I wrote this post today, from memory, without once looking back at “Marines in the Garden of Eden,” or other sources. There are a few minor details that I will double-check and clean up as needed.

But I wonder what would happen if someone ran my post through a “plagiarism machine.” How many phrases or sentences would pop as being virtually identical to phrases in my sources? I don’t know, but it would be an interesting exercise.

Oh yes, I DO hope to hear from John the Marine on this post, since he is not only a jarhead, but a track rat.

Hey, this story breaks my heart. It is a realization of all the fears I had when in Kuwait back in 91.

The AAVP7A1 was the amtrac I drove. I’m sure after 12 years it has been upgraded, perhaps to A2 or A3. The up-gun weapons station has a M2 Browning .50 cal machine with an electric trigger and a Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher. The M2 can realistically fire about 200 rounds/minute. Two factors limit it. 1) The obvious is amunition. You don’t want to piss through your rounds. 2) If you over do it the barrel will heat up red hot and then will have to either be allowed to cool (which you might not have time for) or be switched out with another. Under fire this is no easy task. The gunner has to get out of the turrent for several minutes and once back inside he’ll have to reset the head space and timing. The Mark 19 is an indirect fire weapon. It lobs its rounds and therefore is a “cool” fire system. As long as you feed it, it will fire nicely. It is extremely effective against enemy infantry and emplacements with a 5 meter kill radius and 15 meter wound or kill radius. One down side of the up-gun weapon station is that it is manual traverse (hand crank to turn the turrent). Doctrine (when I was in) was that tracs and infantry support and protect the tanks from shoulder fire ambush by enemy grunts. The tanks support the infantry and tracs by providing long range fire with their 105 mm gun against enemy tanks, artillery and emplacements. Also, tanks are impervious to RPG, small arms and even 12.7 mm (Soviet bloc .50 cal) weapons making them down right deadly to enemy vehicles and infantry. This combined with close air support (first used by the USMC) is a viscious combination.

Reading above it seems once communication became a problem control of the battle field was lost. The three companies became blind and the Air Force A 10’s then became misinformed about Marine movement and opened up on their own guys with out realising it. An A 10 is a trac rat and tanker’s nightmare. No, amored vehicle can withstand its .30 cal uranium depleted rounds and high rate of fire. When it hit C208 there was probably very little left of that trac in a matter of less than a second. Anyone inside who lived through the attack was truely lucky in the extreme, the odds are like winning the lottery.

The positive side of this story is; all considered the causalties could have been much higher. Marine training and determination saved the day and yes, won the battle.

When I was in Desert Storm it was a one sided slaughter. I think Americans expected a repeat of that performance which was and is unrealistic. Also, I think Rummy underestimated the task at hand and the amount of resources needed. This is the face of war in all its horror and confusion. Reading the above post literally made me tear up. I saw a documentry about the above events a few months ago that drove into such a rage that my wife made me turn off the TV after which she soothed me back to Coopersburg PA. I have not been to Iraq. My fighting days are over but I do feel an emotional attachment that only a Marine can feel for his brothers in arms. the only way I can describe it is that it is a 1,000,000 times stronger then any bond in the world save maybe for your children or mother.

excellent post Commie. I can’t say I enjoyed but it makes me even more proud of my fellow Marines and our Corps.

One of the Marines in Charlie Company knew all about A-10s. He had been strafed by them during Desert Storm, too.

On the M2, how much could you fire, if you wanted to keep it up indefinitely? I mean, without overheating it. A 3-second burst every 30 seconds? More than that?

This may be silly, but could you pour water on the barrel? Maybe if you had 100 gallons handy, eh? Or would such a sudden cooling effect warp the metal of the barrel?

Also, keep in mind a .50 cal round does a lot of damage. I have a Toyota Corolla. If you opened up on my car with an M2 it would be torn into peices. If a person was hit in the mid section with a .50 cal round they would be split in two. It doesn’t take a whole lot of .50 cal fire to make your point. You can shoot through; walls, up to 1 in. of homogeneous steel or crack a truck’s engine block to give some examples of its destructive power.

Finally, the ammo container in AVVP7A1 holds about 450 rounds in connected belts. To maintain a high rate of fire you would need someone in the troop compartment below the weapons station adding belts together for you. 100 round belts sound like a lot of ammo but believe me you could grease through them real quick if you’re not paying attention. The USMC is big on fire disipline for good reason.

This is where the M-85 .50 cal machine gun comes in. The M-85 was designed for tanks and amored vehicles, unlike the M2 which is a dual use weapon (quick note - the M2 has been around since pre-WWII, old man Browning would be proud). It has a much higher rate of fire than the M2 and its barrels have pre-set head space/timing and weigh about half as much. The gunner equiped with an asbestos glove can switch barrels in about 15 - 30 seconds without getting out of the trac. When I was in Saudi my trac had an electric weapons station (the name of the M-85 equiped weapons system for AAVP7A1) as opposed to an up-gun. You didn’t have the Mark 19 but let me tell you that M-85 was a ruthless *****. She would tear up an enemy position in a heartbeat.

Personally I loved live fire exercises. You would go out to the .50 cal range on Camp Pendleton and shoot at derelict vehicles (LTVP5’s or 5 ton trucks). Ah, the good times… I do miss the hardware!

To his credit, “MOUTH” reported himself as soon as he realized that there may have been a problem.

Great job from memory. You are correct that you made a few minor errors like Bravo Company went over the bridge first. All-in-all you did a great job from memory.

As for the plagiarism issue: If you happened to duplicate anything in the book, I don’t mind. I am just thrilled that you took the time to mention my book and tell this story to others.

Regards,
Richard S. Lowry
Author
“Marines in the Garden of Eden.”