Howie Belkin wrote:

Gary, welcome home!  I didn't experience the brass flying around inside my Hueys and the last thing we'd want to do was 'spook' a green pilot with a hot one down his collar!  It was bad enough when we nicknamed pilots 'Vertigo Joe' and the like... One of my favorite phrases is 'never say never' especially re Hueys.  There were specific official armament systems that we started out with, then were replaced with something better, then were 'enhanced' locally in the field. There's numerous books out there documenting the known ones.  I knew about auto grenade launcher turret under the Huey's nose, but never knew about a door gunner/CE's mount.  Man, there were times my good ol' M60 just didn't seem to pump em out fast enough (though in reality it was) - and I sure would have liked that auto grenade launcher to play with! clear right Howie   PS - since the model world believes helicopter modelers must also build armor (hence the popular 1/35 scale helos instead of 1/32), I'm going to assume some of you guys DO also build armor, as I do.  Well, FYI, IPMS USA's Head National Armor Judge, Art Gerber, passed away the other night.  I've known him from well back in the last century, and just saw him at the recent IPMS USA Nat's in 'OC.'  IPMS has already agreed to name our Best Armor award after him for now on.  He was a great guy and an awesome small scale modeler - he'd do stuff that would fit in the palm of your hand and simply blow you away!  Sorry to take up space here but like I said, there's the 1/35 helo/armor connection and some of you may have had the pleasure meeting him.

The Heuy that had the grenade launcher must have came around after 1969. We were just starting to see buble top cobras in mid to late Spetember 1968, and we were stunned about the grenade launcher. I did see a couple Hueys that had mini-guns instead of M60's. I just don't remember brass flying around all over the place, but it probably did. When the door get started shooting you were not looking for brass or even the door gun. You were looking at the ground wanting to get out of that helecopter. But then again bailing out of one over elephant grass was a true adventure! Sometimes it was three or four feet high and sometimes it was over six feet. Add that to a five foot deep bomb crater and a hundred twenty pounds on your back. You hollor for help and the cant find you <g> ! I'd die on the first jump if I had to do that now!

     The best one I ever saw was a buddy named Randy from San Antonio hit a bomb crater and landed ontop a skeleton. He screamed bloody murder for ten solid minutes. Wonder if he still remembers that. Wasn't at all funny then, but hilarious now.

gary

Mobe,

  Any of these help you out?

      Ray
 

UH-1H

UH-1B

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rotorwash wrote:

Gary,   Thanks for your service, sir!  When were you in country and what time period?  Whether pintle or bungee or free 60's were used depended on the timeframe, unit, and command SOP for that unit.  Believe me, all types of rigs were used to mount the doorguns and my father definitely fired a door mounted MK 18 MOD 0 grenade launcher from the door of one.  It was mounted on the brackets for the Sagami mount (the mounting system you would have probably used).  Anyway, Welcome to the forum!  Please post any Huey pics you have that might be of interest to us here.      Ray

I hit Cam Rhon Bay on the seventh of December 1967, and came back on the 26th of Febuary 1969. But all the time I was in country was spent in I-Corps with the 23rd infantry, or as they called it in 1967 "The Miracle Division." The first LZ I was on was Gator just south of Chu Lai, but often found myself up on Five Four; ten miles north of there. I did ops as far south as Duc Pho and north to Phu Bai. Been in three different countrys while over there, but never did Cambodia ( I did get within a klick on it's northern border).

     I was on Gator for the first week of Tet, and watched them trash the south end of the airbase from about three miles away. After that Gator was just a jumping off point for all points considered. In all that roaming around, I never saw Saigon, or the DMZ (well once from the air). The last nine months I was at A-102 (Thien Phouc), and it actually became the only home I knew. As for helecopters; I've been in five that went down in one way or another, and learned to loath a ride in them. But on the otherhand I've been ontop three tracks that were CBL'd, so I guess I used eight of my nine lives.

gary

Gary

I'll add my 'welcome home' to that.  I was DG with C Co/227 AHB 1st Air Cav 1969-Jan 70, had an easy tour, never shot down; was AWOL in Saigon (R&R was too short)...  There's about everything you'd ever want to know about modeling Hueys here!

clear right

Howie

rotorwash wrote:

Gary,   Glad you made it back in one piece!  Man, that's a LOT of incidents!  My father was in the 190th AHC at Bien Hoa from October '68 - October '69.  he just missed TET (Thank God).  In his entire tour he was never shot down.  His copilot was shot once and his helo had five small arms holes in the rotor once, but thankfully he never crashed.  It sounds like you and my dada had very different experiences.  That's what is so interesting about talking to Vietnam veterans.  Everyone's ideas about what was "normal" are different.  Thanks for sharing your story.  Do you happen to have any Huey pics you would like to post?      Ray

Take this not as a correction, but your Father did fall right into the 1969 Tet Offensive (there also was one in 1967). To what extent it was down South I don't know, but there was one to deal with up north. For us the one in 1969 was much stronger than 1968. I caught the very begining of it, and went home while things were red hot. A102 had what is now known to be three full strength NVA divisons camped out on their north and west side trying to cut the country in half. They didn't get past Thien Phouc needless to say, but it was pretty ugly all the way into the end of April. (there's supposed tobe a pretty good write up about it on the internet)

    The only photo I ever had of a Huey dissappeared with an old girlfriend, and then it was of the interior bullet holes (about six inches above my head). I wouldn't even have known that if it were not for the door gunner grabbing me to take a look. If I'd been in a seat I wouldn't be here right now. Just wasn't my time.

