being his gunner.

Why am I not surprised...:rolleyes:

I guess I was just lucky, most of my officers were mustangs, ROTCs or Citadel/VMI grads. Didn't run into many WP and going by the couple that I did run into Thank GAWD!!!!!! Both were "moved" over to Armor, the first was a Engineer and the second was a Judge Advocate. Both were notable in that everyone in the unit was carrying a calander and counting the days until they rotated out of the unit.

In fairness I have to make a point to his credit and one to another grad of WP, the previous CO's attitude may have sucked but it did work out for us in fallujah very well. All the locals liked us and while they never helped us they didn't hinder us nor shoot at us. (They all thought the G on the sides of our tanks meant that we was the good guys) It was very nice to be able to do a raid and not have the local version of the cop alarm going off.

As to west pointers: 1Lt (at the time) Hertling (Imay have jacked the spelling, its been a while) was another daddy was a general type, and was aware that he came from the point. When he arrived at the troop fresh as grass he did the usual speech and dismissed all the men but the senior NCO's (and I wasn't one of them but I was close enough to hear) "Sergeants, I'm a green as grass officer who doesn't have a fucking clue how to run a tank platoon outside the classroom, please help me out."). Dude rocked. He wasn't afraid to goof and he always gave credit to who deserved it, yet never caved in when people screwed up. Next to the definition of outstanding officer in Webster's should be his picture.

Sounds like he was a man who had some quality instructors.

the M-4 wasn't around in 1990 as far as i know, a few guys picked up car-15's, close but not the same as M-4's

FYI:

WPPA: West Point Protective Association. The not-so-informal group of graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, who are often accused of protecting each other, regardless of their level of competence or errors committed. Term is generally frowned upon by members of the WPPA.

Tony

Here's a bit of insider trivia....

West Point and Virginia Military Institute have a long standing revelry going back to the Civil War.

West Point has more football victories than VMI.

VMI has more graduates that make it to Army Chief of Staff.

Hmmmmm

A long-standing revelry? I love those unintentional weird mistakes...:p

Oh 1990...I see. We didn't even have them at the 82nd in 1990 -- we went to Desert Storm with M16A2s.

Colin Powell came from City College of New York, where Michio Kaku also teaches and does his studies. Makes you wonder about the quality of people coming from City College of New York -- excellent.

An by the way, Michio Kaku was an infantryman!

What can I say....my mind works faster than my fingers....:D

I usually blame the keys. They have a habit of jumping about underneath my fingers!

They just are a really low readiness unit. The 'Guard armored cav unit I was in when I first started out back in the early 90s had a couple M3s for the '88 crew and that was it. The tankers had their one long gun* per track and pistols.

* Initially we were issued M16A1s that had been "upgraded" with A2 hand grips and maybe A2 buttstocks (can't recall on that part), later replaced with a mix of new production M16A2s and remanufactured M16A1s with the 'auto' option on the selector ground off and overstamped with 'burst'. In a Twilight War scenario I suspect they might have installed new 1-7 twist barrels and not even bothered with changing the fire control group, so a lot of NG units and the late war raised USAR divisions might have had a lot of what are essentially M16A3s. (And I'd guess those would be pretty popular with anyone else who could get their hands on them, compared to M16A2s.)

I'd imagine that they'd be a bit worn out though so perhaps not as popular as one might first think.

Just wondering, but is there any intrest in a LBH thread?

Lee,

You never know until you try. Not everything we discuss has to relate specifically to T2K, does it?

Tony

We had a bunch of those in my training battalion during my second round of AIT, when I changed from 11C to 11B.

Tank Destroyers
 

Yet another thread too good leave hanging in the past...

When Germany staged its rapid tour of Poland and its little incursion into France in 1939 and 1940, the US Army had several military observors who were shocked by the impact of massed tanks. The US Army realized that it had no real tank worthy of the name and those that were in service were thinly armored and vastly underarmed. In an effort to be ready for the expected entry into the war, in May of 1941, the Tank Destroyer branch was created. Its mission was to use heavy guns, mounted on mobile carriages and tank on the German panzers.

Here is what producing tank destroyers cost the US Army:

The M-3 Gun Motor Carriage, 75mm. This was the basic halftrack fitted with a field gun. Total production came to some 2,202.

The M-6 Gun Motor Carriage, 37mm. This was the standard 1.5-ton weapons carrier fitted with a 37mm antitank gun, some 5,400 were built.

The M-10/M-10A1 Gun Motor Carriage, 3-inch. The standard SPAT of WWII, total production was 5,000. The M10A1 had a redesigned rear grill, some 1,713 were built.

M36, M36B1 and M36 B2, Gun Motor Carriage, 90mm. Entered service in late 1943. Some 913 M36 were built. The M36B1 used the 90mm turret on a Sherman hull, 187 were built. The M36B2 had minor changes, 724 were built.

The M-18 Gun Motor Carriage, 76mm was the last of the tank destroyers, 2,507 were built.

Total production of the tracked vehicle came to 11,044

It seems that we've been picking on the ground services...time to spank the Navy!!

