The point of this discussion page is to capture all the unedited emails sent in talking about Centaur weapons and ammunition.
If you have other emails with info, old or new, please send them in for posting. They are listed latest to oldest.
Michael Peake, our Guns n' Rockets Guru, is monitoring and developing a better "History" section for all this.
There is some duplication in the Flechette emails in the History section.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………12/3/16 Mike Peake: Found your site while looking for something else cavalry related. I served with F Troop, 4th U. S. Air Cavalry in country 72-73 and have several images such as the one attached. I believe this was taken November 1972 because it was developed in December after mailed home. This is the one AH1-G Cobra we had that mounted the M-35 20mm Automatic Cannon Subsystem. Compared with later uses of this same weapon, in this configuration it fired only 750 rounds per minute and the aircraft could only carry 950. The opposite wing store carried a 19-shot 2.75 inch rocket pod inboard and a 7-shot outboard. If I recall correctly, the aircraft would have to come to a fixed hover to engage a target, requiring cover aircraft to suppress threats.
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10/18/16 Brian Harrison One of the last details I was on at Tan my was to help load up two connexes with chairs, tables, radios, weapons, etc. The weapons included the ground 50s used for perimeter defense, M60s stripped from the all the slicks and loaches, M-16s and CAR-15s, 45s, 38 revolvers, and all the enemy weapons we could find around Tan My including a number of SKSes still wrapped in cosmoline - I should have brought one back (Wayne did). Hundreds of weapons total. Word was they were going to be sling-loaded out under a Chinook coming up from Danang (60th Helicopter Transport Co I think). After loading them we locked and chained the connex doors shut.
I thought we were going to transfer the conexes to the South Vietnamese.
The Chinook arrived, one of the older EMs on the detail hooked up the first connex, and then the Chinook flew out over the water close to the horizon and promptly dropped it in the ocean. Then it came back and repeated the trip with the 2nd one. Big splashes.
I can't tell you how many times I've thought of these weapons. Hopefully some future underwater explorer will come across these.
Included in the haul was “my" cherished CAR-15 that a pilot had very kindly passed on to me after he DEROSed. I don't remember who this kind officer was (I'm thinking he was a cobra pilot) and I don’t think we were personally acquainted at the time - I just happened to be on the flight line at the moment when he was giving away his "belongings”.
Here are pictures of some of the "lost" weapons - lined up right before going into the connexes.
I should have tried to disassemble and sneak the CAR home.
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7/31/16 Rick Williams Spooky on steroids
Subject: On board a C-130 SPOOKY ....Gunship Viet era it was the old C47
"Puff the Magic Dragoon" as they called it......it has come a long way...I've been lit up by one in the bush w/their light, scary as hell feeling knowing the guns are zeroed in on you also....pretty cool video Care for a little “firepower”?
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/acinsbrut4
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11/18/15 Gary Jones: Bruce,
These are all photos of just little old me, age 22, some of which you already have. By the time these photos were taken, we had been issued .38 revolvers, after having carried .45 autos. We were not happy about the change, and the story I remember about the change was that it was easier to load and fire a .38, if you had an injured (shot up) arm. We thought that was stupid. My personal defense weapon was a .45 Cal Greasegun with two ammo cans of extra clips and ammo, under the back seat. i hung the greasegun on the armored seat I was sitting in. Couldn’t hit anything with it, but it made a lot of noise. That just about does it on the photos. In a while I will send some stuff from my letters home about various missions and happenings in the unit.
Gary
Centaur14
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8/9/15 Bruce Powell: To the Society - Update 9 August 2015
History, Equipment, Ammunition Section construction has begun. Go to History, click on the Equipment button at the top, then the Ammunition button on the right side. This section was called Ordinance for a couple years and no one recognized that it was spelled wrong (should be Ordnance). Then it was realized that Ordnance is weapons and ammo, not just ammo. So everything has been upgraded to read "Ammunition".
Items on the Ammunition page that are in color have been completed and linked accordingly. Grayed out images provide an outline for what things need to be done next in this section.
2.75 inch Folding Fin Aerial Rocket: Is one of the new buttons in the Ammunition section.
Flechette Warhead (2.75" FFAR): This piece of ammo is now clearly described and demonstrated in our History Equipment Section "Ammunition". It is a separate graphic button of that section.
