Sidearms

[BlkPny]

In Viet Nam, we were issued .38's, and the paraloft made bandoleers for us if we wanted them. In addition, most of us carried snub-nosed .38's loaded with star shells, to use like rescue flares if we were in the jungle. We could, however, carry any personal weapon we wanted, and several of us used that as an excuse to indulge in gun-nut fantasies. If we had our own weapons, we always turned them over to the SEAL's armorers to make sure they were good to go.
Funny, but whenever one of our planes was shot down, we would call for SEALs. The very first thing they would do when they got to us would be to take away all of our weapons. There's a message there somewhere........

 

[Slammer2]

I heard a friend talking once about how you are not allowed to send weapons over to someone. For example, if I have a friend who is issued a sidearm and I want to send him a "better" gun, its not allowed. Is there any truth to that? He said that it violated some kind of laws or something, and seeing as I know crap about guns, I figured I'd ask.

 

[Brett327]

I heard a friend talking once about how you are not allowed to send weapons over to someone. For example, if I have a friend who is issued a sidearm and I want to send him a "better" gun, its not allowed. Is there any truth to that? He said that it violated some kind of laws or something, and seeing as I know crap about guns, I figured I'd ask.

And this is a surprise to you? You can't just go around importing and exporting firearms to foreign countries.

Brett

 

[Catmando]

Hey Catmando. Do you by any chance have a pic of either you or one of the other bubbas with all those weapons on you?

No. Wish I did. The very few pictures I do have were before they were sewn on.

And those other bubbas were earlier Spad drivers that I only heard about. All our F-4 guys only carried one small handgun of their choice inside their survival vest.

My first cruise, everybody carried just the standard number of rounds inside their survival vest – which was only about 12 rounds I think. Then into the second cruise, we started losing guys, so everybody started carrying many more rounds. Our Riggers would sew a strip or two of webbing on the outside of the survival vest for a few more rounds. Then one guy asked the riggers to sew some bandoliers on the inside thighs and legs of his G-suit. After seeing that, everybody wanted the same thing done to his!

As BlkPny suggests, our weapons were really more for rescue, than for self-defense. That is why we carried a lot of flare and tracer rounds. Most of the time, guys were going down in the open rice paddies, and almost immediately surrounded by a group of angry farmers and militia with AK-47's. What are you going to do? My 38 snub-nose revolver was loaded with 2 balls, flare, tracer, flare.

 

[A4sForever]

A good friend of mine was an SF advisor in the early days before massive US troop involvement in the Vietnam War ... he regularly went out looking for bear in the Highlands and "across the border" in the Triangle --- carried a Colt .45, sometimes an M2 carbine, and always an M79 launcher as his "primary" weapon.