Military Pics & Videos

[Schmidt Meister]

Obstacle course shenanigans. He did real well and had a bit of good luck also.

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[NPTim]

1 minute ago, Swampfox762 said:

Shouldn’t they strike the colors before submerging?

[Schmidt Meister]

Vietnam Memorial - Tiger Flight 739 - 3.16.1962

PORTLAND, Maine — Nearly 60 years ago, dozens of soldiers assembled for a top secret mission to Vietnam, three years before President Lyndon Johnson officially sent U.S. combat troops to the country.
They never made it. Their airplane disappeared between Guam and the Philippines, leaving behind no trace.
On Saturday, families of more than 20 of the fallen soldiers were on hand for the unveiling of a memorial in Columbia Falls, Maine, to honor those who perished when the plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Columbia Falls is about 190 miles (305 kilometers) northeast of Portland, Maine.
The mission, early in the Vietnam war, is shrouded in mystery.
Soldiers from across the country assembled at Travis Air Force Base in California before boarding a propeller-powered Lockheed Super Constellation operated by the Flying Tiger Line, which chartered flights for the U.S. military.
The 93 U.S. soldiers, three South Vietnamese and 11 crew members aboard Flight 739 never made it to Saigon. It departed from California and made refueling stops in Hawaii, Wake Island and Guam before vanishing on the next leg of the flight to the Philippines on March 16, 1962.
There was a report of a midair explosion witnessed by sailors on a tanker in the area, but no debris from the aircraft was recovered.
Because their deaths were not in the combat zone, their names were not allowed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
The unveiling Saturday featured a reading of the names, a rifle salute, the playing of taps and the laying of a wreath.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/vietnam-vets-killed-during-secret-pacific-mission-get-maine-memorial-nearly-60-years-later

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Eric]

[pipedreams]

13 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

Vietnam Memorial - Tiger Flight 739 - 3.16.1962

PORTLAND, Maine — Nearly 60 years ago, dozens of soldiers assembled for a top secret mission to Vietnam, three years before President Lyndon Johnson officially sent U.S. combat troops to the country.
They never made it. Their airplane disappeared between Guam and the Philippines, leaving behind no trace.
On Saturday, families of more than 20 of the fallen soldiers were on hand for the unveiling of a memorial in Columbia Falls, Maine, to honor those who perished when the plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Columbia Falls is about 190 miles (305 kilometers) northeast of Portland, Maine.
The mission, early in the Vietnam war, is shrouded in mystery.
Soldiers from across the country assembled at Travis Air Force Base in California before boarding a propeller-powered Lockheed Super Constellation operated by the Flying Tiger Line, which chartered flights for the U.S. military.
The 93 U.S. soldiers, three South Vietnamese and 11 crew members aboard Flight 739 never made it to Saigon. It departed from California and made refueling stops in Hawaii, Wake Island and Guam before vanishing on the next leg of the flight to the Philippines on March 16, 1962.
There was a report of a midair explosion witnessed by sailors on a tanker in the area, but no debris from the aircraft was recovered.
Because their deaths were not in the combat zone, their names were not allowed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
The unveiling Saturday featured a reading of the names, a rifle salute, the playing of taps and the laying of a wreath.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/vietnam-vets-killed-during-secret-pacific-mission-get-maine-memorial-nearly-60-years-later

Thanks for that.   Long before Johnson officially sent U.S. combat troops to the country we were heavily involved in Vietnam.  There are many others that will never be recognized for their service or for what they went through since they were on TDY and that will never shows on their official record.  Many covert missions were executed during the Vietnam era where the participants have redacted service records or no records were allowed to be documented.  During 1963-64 I was involved in related activities but never set foot in Vietnam myself but worked with a number of those that were in and out of country a number of times.  Lots of Americans suffered the same fate as these folks but it will never be known.

[Swampfox762]

[Swampfox762]

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

I was led to believe this was historical footage of the last T-Rex serving his country in WWl.

But there is a Jeep and the T-Rex is holding a Browning M2. Which wasn’t used until 1933 …
So I think this footage is actually of WWII.

You can't trust anything on the internet ... do your own research, people.

[Swampfox762]

[Schmidt Meister]

1978 Laird Centaur - Half Land Rover, Half Alvis Scorpion CVRT - UK

[Swampfox762]

[pipedreams]

[pipedreams]

[pipedreams]

[Schmidt Meister]

On 3/27/2022 at 3:20 PM, Swampfox762 said:

I was interested in this and hunted down a little info.

Mk 18 Mod 0 Grenade Launcher

The MK 18 Mod 0 was a 40mm grenade launcher used by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. It was the last known hand-cranked firearm since the Gatling gun.

The Mk 18 Mod 0 is a belt-fed, manually-operated grenade launcher designed for use on a low tripod, to attack targets with high-explosive fragmenting grenades. It fires with a variable cyclic rate of up to 250 rounds per minute at ranges of 328 to 2,200 yards. Ammunition belts are fed into the weapon from 24- or 48-round ammunition boxes. The belts themselves were hand-loaded into the weapon and could be re-used up to five times.
It uses a rotary split breech, which allows for straight through feeding of ammunition, eliminating the need for a reciprocating bolt, extraction of ammunition from a belt, extraction from a chamber, and ejection for the weapon. While the split breech concept was nothing new, the Mk 18 Mod 0 has some unique characteristics based on a mechanism that allows the top rotor to move vertically and synchronize the bottom rotor. The split breech mechanism allowed the weapon to be light and simple, especially with the 40mm grenade's high-low system in mind.
A three-position knob is located at the rear of the weapon for "safe", "fire", and "load" controls. Two rounds are fired during each full crank revolution with loading occurring at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions of the crank, and firing at 6 and 12.
The Mk 18 Mod 0 could be mounted on M2HB, M60, and M1919 Browning tripods or a pintle mount. However, the weapon cannot fire without such a mount.
Test results had shown that the Mk 18 Mod 0 would fire 5,000 rounds without failure from mechanical wear. But during the evaluation, the weapon's performance during the first 3,000 rounds proved unsatisfactory from high stoppage. This stoppage issue is due to faulty ammunition belting, inadequate firing pin positioning, and the cycling action of the weapon being rough at higher rates of fire. It was also recommended that the firing mechanism be modified to prevent unintentional firings during movement of the firing pin from the safe to the firing position.
History
Initial development on the Mk 18 Mod 0 began in late 1962, and Honeywell filed the first patent application for it in 1964. Production began in 1965, and ended in the early 1970s. During that time period, approximately 1,200 units were manufactured. Despite having been declared obsolete with the introduction of the Mk 19 grenade launcher, the Navy ordered more than 500 Mk 18 Mod 0s, developed by Honeywell under contracts of more than $750,000.
The Mk 18 Mod 0 was primarily used on small boats and in fixed positions such as bunkers, used by the so-called "river rats" and the U.S. Navy SEALs.