gary

Regarding the rear of the instrument panels, anyone have any shots? Are the cables all harnessed up/wrapped like in a car and branching off to individual instruments (well a car from that era - I have a 68 Cougar)

Thanks 

rotorwash wrote:

Gary,   1968 TET was the BIG ONE at Bein Hoa.  Check Jon Berstein's (Cobrahistorian) excellent "US Army AH-1 Cobra Units in Vietnam" for an idea of what it was like down there during TET '68.  I'm glad dad missed that one!  By the way, don't worry about correcting me, my friend.  I wasn't there, you were.  If you say TET was worse for you guys in '69, I trust ya!       Ray

Trust me there was no lack of excitment in I-Corps as well. Chu Lai was probably the prime target in I-Corps because that's where all the Navy and Marine fighter bombers did the turn around on their raids in North Vietnam. Rarely did we ever get an air strike out of Chu Lai, but always seemed to come from Da Nang. They seemed to hit about every place that could be hit with something. It was rough, and I'd have to say for the first two weeks it was pretty much give and take. Still looking back I think that many of us had somekind of an advanced warning that things were about get get ugly (very). We'd all been following the events at Khe San and of course Lang Vie just up the road. We listened to them on the fire push when reception was good. Then they came accross the DMZ and over ran a couple places, and we got ready.

     In 1969 it was different. It was kinda quiet with the usual probes and a few rockets here and there. Then all of a sudden the strip of ground we sat in the middle was the center of attraction for every Tom, Dick & Harry. Giap was smart, as he new there wasn't much if any infantry west of us, and just a re-enforced battalion east of us. For us 1969 was far worse. We had no way to get help by land, and the only way out of there was cut off within minutes. I've heard that there is a book in the works on this one.

     I'd suggest that all you guys that are into armor look for a copy of Dwight Birdwell's "Hundred Miles Of Bad Road." One chapter in there is about Bin Hoa during Tet in 68. It'll make the hair stand up on your head. Tobe exact this book is a must read.

gary

Howie Belkin wrote:

Ray you read your history right.  Tet '68 was THE Tet everyone 'knows' about.  While I have to respect the enemy soldiers as fierce, determined bastards, I have no respect for folk like Giap, and General Hguyen Chi Thanh who drew up the plans for Tet '68.  How great a general are you if you don't care how many of your people you sacrifice?  That was true back in Dien Bien Phu vs the overwhelmingly out-numbered French, and Tet '68 especially around Khe Sanh.  Some top Vietnamese communists wrote after the war confirming that they thoroughly 'lost' Tet '68 to the point that the Viet Cong were no longer a viable force.  Colonel and diplomat Bui Tin wrote "While the enemy's losses were insignificant, ours were enormous... we did not recover until 1972."  Except of course politically, thanks to Walter Cronkite and company who like their media brethern today, grabbed defeat out of the jaws of victory. Every year had a Tet but none were as significant as 1968 - unless 'you were there,' having to live through it!  clear right Howie

an excellent post on what really happened (sorry Dan Rather). In the 1968 Tet Offensive we kicked his butt all the way back into the stoneage, and he still remembers it very well. One estimate has 325,000 KIA on the little guys side of the street. By the end of the month of May the local VC were a rare find, and only existed in small pockets. Yes there were still a few here and there, but most of the leftovers had gone into the Laotian frontier. But what they never really expected was that some folks followed them back into Laos. (SOG teams)

     We still get to hear about how successful they were in taking control of the U.S. Embassy (no they never had control). But they did manage to take control of Cho Lon and actually hold it for a couple of weeks till the 101st and a Panther Battalion evicted them in some of the most brutal house to house fighting the world has ever known to this day. Then there was the Race Track in Siagon (Sin Loi Victor Charles, but it's still Siagon in this old man's book). One batallion from the 101st took that place in one of the bloodiest actions ever seen in modern warfare (you won't see a photo op there as nobody likes to run with the 101st). When it was over there was about a company and a half standing, but the other guys knew they were not ever going to be welcome there again.

     When Giap stepped on Superman's cape he had no idea what kinda dancing partner he had taken up with. Giap learned new names such as "snakeyes" , cobras, and best of all "class A loads." Met the folks from the 1st Air Cav, and 101st Airborne. By the month of June he was sending teenage kids to do his dirty work, and we were burying them just as fast

Lastly: I think everybody here needs to find a copy of "The Valley Of Decision". It's about Khe Sanh and the surrounding AO. It's not like the history chnnel ever dreamed it could have been. The book is very accurate. And after reading it you'll soon figure out who's got the facts and who did a TV show on it.

gary

Well, looks like I'm moving on to restoring a real one. UH-1C #66-00623. Tail numbers and stencils are there as is the Bell Helicopter rebuild data plate but vandals removed the other plates in the nose and Peter Pilot door frame. Anyone know where else I might find a number? This one served with 170th AHC Buccaneers, 135th AHC Taipans and C Troop 16th ACV Bushmasters. Took 6 rounds in 1969 with 170th with 1 WIA after taking hits in the cockpit. Still working on my 1/48th Hog and my 3d GMAX Flight Simulator models for a slew of 174th Sharks gunships.

I'll post a picture tonight of this one. It was modified for weapons test and bears four rockets stenciled to the door. The entire Peter Pilot station was removed, unique panel.