The USS Vesuvius was a "dynamite cruiser" armed with the awesome battery of three 15-inch pneumatic guns that were aimed by pointing the ship at the target. The guns fired a 980-pound shell of which some 500-pounds are dynamite.

So what made this awsome ship killer such a bad weapon you ask? The maximum effective range of the "air cannon" was less than a 1,000 yards.

Wait till I put the 8-Gauge Woinchester Maganum shotgun I just made up on my site -- it's based on the Looney Toons cartoons where Porky Pig was (trying) to hunt Bugs Bunny or the Tasmanian Devil (the fictional one, not a real Tasmanian Devil). Now that's a bad weapon...:shaft::shaft:

BTW, I did just put an update on my site a few days ago -- let me get to the "announcement" on the Site Update thread...

The Unluckiest Ship
 

Picked up a Copy of World at War #24 and saw this article.....

The Unluckiest Ship: The USS Willian D. Porter, DD-597---by Mark Day.

The USS William D. Porter, was a brand Fletcher-class destroyer commissioned on 6 July 1943. Her first commanding officer was LCDR Wilfred A. Walter. After her trails and shakedown cruise she reported to Norfolk VA for her first mission. On 12 November she left Norfolk as escort for the new battleship Iowa, onboard Iowa was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King as well as many other top brass enroute for conferences in Cairo and Teheran.

While departing Norfolk, Porter's anchor fouled on a sister ship and tore off her railings and lifeboat mountings. This in itself was enough to cause the relief of a ship's captain, but the problems, they were only beginning!

The next day, a depth charge fell overboard, exploding and causing the Iowa and other ships to take evasive action, believing a German submarine was attacking. Next, a real tradegy struck when a man was washed overboard by a freak wave and died. Next, one of the ship's boilers lost power.

The next day, President Franklin requested to see the task force conduct an anti-aircraft drill. Target balloons were released and most were quickly destroyed by the Iowa's gunners. Several drifted toward the Porter, which shot them down.

Then the Porter and other escorting destroyers were ordered to perfrom a simulated torpedo attack against the battleship. During that exercise, the Porter accidentally launched a live torpedo towards the Iowa. According to eyewitness reports, the torpedo officer ordered the simulated firing and commanded "Fire One!" "Fire Two!" and finally "Fire Three!" There was no "Fire Four!", but the sequence was continued by the unmistable sound of a fourth (armed) torpedo launch). Panic instantly reigned on the bridge. Lt H. Lewis, who witnessed the entire even, asked the captain "Did you give permission to fire a torpedo?"

Captain Walter's stammered answer was "HELL NO, I, I, I---ahhh, I---WHAT!?"

The Porter them attempted to warn the Iowa, but the task force was operating under radio silence, the warning message was sent by blinker light. The first message told of the torpedo heading towards the battleship, but gave the wrong bearing. The next message confusingly signaled only that Porter had gone into reverse at full speed.

Finally, the destroyer broke radio silence to warn the flagship, only to be ordered by Iowa's radioman to identify themselves.. Finally, the crucial message was received in time and the Iowa was able to turn aside to avoid the torpedo.

When President Roosevelt was told of the approaching torpedo, he ordered his Secret Service bodyguard to move his wheelchair to the railing so that he could watch. His bodygaurds then drew their psitols, ready to shoot the torpedo as it approached. Porter's torpedo finally exploded some 3,000 yards astern, in Iowa's wake.

The Iowa then trained every gun that could be brought to bear on the Porter, as it was feared that the Porter was part of an assassination plot. When the battleship radioed for an explanation for the live torpedo, all CPT Walter replied with was a meek "We did it."

For the first and only time in US Navy history, an entire ship's company was arreasted. Porter was sent to Bermuda, when she docked, she was surrounded by armed Marines. Ship and crew were held there for several days while a closed-session Naval Court of Inquiry examined the case.

LCDR Walter's career was effectively over. He was reassigned to a shore billet, well inland as were most of his officers. For teh Rest of her career, the Porter was greeted with the sardonic message "DON'T SHOOT! WE'RE REPUBLICANS!" whenever she approached other ships.

Torpedoman L. Dawson eventually confessed to having accidently left a promer in the Number Three Torpedo Tube, causing the accidental launch. He threw the primer case overboard to try to conceal his mistake, but finally admitted what happened. He was sentenced to 14 years at hard labor, but President Roosevelt ordered his release.

The Porter was sent to the Aleutian islands off Alaska. Where she accidentally fired a 5-inch shell into the front yard of the base commandant. The unlucky destroyer was next ordered to the dangerous waters off Okinawa, where kamizaes were weaking ahvoc with the US fleet. There she partly redeemed herself by shooting down several attacking planes, but only partly, as she was also accused of shooting down three American planes with friendly fire.

Her bad luck continued when she accidentally fired on a sister ship, USS Luce DD-522, riddling her side and superstructure.

