Re: [DS] Some questions from this weekend

At 6:38 AM -0700 7/22/02, John Atkinson wrote:
>
>Not against troops at 50m or less.  You can't track
>'em fast enough.

I don't know John. The ACAV guys in Nam did pretty well with M113s 
and M47s against the VC in anti-ambush drills in very close terrain. 
Add those main guns in with all the MGs on the tanks and ACAVs going 
as well, they put a hell of a lot of fire down range and into the 
brush. The Loader would service the main gun while the driver would 
drive (and later on fire his M60 mounted in front of his position, 
the commander would fire his .50 and fire the main gun while using 
the commander's override to aim the gun by eye. The loader would be 
firing the coax MG intermittently by using his boot on the back plate 
while firing his (extra) M60. The gunner would be on the bustle or 
back deck with an M60 and an M79. Then you had the ACAVs with their 
.50 cals and 2 M60s plus an M79 as well. That's a lot of fire. It 
tends to make the ambusher's duck abit. Especially when there are 3 
of the tanks and 5-7 of the ACAVs.

>
>Close-assaults I've read of tend to be dumping huge
>volumes of 152mm and MG at relatively short range,
>with any "overruning" tending to come after the VC
>have decided that arguing with the Blackhorse was  bad
>idea.	I may be wrong.
>

Valid point. The ACAV guys weren't crossing the positions too much. 
Usually they were driving through the position before the ambush at 
some point (bunkers were build along side roads in some cases) and 
then would go into herringbone formations for the ambush, once it was 
calmer (relatively) they'd move through the position to deal with any 
VC still dumb enough to move or fire.

Still, the ambushes tended to have plenty of flank shots on the 
vehicles. The mode of fighting had a distinct form to it with the 
armored vehicle crewmen preferring to ride outside (up top) rather 
than inside do to the mine and rpg threat. Sandbags all over the 
turret and around the crew hatch on the ACAVs was pretty common. 
Gunsheilds for the extra m60's acquired for the 47 gunners tended to 
get those guns taken by the brass because they weren't supposed to 
have them.

-- 
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Ryan Gill			  rmgill@mindspring.com
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