Besides the text description we have a button that will take you to a flechette video. This is an example where we can take old military footage, hopefully enhance it a bit and edit it down to a modern presentation of the ordinance that we used. It is also linked to from the Glossary (under both Flechette and Nails) and from Jack Craigs' video (because he talks about using flechettes).
Email Discussions: This is a new category for our website interface. We try to take all the relevant email input received from Centaurs and capture it somewhere, usually in a War Story article. But there is a lot of good info that slips through the cracks and never makes it to the website. These could be great email discussions that just get heard by a few and fade away. Now those threads (discussions) can be gathered and added to a page as "Email Discussion" about that topic. It could add valuable info and might stimulate the memory of others.
Go to the Flechette Warhead section of "Ammunition" and notice that an "Email Discussion" about that subject has been added.
1. Tour years have been added to the names of each person commenting.
2. If you remember a great subject thread (email subject) that hasn't been captured for the web, go back, find it and send it to me. I will see where we can plug it in.
3. If you read a thread of yours that has been put up and you want to modify it, just send me the new text. I will cut and paste it over the old.
4. The Board reserves the right to edit these emails where deemed appropriate.
Finding photos and graphics to enhance stories on our website:
I am in constant search of photos a diagrams that look good, make sense and are in line with what we Centaurs did and had. First choice is always to use Centaur photos and films (I have 1,000's of them). Second choice is often from my extensive library of Army Aviation Manuals (Dash 10's, 20's,34s' etc).
But sometimes when I need a good photo or drawing of an object or event for a story background, I have to go to the internet. The trick is to find stuff that is not copyright protected, and use that. In some cases just giving credit to whoever owns it is appropriate. For example the photo of the pilot in the 2.75 Rocket section, comparing the 10 and 17 pound rockets, was the only one I could find that did the job. His name and unit call sign is listed on the photo. I will replace it with a Centaur photo if one is found.
Have you noticed that Aircraft Modelers seem to have more photos and details of parts and aircraft than the Army does? They are radically into details like exactly how the skids are mounted on a Huey. Take a look at this website for example:
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/16/t/75405.aspx?page=6#760480
As you read through the articles and watch the movies of our website, please be thinking about a photo or section of a movie that you remember seeing that might enhance one of our pieces.
For example, look at the sections of video that were lifted from military film archives to use behind Jack Craig while he is talking. Maybe just a piece or combination of photos could be used. I needed a jungle scene with some vines to be the background when he was talking about landing to rescue Mark Jackson. Nothing seemed to help the story like I wanted (vines and all), so I took a couple jungle photos of Laos from the web and created my own background for the piece.
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8/9/15 Carl Betsill: Concerning the use of flechetts in 71-72, history would not be complete without noting "other" uses. When the unit moved from Lai Khe in February of 72 the hocches were simple metal buildings with open bays. We quickly converted them with lumber from rocket crates into private rooms. Of course we needed nails and the flechetts canisters provided a ready source.
Flechetts also were a good subject for speculation. Since we enlisted men were usually kept in the dark about everything, rumors often replaced fact. I remember being told the red powder was an anticoagulant and that the Flechett rounds were against the Geneva Convention. There was no end to the imagination of an enlisted man!
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9/11/2014 Bob Graham: OH-23 M-2 Machine Guns
The Story of What Happened in D Troop
Tom Flemings neat second year summary unearthed a nice discussion
I believe that the answer to this little sage will depend upon where you were standing/assigned.
The first issue of OH-23’s during April-May 1966 were initially armed with the M-2 twin 7.62 Cal Machine gun for the light scouts of D Troop. The reliability of the system became questionable. The light scouts had intermittent success with the system while scouting and as very light fire support. Under MAJ Peck (initial Scout Section leader) they did not develop any recon by fire techniques and from my view used the weapon only when they had first been engaged by the VC.
About the time that MAJ Peterson (late June 1966) took command of the troop he expressed his concern about the systems reliability and the untenable situations that might develop during its employment. CPT Delvy [then in the heavy scouts] and I [then in the weapons section] were tasked to conduct a rudimentary reliability experiment.
A brief standardized maintenance and bore sighting exercise was implemented.