On 10 June 1945, Porter's luck finally ran out. But even her sinking was bizarre. At 0815, a Japanese bomber dove out of the clouds, without warning; and headed straight for the ship. The Porter was able to evade the diving plan, but the bomber crashed into the sea nearby, passing underneath the ship and exploding, breaking her back.

With her steam lines ruptured, power was lost and fires broke out. The crew fought to save their ship for over three hours, but their efforts were in vain. The order was given to abandon ship and twelve minutes later, the Porter rolled to starboard and sank by the crew. Miraculously, none of her crew was lost. Perhaps in that regard, she could at least be said to have finally found some good luck, even while sinking.

Poor CO. I've had periods off time that felt like that. Mishaps come in bunches.

That's even worse luck than the battleship South Dakota, she too had a reputation as a "hoodoo ship" in the Pacific War.

If we're going to talk about terrible general purpose weapons, how about the M85. More complicated than the M2HB, and despite being the same caliber it had an entirely different link feed system, rendering cross-feeding M2 ammo into it or it's into an M2 impossible.

Yeah, the M85 was a dim idea at best. Early 90's the unit I was with had several days of planned gunnery training tanked because the ammo guy ordered the wrong DODIC and got big pile of ammo for M85's. I was luckily too junior to be anywhere near the meeting where he had to explain that to the commander and 1SG.

Yeah, that turkey is a real pisser. What's worse is when the '85 rolled out it was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread - and of course they were phased out PDQ - and something like 3 or 4 million rounds of ammo were produced for it. Because the linkage is completely wrong, it's completely useless ammo: it's cheaper to produce more properly linked M2 ammo from scratch than delink and relink the M85's rounds in M2 belts.

For the non-DATs, the M85 was the coupla mounted .50-caliber on the M-60 series MBTs. Of intrest was that it had two rates of fire, normal was about 500-60rpm, but when set to high, it was supposed to have a 800-900rpm. Great idea! when the Hinds started poping up over the treeline, the tank commander simply had to switch to high rate and blast commie whirley birds with a long burst.

There was just one, simple, little problem....

The M85 has this habit of, well, simply going all to pieces when you fired it on high rate. And since the TC was seated right behind it when it went...

It was a standing order in Germany in the ealy 1980s, to never, under any circumstances, set the M85 on high rate.

The Heinkel He 162 was designed to be a simple, inexpensive fighter suitable for quantity production from readily-available materials by semi-skilled and unskilled labor. It was to have simple controls to allow new pilots to easily fly it. It was conceived, designed, built and flown within 90 days!

It had a metal fuselage with a plywood nose cap, its wing was primarily of wood with plywood skin and detachable metal tips. Tailplanes, elevators, and rudders were of metal construction, but the fins were made of wood. The MBW 003 turbojet was attached directly over the top of the fuselage. The cocpit was fitted in front of the jet inlet and was provided with a jettison able canopy as well as a simple ejector seat. The fighter was intended to have an active service life of some 5-10 hours of combat flying.

Armament consisted of two 20mm cannons provided with 120 rounds per gun. At maximum thrust the He 162 had a maximum speed of 562mph at 19,690ft. Range was limited to about 300 miles and the service ceiling was 39,400ft.

One its first test flight, an undercarriage door broke away. On its second flight, before a large gathering of Luftwaffe and Party officials, the starboard wing leading edge ripped away during a low level, high speed run, causing the plan to start rolling and crashing.

During its short service life, no Allied pilot ever engaged a He 162, although some 170 were officially delivered to the Luftwaffe, with a further 100 more waiting on flight testing and another 800 in advanced stages of assembly at various plants.

Flight tests by the RAF after the war confirmed that the He 162 was no plane for a novice pilot, being unstable around its longitudinal axis as a result of its top mounted engine. It was an unforgiving machine that required careful handling by its pilots., in the words of one test pilot “no sudden or erratic movements and no tight maneuvers!” If experienced test pilots had problems with controlling this fighter, attempts by 16-year old pilots with only cursory gliding experience, would have been little short of suicidal.

Source is “Warplanes of the Third Reich”

I've read some modestly favorable reviews for the Volksjaeger. It's an interesting idea. Of course, it takes a lot more than on-paper promise to get a combat worthy weapon into action. Still, if used as an interceptor, the Volksjaeger had potential. With a high top speed and a good offensive punch, the Volksjaeger might have been able to get around its other limitations. Short range doesn't matter so much for an interceptor. Radical maneuvers might not have been necessary if the fighter operated in a hit-and-run mode against Allied bombers. If the Volksjaeger had an average sortie length of 1 hour (just to pick a round figure) and killed an Allied bomber every other sortie, then a 5-10 hour combat life would yield 2.5 to 5 kills. Obviously, it's nothing like this simple. Still, it would have been interesting to see what might have come of getting the new plane into service in mid-1944.

I've seen the same reviews but that these were written by test pilots, not the intended 16 year that were supposed to climb into the "People's Fighter" and do their bit for the Fatherland. And almost all of these reviews do agree that the, with its known fighters, the 162 would have taken a high toll...of its pilots.