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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| The recoilless rifle makes an appearance in Syria |
| 2013-08-05 |
| Downright romantic, they are From TFA: Watch enough YouTube videos of the fighting in Syria, and you'll start to notice it: a long-tubed gun, mounted on the back of either a jeep or large, fast pickup. Usually it's blasting bunkers, blockhouses, fortified positions, or places where snipers are hiding. It even goes after tanks. And whenever it fires, the gun seems to kick up way more hell behind it than what it sends out the barrel's front end. It's the M40 106mm recoilless rifle, an American-made, Vietnam-vintage weapon that got dropped from the Army and Marine inventory back during the early 1970s. Until recently, the 106mm hadn't seen much action in the irregular wars that have swept the globe. Then M40s somehow came into the hands of rebels in Libya and Syria. Suddenly, the 106mm -- light, cheap, easily transportable, simple to operate, and packing a punch all out of proportion to its modest size -- has emerged as a possible Great Asymmetric Weapon of the Day. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #10 Yuuup. AFAIK despite it being dated the weapon sys includ local modifications remains highly popular wid many insurgent or militant groups around the world. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-08-05 22:32 |
| #9 B. All the way. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2013-08-05 15:53 |
| #8 1970, Infantry AIT Fort Lewis. Missed SEA as well. Picked up a few gardens spots after that, nothing heraldic. A few more as a contractor. The 3/82 was just up the road at FOB Speicher near lovely Takrit Iraq. I was there when Saddam flew in on a UH-60 in the middle of the night. NCO I knew from the Bde was ordered to grab his people and set up a perimeter at the LZ over behind Division HQ. REMF's AT Division were all CHU bound, snoring away, not to be disturbed. He didn't know what it all about until the funeral entourage arrived. Saddam was planted the next morning in his beloved ancestral home. Thank you for your service Airborne |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-08-05 15:30 |
| #7 Besoeker: When heading out to the range, the RR jeeps would slow to a crawl going around a corner. The thing was only mobile in the sense that you didn't have to carry it on your back. Once you were going to fight with it, there you were. About the only thing you could usefully do with it was reverse into defilade and then carefully turn to go to an alternative position. I happened to be at Bragg the summer of '70 on Hearts and Minds biz prior to deploying. There was the Jordan Alert where, I discovered, the 82d's alert bde didn't have platoon leaders. So enterprising company commanders sent their XOs to the club to find buddies who were jump-qualified. Pretty much everybody with a combat MOS was going to go, one way or another. So you jump or you arrive and deplane like gentlmen, to be parceled out as replacements. We heard the Syrians had sent 500 tanks, plus, we supposed, the TO mech infantry and SP arty. I think we would have had 16 106 RR on the Mighty Mite in the 82d, but I don't think we would have had 500 rounds. Unlike the clowns at Entebbe, the terrs this time had dispersed the hostages and so we didn't go. Had to finish a paper for a class instead. Bummer. Turned out I didn't deploy to SEA. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2013-08-05 13:20 |
| #6 90mm's used to prone to broken firing pins. Removing live rounds after the 2nd or 3rd misfire.... great fun. :-( I had forgotten about the roll-overs Rich. I never have been able to understand the popularity of civilian Jeeps. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-08-05 09:17 |
| #5 There were various ranges where old tanks were targets. Even an M48 would have a neat hole punched in its frontal armor by one of these. The range instructors made sure we all saw them. Firing one is like being punched in the nose all over your body. There were three types of ammo: shaped charge, plastic ("squash head"), and flechette. I don't recall how many darts were in the latter round, but since they were like 3/4" brads with crude fins stamped out, it would be a lot of them. And you could, unlike with the 90mm, set the detonation range. Problem with the spotting rifle is that you can see tracers both ways. Big WP head on the spotter. See the puff on the target, trigger the main round, hit the road. 'nother problem was that the thing weighed a lot compared to the jeep, so, with the center of gravity up about the driver's shoulder, you could roll it pretty easily. The airborne equivalent was to mount it on a large motorized coffee table powered by a lawnmower engine. Called a "Mighty Mite". |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2013-08-05 09:01 |
| #4 Whahaha, yes, that was a common joke among Davy Crocket crews... as the kill zone could easily encompass the launch site. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-08-05 08:58 |
| #3 Don't forget to dig in before firing. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2013-08-05 05:51 |
| #2 That long tube slender tube atop the main barrel in the video is a single shot, .50 cal tracer 'spotting rifle'. The spotting rifle [as the title implies], is a sort of 1950-60's ballistic laser which enabled the 106 gunner to mark the target prior to [quickly] firing the main gun. If you were good at estimating range and trajectory, looking through the 106 barrel and 'bore-sighting' to target would work as well. The weapon was designed primarily for use in a US Army Infantry company anti-tank platoon. It was mounted on the back of a 1/4 ton jeep where it could be fired and moved quickly by a crew of 3 as I recall. It is very accurate but has a back-blast which kicks up a lot of dust and can start fires in dried brush and grass. Standing behind a 106 while it is fired can ruin your afternoon. The video was obviously an 'out in the open' training session. Appears at least some of the operators were quite impressed [meaning they had probably not had a lot of experience with it, most not being born until decades after its hayday]. The dismounted, ground mode is a challenge, it's very heavy and awkward to handle. The closer to the ground, the more back-blast dust and fire it kicks up, which can be easily seen by the enemy, hence the need to fire and unass the area. Other disadvantages are the logistics of re-supply. The rounds are large and come in wooden crates. I can't remember the basic load per anti-tank platoon, but it wasn't very many. The weapon and ammo in the video were likely dropped in via helo. The always ingenious USMC had a multi-barreled 106 system mounted on an M-48 tank chassis. Very impressive weapon it was. Believe it was called an Ontos, yes Ontos [Greek for THING]- thank you google. Smart money for Syrian rebels would be to mount the 106 in the back of a Toyota with a full tank of gas and keep it there. Employment of the 106 in Syria appears to be a new development. Real news would see the employment of the Davy Crocket. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-08-05 04:09 |
| #1 plentifulm cheap and easy to use - meaning not much training , and if you drop it and run, its easy to go get another one. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2013-08-05 01:30 |