Each crew prepared their OH-23. Then the piolets fired the system in a none-tactical situation or at some targets we had placed beyond the north perimeter (later became known as Ann Margaret). The pneumatic charging system would often cycle properly and the gun still not fire. An unfired cartridge would be ejected and often the gun would not fire again. It was not uncommon to repeat the cycle a number of times. Often neither gun fired. CPT Delvy and my assessment for MAJ Peterson was that the reliability over all the OH-23’s was that about 50% of the time only one gun would fire on the first try. On about 25% of the firing runs neither gun would fire on the first try. Worst of all the failures were quite random.
Then WO Dunbar had his confrontation with a VC in a Sampan in the area to the north east of Cu Chi that had numerous swamps and tributaries to the Saigon River. My recall (confirmed by a recent phone call) was that he was doing a low level scouting recon along a narrow waterway. At close range an individual in a sampan whipped out a carbine, Dunbar tried to zap him with his M-2’s. They did not fire so he literal overran the guy, knocking him from the sampan. He then followed up with his acquired Swedish K (38 caliber pistol ammo firing sub machine gun) firing with his left hand while flying with his right and zapped the VC. MAJ Peterson admired WO Dunbar’s fearless attitude but did not encourage it as a common tactic.
MAJ Peterson felt that all the M-2’s should be removed and stressed an armed observer on all scouting missions.
The M-2’s did not disappear as he initially directed. With some considerable discussion with MAJ Peterson we began a systematic quality control approach. Everyone in the scout section under MAJ Rudy Pick the scout section leader including the 725th Maintenance Company began to systematically cull out the unreliable weapon combinations. For quite some time there were a number of OH-23’s without armament. Often just the guns would be removed for a short period as tinkering continued. These impotent OH-23’s were dispatched for convoy and coordination and transporting ground element commander or liaison. As time passed there always seemed to be a few unarmed OH-23’s. What appeared in the beginning to be a really simple system could be quirky and difficult to finely tune to a high level of reliability.
That is my take of the OH-23 armament.
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3/21/13 Bruce Powell: I thought some of you might be interested to see the amazing number of UH-1 gunship configurations that were tried at one time or another. I did not have the time to look at all the pages. It is amazing to me that these aircraft modelers seem to know more about our aircraft than we do:
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/16/t/78073.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=8
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3/15/13 Bob Taylor: Bore sighting those rocket pods was a bear. Cudos to all our gunners for getting them as accurate as they did.
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3/15/13: Pat Eastes: OK, I will start the ball rolling. Here's my little bit about UH1Cs. I didn't get real technical because I don't expect most readers care about the minutiae. We have gobs of pictures of Charlies, so finding a good one or two should be easy. I'm sure many old gun drivers/crew can add to this. Anyway, here is a start;
UH1C
The Bell UH1 (Iriquois), commonly referred to as the Huey, was made in several configurations. By August of 67, the gun platoons had phased out the UH1B, which was less powerful than the new UH1C. The Charlie models had what was called a 540 rotor system, which had wider rotor blades than the B model for more lift, and a Lycoming t53 L11 engine, which produced more horsepower than the B model. The Charlie also had a dual hydraulics system, since it was not possible to control the aircraft without hydraulic assist due to the large rotorblades.The Charlie was developed as a gunship, and carried a crew of 4 (aircraft commander, pilot, crewchief, and gunner).
Since the Charlie had more power than the B model, it could carry more armament, and several configurations of firepower were deployed. In general, the ‘heavy scouts’ of the troop carried minieguns and 14 rockets, while the ‘heavy weapons’ or ‘hogs’ section had either 48 or 36 rockets and an M5 “chunker”, a nose mounted 40mm grenade launcher. Generally, the pilot in the right seat fired the rockets, while the left seat pilot fired the minieguns or grenade launcher. The crewchief and gunner in the back of the aircraft were armed with M60 machineguns, attached to the aircraft by bungee cords. The crewmen in back were attached to the aircraft by “monkey straps”, giving them the ability to hang outside the aircraft to fire their machineguns from varied positions. They also had a variety of grenades that they used; smoke grenades to mark targets, frag grenades, and white phosphorus (Willie Pete) grenades that were used as markers or to start fires. The crews carried personal weapons as well; M16s, CAR 15s, 45 pistols.
With the weight of the armament, it was quite common for the Charlie model to fly “over max gross” in combat situations. Just getting it to hover with a full load was challenging, and taking off in the heat of a Vietnamese day usually meant bouncing a couple of times and bleeding off a good bit of engine RPM before taking flight. Often, fuel was sacrificed for armament, so many times flight time was severely limited.
