Something that always struck me odd,....

[dragoon500ly]

Yup! And that was just an infantry company...

An armor company with loads of pistols, both Berettas and M-1911A1s as well as a dozen S&W .38, M-3 and M-3A1 submachine guns, M-16A1s, even a handful of M-177 carbines...both does that date me!!!! I could never figure out why the armory had a pair of M-67 90mm recoilless rifles.

Our forward ammo point was even more weird. 105mm ammo in every type and variety, APDS, APDSDU, APDSFSDU, HEAT, HEP, Beehive and WP (the only place I've ever seen 105mm tank WP!). Metal and plastic AT mines, bouncing bettys, claymores, toe poppers, every hand grenade that the US had in service for the last 20 years...and then the weird stuff; all kinds of nifty demo stuff to destroy the ole kaserne...55 gallon drums lined with incendary mixture to destroy that nasty ole paper, cutting charges, C4 by the pallet load....AND WE NEVER HAD A CHANCE TO USE ANY OF THE GOOD STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Legbreaker]

Which is probably a good thing since you'd have probably been on the receiving end of similar "good stuff".

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Which is probably a good thing since you'd have probably been on the receiving end of similar "good stuff".

All to true! But one of the things that I enjoyed about service in Germany was when the Ammo Supply Point had lots expired, and you had a bored colonel or two.

Stateside, expired ammo is always shipped back to the depot to be either reworked or disposed of. Germany (and Korea) were the only two locations that went with the third option of allowing the troops to expend the ammo downrange. It wasn't done often (depends on how penny-pinching Congress was that year, I guess). But I've had the chance to fire 105mm APDS, HEP, Beehive and WP; Dragon ATGM and even expend Bangalore Torpedoes, and C-4 and one one glorious day, a 50kg cratering charge!!!

When we converted to M-1, there was a lot of hope in the squadron that we would be allowed to empty the ASP of all the old M-60A3 ammo...we only got to fire a APDS lot....the rest was shipped to units still using the ole Beast.

[Legbreaker]

50kg cratering? Meh, did a 60kg crater on my initial explosives course... :P

Amazing sight though isn't it? Watching the sky rain clods the size of a small motorbike down around you and the mushroom cloud go up, up, up and up until it's higher than the surrounding mountains.

Fun times.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

50kg cratering? Meh, did a 60kg crater on my initial explosives course... :P

Amazing sight though isn't it? Watching the sky rain clods the size of a small motorbike down around you and the mushroom cloud go up, up, up and up until it's higher than the surrounding mountains.

Fun times.

Yours is bigger? LOL!

Biggest one we ever set off was 200kg of C-4! Range Control wanted to clear the ruins of an old stone farm house on the Grafenwoher range...Germans gave the okay and instead of a local contractor taking six weeks...they turned it over to the 2ACR for a demo course....

Yup its certainly an amazing sight!!

[Legbreaker]

At the end of the two days on the range we strategically packed everything that was left into an old car body. Probably added up to about 80 kgs.
The car "went away".

[dragoon500ly]

Don't ya just love being able to get rid of old cars that way?

Another deadly hazard that Range Control liked to get rid of were old washing machines, for some reason they couldn't get the local depot to except some worn out washers....so to the .50-caliber range they went...nothing like watching three crews trying to keep the drum rolling with a Ma Deuce!

One tank gunnery we got a load of Beehive rounds to expend. Now a Beehive is a timed explosive shell that is also packed with about 4,000 flechettes; it turns a 105mm tank cannon into the world's largest punt gun. The loader simple sets the fuze for whatever range is selected, loads and the round is sent downrange where it detonates and spreads its "screaming load of white-hot death".

We got the chance to go downrange and inspect our handiwork and were in for a major surprise. The flechettes, for the most part, didn't break up into their individual pieces. The bursting charge shattered the matrix holding the flechettes and sent them flying as large chunks of sharpnel. Our Range Control officer explained that this was the major reason why Beehive rounds were being removed from service; Ordnance couldn't fix the problem.

First and last time I've ever fired a Beehive, although the rounds stayed in the ammo supply point through 1986, some seven years after they were supposed to have been withdrawn.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Yup! And that was just an infantry company...

An armor company with loads of pistols, both Berettas and M-1911A1s as well as a dozen S&W .38, M-3 and M-3A1 submachine guns, M-16A1s, even a handful of M-177 carbines...both does that date me!!!! I could never figure out why the armory had a pair of M-67 90mm recoilless rifles.

Our forward ammo point was even more weird. 105mm ammo in every type and variety, APDS, APDSDU, APDSFSDU, HEAT, HEP, Beehive and WP (the only place I've ever seen 105mm tank WP!). Metal and plastic AT mines, bouncing bettys, claymores, toe poppers, every hand grenade that the US had in service for the last 20 years...and then the weird stuff; all kinds of nifty demo stuff to destroy the ole kaserne...55 gallon drums lined with incendary mixture to destroy that nasty ole paper, cutting charges, C4 by the pallet load....AND WE NEVER HAD A CHANCE TO USE ANY OF THE GOOD STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was this when the Regiment still had the original M1 or had they already been upgrade to M1A1s?

Interesting thing when I was in basic, I had got in argument with MS NG who would have swore their M177s at the time were M4 that were still in development stage. I bet if he was still in he would notice the difference now.

You know it like the old web bearing equipment with pistol belt, and either Y or H yoke with attachments. There was so much of it made, and even in the surplus system it took years for the MOLLE system to get authorized and then into the system. Almost 20 years from when it was first started to be introduced to units for testing.

Yeah we had mixture of M1911A1s and the Berrettas.

Well that were those recoilless rifles were misplaced. Knowing how the Military never gets rid of anything, I am sure their was ammo stored somewhere in Western Europe they could get ammo for it.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

Was this when the Regiment still had the original M1 or had they already been upgrade to M1A1s?

Interesting thing when I was in basic, I had got in argument with MS NG who would have swore their M177s at the time were M4 that were still in development stage. I bet if he was still in he would notice the difference now.

You know it like the old web bearing equipment with pistol belt, and either Y or H yoke with attachments. There was so much of it made, and even in the surplus system it took years for the MOLLE system to get authorized and then into the system. Almost 20 years from when it was first started to be introduced to units for testing.

Yeah we had mixture of M1911A1s and the Berrettas.

Well that were those recoilless rifles were misplaced. Knowing how the Military never gets rid of anything, I am sure their was ammo stored somewhere in Western Europe they could get ammo for it.

When the Deuce was converting from M-60A3 to IPM-1s, and even after the conversion, we still had a lot of the 105mm specialty ammo on hand (M-1 was supposed to fire only sabot and heat).

Right before we shipped the M-60A3s back to Mannheim, we fired our last gunnery with them and the higher ups in their infinite wisdom, released a lot of 105mm APDS warshots for the gunnery. According to Range Control, we actually shot better scores than the Canadian Cup team! It seemed that the warshots were a hell of a lot more accurate than the TPDS that is normally fired, too bad the tubes had to be replaced afterwards....but that had to be done by the depot!