Were you ever in the Armed Forces -- 2

renrich · 04-13-2007, 05:22 PM

Yes, Plaster was a MSgt in my company and I have a picture of him in a book I got about our basic training and every time I see Major (I think) Plaster on TV I think about the resmblance except he had more hair in 1959.

lesofprimus · 04-13-2007, 05:49 PM

Then ur probably right then, as the name Plaster is very unique...

mkloby · 04-13-2007, 08:46 PM

Seeing the tracer fire during night ops has always been one of my favorite evolutions. It's amazing the crazy trajectories that the rounds take when they strike objects.

Adler - I enjoy the gas chamber too! It does clear out your head! It's sweet when you take a shower just after it...

lesofprimus · 04-13-2007, 09:20 PM

Its amazing what tracer fire looks like with an NVG set on, especially the Soviet bloc type...

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 04-15-2007, 05:03 PM

I sometimes would even get side tracked watching tracers comeing up from the ground in Iraq when were flying at night. I would have to catch myself and tell myself to stay alert. You learned over time to stop being awed by it.

renrich · 04-15-2007, 06:10 PM

Speaking of tracers there is something I should have known for a long time( as I used to be a hand loader and studied ballistics) but fairly recently learned and that is that tracer bullets don't have the same trajectory as a regular bullet so seeing tracers around your target in a dogfight does not necessarily mean you are hitting your target. In fact some pilots did not want tracers in their ammunition because it warned the pilot of your target you were shooting at him. Would some of you with operational experience discuss this. I remember firing a M2 50BMG at tanks and trucks on a range at FT Hood and watching the tracers richochet for what seemed like a long way.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 04-16-2007, 09:28 AM

Well for Door Gunnary from the Blackhawk Tracer fire was helpfull because you could still use the tracers to walk your rounds in. Granted in the desert you really did not need tracers because you could see the dust coming up.

renrich · 04-16-2007, 04:48 PM

I guess at two hundred yards or so the difference in trajectorys would not be much but at 4 or 500 yards or more it could start being significant.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 04-17-2007, 09:54 AM

Yes it would.

Matt308 · 04-17-2007, 11:15 AM

Especially at night. I recall reading about an F4U on strike missions in Korea at night. The pilot intercepted a NK convoy rounding a hill side. He pours in some 20mm, sees tracer fire immediately returned and breaks engagement. Making another pass, he notices immediate return fire. Only then does he realize that he was seeing his own tracer ricochets and the illusion that they were coming towards him due to the lack of depth perception.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 04-17-2007, 11:23 AM

I can see that happening. I allways enjoyed sitting on the berm watching the tracer fires boune up into the sky.

renrich · 04-17-2007, 02:14 PM

Adler, I had never fired a big bore rifle until I went to basic. I had made life miserable for jack rabbits on a farm with a Winchester bolt action and a pocket full of 22 shorts(all I could afford) and I had limited a few times on doves with a 12 gauge Mod 97 Winchester. Anyway, when they turned me loose on the 1000 inch and later KD range with that lovely Garand #5182609 and lots of that shiny ammunition(which I did not have buy) I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I still marvel at how those NCOs could take some city boy who had never pulled a trigger and teach him how to shoot that hard kicking, relatively speaking, M1 rifle and actually hit the target a lot of the time. I don't believe in UMT. I treasure our all voluteer army but I almost would like to see it mandatory that all young men have to go and learn basic skills with a military rifle.

mkloby · 04-17-2007, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renrich

I treasure our all voluteer army but I almost would like to see it mandatory that all young men have to go and learn basic skills with a military rifle.

I think that many of the liberals in this country would have a heart attack and stop breathing if subjected to military discipline. Well, I'm not opposed to the thought of that

renrich · 04-18-2007, 08:25 AM

That would be one way to handle them, either convert them or eliminate them. I wonder if a program where every able bodied male say at the age of 18 had to go through basic training would keep something like happened at VT from happening?

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 04-18-2007, 08:31 AM

My old Division Commander supports a reinstatment of the Draft.