Gunships usually flew in light fire teams, with a heavy scout and a hog, but also gunships flew as escorts for the light scouts. There were times, as in extreme contact where a lot of close air support was being used, that a heavy fire team of three ships were used.
As Cobras were assigned to the unit, the Charlie model was phased out, but during its’ time of service, it was a formidable weapon and provided awesome and accurate fire as a close air support aircraft, and doubled as a scout ship, which was a mission that a Cobra was not as well suited for.
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3/15/13 Bruce Powell: The History Section may be one of the largest sections of our website. It needs a ton of work and input. It has been empty for too long.
You can help. Look at the current draft of the History section and see if there isn't some part of it that you are interested in. Then get to work gathering useful data and give me some draft text, photos, articles, anything that can be used to fill the holes. It does not have to be a master piece, it is a first draft. Usually most are afraid (yes, afraid) to write the first draft of a subject because everyone else will rip to shreds. But without the first draft nothing ever seems to get done. Be brave and jump into the fray. I need your help!!
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1/16/13 Tom Fleming Bruce,
This is not exactly germane to you question to Chuck or the body of Centaurs ,but is provided to give you some insight into the Tech Rep world.
In 1961 I was assigned to the Visual and Photo Reconnaissance Platoon of the 15th /Aviation Company, 1st Cavalry Division, Korea at the closest airfield to the DMZ. We had 4 L-19s 1 L-20, a Drone Section and 28 officers and men to man the Airfield and execute our mission on the DMZ . The drone section had a radar that was originally designed for a 76mm AA gun and was to be used to control the drones on their photo reconnaissance missions. I can't remember the ANQ number of the radar but it was made by Raytheon and not solid state (tubes). Its reliability and complicated nature was such that we had a full time civilian Raytheon technician who lived and went to the field with us, steel pot, sleeping bag and all. Without him the radar would not work (and sometimes with him it wouldn't). We were flying the drones very close to the DMZ, within 1000 yards ( the Army hadn't converted to metric yet) and the Div G-2 was so concerned about us sending one over the DMZ with a camera working and losing control of it that he cautioned that if we did we would be better off defecting than taking the punishment from the US Army that would follow. Very few of the drone flights returned successfully most ended in a crash, but we recover all of them. So much for my little story that has nothing to do about Vietnam, but does illustrate that Tech Reps have been an integral part of making the Army run for a long time (originally we called them Warrant Officers in the 19th Century).
Tom
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1/15/13 Bruce Powell: Chuck,
(Chuck Martin, former Hughes OH6A aka “LOACH”, “CAYUSE” Tech Rep assigned to the 3/4 Cav at Cu Chi in 1968)
The Technical Representatives in Vietnam played a major role that is not as well understood or documented as it should be. I would like to do something about that on our Centaur Website.
I remember in mid to late 67 a guy or two (civilians) arrived and showed us how to install and operate the XM-21 mini gun system. It was exciting to be involved with this new almost "Buck Rogers" weapons system. Some of the door gunners were not happy with that monster. I remember thinking to myself "How about that! The civilian gun manufacturers packed up some civilian employees and shipped them to the war zone. No boots, no steel pot, no side arms, nothing!" I was so excited about the mini gun that the concept of "Tech Reps" never entered my mind again.
How did the Tech Rep system work? Were you assigned by your company or by the Army to a particular unit for a particular period of time? Did they issue you anything special while you were in the War Zone; even dog tags for accountability? Who did you answer to? How were you evaluated? How did you feel about it? Did they give you combat pay? and so on.
Maybe there are some good reference websites that could be linked to that explain things as it might relate to our unit. I can't take that on right now so I'm copying this message to our Centaur Society group in hopes that one of them will.
If you should ever get the urge (and the time) I'll bet you could write an essay about how you got to the Centaurs and how things worked. You might even do a video story like those on our web. Whatever you might produce, we will get it up on the new site to fill that hole in our legacy. Your photos of then and now would also be appreciated.
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3/31/12 Norm Clark: Just been going through some old Centaur email strings and focused on one paragraph or so that you gave as an example of what could go in an Armaments Section:
"In the back of the aircraft, the crew chief and door gunner operated M60 machineguns, and were extra sets of eyes and ears to detect the enemy and/or incoming fire. They also would mark targets with smoke grenades, which were carried in the cargo bay of the aircraft. Crew chiefs were responsible for the everyday maintenance of the aircraft as well as their offensive responsibilities. Gunners usually assisted the crew chief in maintenance, but most, if not all, door gunners were former infantry soldiers that transferred into the unit from a ground infantry company."
Actually, gunners were responsible for all the weapons systems on board the aircraft. In my case it meant cleaning and lubing both M-60's after each flight involving gun-runs (and you had to know just where to place the lube and how much so that it didn't attract too much dirt), cleaning the M5 grenade launcher (which was always full of dirt and crap, mainly from the rotor wash), and keeping the 48 rocket pods cleaned and maintaining the striker at the rocket cap end of the 2.75's so the things would fire reliably. Gunner's also refueled the aircraft and made sure they had a full complement of M60 and M5 rounds, not to mention hand grenades, WP grenades, smoke, tear gas and a few thermite grenades. Probably some gunners assisted the crew chief in maintenance, but I didn't. Doug Olsen had that chore well in hand and I let him do his job, he let me do mine, but he always helped with re-arming the craft and asking me where all the good C-Rations were.
In reading all the various emails, it seems gunners were (and are) on the bottom of the ladder, then crew-chiefs, then Warrant Officers, and then at the top rung were the Officers. That's O.K., because it was the military. It's just that the way gunners are often portrayed, they were just grunts in the air, and couldn't do much else; au contraire. I don't mean to rant, it's just that I was a gunner for 10 months and I'm sensitive to being thought of as less than because I came from the Wolfhounds.
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3/27/12 Tom Fleming: Charlie,
One of the reasons that most of you weren’t aware of the box of flrchettes in the troop ammo dump was that there was a report that had to be filled out for each one fired. After some testing with them in early 1967 they6 became virtually forgotten. In Dec 1967 about the time they were moved across the runway they were rediscovered and a couple of them tested, by whom I cant recall but they were deeme3d too inaccurate for the kind of gunning we were doing. I remember a conversation about how we could load one or two in a rocket pod and not fire them if the mission was inappropriate. One of the other consideration was that loading them would reduce the firepower available. There considerations were also applicable to carrying white phosperious warheads.. I mistakenly presumed that someone would remember that they were available during the target rich TET and post TET period.
I witnessed the devastating effect of flechettes fired from artillery during the LZ Gold battle in early 1967. At that time they were classified.
Tom
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3/27/12 Charlie Johnson: I am on the same memory lane as Pat on this one: A dead end.
I flew HOGS from about August 1967 to about May 1968 and don’t recall any flechette rockets being used or tested by the Aero Weapons Section. Ditto for the Heavy Scouts as far as my recollection goes.
I do recall seeing a flechette round being fired by one of the Cav tanks at the 1968 Ton Son Nhut war games. We were trying to line up a gun run on 3 or 4 NVA running for the woodline, running away from the Cav, when they were suddenly overtaken by a small, dark swarm almost like a swarm of bees around a bee hive and in the blink of an eye converted to a pink mist or cloud. This was one of those moments that was just plain scary, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up scary, because of the damage that one round did, even though it wasn’t aimed at us.
I recall wishing at the time we had something like that but also thinking that the Heavy Scout’s mini-guns did much the same thing to troops in the open or under light cover. Actually, the mini-guns chewed up people and scenery without regard to what kind of cover they had, going deeper into tree lines than a flechette round might be able to for example.
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3/27/12 Tom Fleming: My comment on use of Flechettes is based on recalled memory of comments from other Centaurs on post TET 1968 actions. I cannot verify the accuracy of these recollections. It was common knowledge that we had a few flechette rounds in the ammo dump and that given an opportunity to engage a massed enemy formation that the would be devastating, but the decisions post TET to use or not use were not mine.
Tom
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3/27/12 Pat Eastes: I flew guns my whole tour, but I'm damned if I remember ever shooting nails. Tom says we would have used them during Tet 68, but again, I sure don't remember using them. Am I alone with this CRS syndrome, or do other gun drivers not remember using flechettes?
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3/26/2012 Bob Graham:
The 1600 meter Range
A football field two or three. If that that is is size of area you were suppressing that's the correct range. Our targets were much more selective. For each side of and LZ or a tree line, small canyon, top of a ridge line. So your are right on. We often did not have that much area or room between the slicks and the suppressed area. Our initial. pass was the actual LZ just before the slicks touched down to stick all the little guys before touch down. The following team or second pass of a single team covered the most like prepared positions and the initial objective. Then another team would arrive for this to develop. We put a lot into the initial suppressive fires to insure a successful organization and first movements of the landed force. I did have a slick driver come stomping into my battery with a little arrow between his fingers. All excited about getting it out of his rotor blade. I asked him if it was a hot LZ. He said Yes. I asked how much fire he received, He said, none. There was silence==== then he understood. We had a cold beer.
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Bruce Powell
Since we don't yet have an Ordinance Division of the Centaur Society Organization, I had to defer to the "PIT" (Powell Institute of Technology). If we did have someone in that division they might have searched the military manuals and found FM 1-40 "Attack Helicopter Gunnery" dated June 1969. Then in Appendix A found the Army's official designation for the Flechette rocket "WDU-44/A - 10 lb"; and a lot of other info. With that information they could have sought out additional info from the internet. Here is an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfuK2MFmxnM
It's not Centaur but it is a great presentation and explanation of the Flechette rocket in Vietnam. It answers many of our questions. These are the kind of entertaining and educational videos that we can link to from within the "Ordinance" page of our website.
This video is great stuff, but these impromptu projects pull me off of the web site master programing mission, the Timeline technical procedures development, the designing and programming missions for the Reunion, PhotoAudioVideo, Help, War Stories, and Link pages, that I should be concentrating on. The coding for the History page is progressing well mostly because of good input from a few Centaurs.
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3/26/2012 Bob Graham
Flechettes are not dead yet------
And it make another point for someone to sum it up a put it into a nice package.
The number of Flechettes my number (2,200=-) was probably short. Another said 4,550. that's quite a lot!!!. What is it realy?
The Puff of smoke at burn out- That was always there but one had to be tracking the rocket to see it. the puff of colored smoke I believe were one of the improvements from our early evaluations. It was still there in 69.
The range someone said 1600 meters. I believe that much to long remember there are only 1728 meters in a mile.More like 600 meters to a good impact pattern. But I have no facts.
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3/26/12 Bob Graham to Dale Dow
You asked when did the flechette 2.75 WH come out.
This was first introduced to the Centaurs mid tour probably after June but before September. 1966.
They arrived for evaluation and Maj Pete set up a series of of informal tactical/none combat trials to see how and if the worked well enough to consider them as reliable ordnance in combat.
Tony Robin, Frank Delvey myself and others flew various geometries attempting to get a reliable kill pattern. The 2,200 + -(?) flechettes deployed at rocket motor burn out triggered by a mechanism that sensed termination of thrust. Then addition range was necessary for the 22 grain missiles to depoly into a kill pattern. The individual flechetts were dense packed head to tail which aided in their dispersion. This formed a cloud of little missiles that IF fired at the correct range was extremity deadly for gooks in the open or light foliage. The pattern on the ground was greatly effected by the angel of fall. I.e. straights down would be circular and a low angle a long ellipse.
As you have provably guessed, the critical ingredient was ranging estimation. Having only your individual judgement, the results was at best unpredictable. Compounding this was the lack of any impact sensing. Only in open paddies could one tell where the little things were impacting.
All in all it was determined that the round worked as designed. We were unable to effectively employ the ordnance due to the shortcoming in our delivery system. Remember we were still using a grease a pensile mark on the wind screen.
Later when I commanded A Battery 4/77 Aerial Artillery of the 101st Divarty in 1968-69 we developed some delivery geometry that was extremely effective and used the round extensively on a PREPLANNED basis. We rarely received ground fire after a four cobra HOG prep of flechettes.
Col Pete has a few terse words as to his determination of this round sutability for reliable use in combat situations after our initial evaluation. We kept a few available to use on a planned basis. Generally they were deemed not fit to shit while he was commanding.
3/20/12 Bruce Powell: ….Aircraft/Weapons/Ordnance:
All these items changed with time and tours. So if one guy is talking about them, it will probably be with the aircraft of his era/tour. But our website is telling the story of all Centaur tours. Where we started and where we ended.
A team of people is needed here. Someone interested enough to take charge and keep things organized, and several other team members representing the other tour years. Their job is to put this story together. Basically an essay on the evolving aircraft/weapons/ordinance of our period of time in Nam.
It might be placed in the History section of the website providing text pictures and graphics to make things more clear. Tons of information is available online to supplement our memories. Just need someone to take it on and keep a clear focus………