"Gunny Highway"

[Bluehawk]

Other than Gunny Highway (Clint Eastwood in "Heartbreak Ridge" film) did any Marine or otherwise ever actually say to anyone words to the effect of:

 

"The AK-47 makes a distinctive sound..."

 

I ask because I've actually seen a few comments of that exact kind made by troops who ought to know, if they've heard one fire.

 

Silly question, I know - but cannot think of anyone else better to ask.

[oldfireguy]

When I was in basic they took us to the end of a rifle range, made us all lay down behind the berm, and fired several different weapons our way to hear what they sounded like. The AK was just one of a few. I don't remember anyone saying those words but I do remember it sounded different. The purpose of the whole thing was to hear what a weapon sounded like when it was being fired at you. That was my one and only experience. I'm sure there are some combat vets on here that heard that sound more than once.

[45ACP]

My father spent 1968 to 1969 in the Southeast Asian Warsgames. He says that that the ak47 and the sks make a snap or a crack sound when fired at you. And he tells me that when he came home and bought the sks and took it the range he used to get an uneasy felling like someone was crawling through the weeds at him

[carbinephalen]

Interesting thread. I would definitely say that they have a distinctive sound when firing (I've only used the shortened barrel. "pistol " version though)...but I have yet to hear one being fired AT me. I hope and pray that never happens! The percussion from one is what I notice the most. You can feel it deep into your chest when standing near one being shot. Anyways thought I'd add my two cents!

[Bluehawk]

Thanks guys... for clarifying.

 

I'm thinking that maybe Highway's words are either something that, because of his lines in the film, found their way into infantry lore, or maybe he himself was repeating something a range instructor said to somebody one way or another.

[DSchlagan]

There were several design/manufacturing reliability problems with the early M16's; the extractor ripping off the rim, and resultant jamming of spent casings: effectively turning it into a "single-shot automatic".

Because of this, a lot of guys picked up AK's off the field. The problem with that being drawing friendly fire because of it's distinctive report/cyclic rate.

[11thcavsniper]

I can verify that Yes, they made a distinctive sound. Being in an Armor unit, We would have lots of firing going on and you could actually pick out an AK sound in the middle of all of this. As for us using the AKs ourselves, we had to be careful of the ammo we used as some were booby trap rounds. They would be inserted into enemy ammo caches or left laying around battle sites for them to use. They were made by many countries including the US and South Vietnam. I had a book on SKSs one time that had photos and the head marks on all AK/SKS rounds. Someone borrowed it and I don't remember who or where it went. I haven't been able to find one since. I do have one of the South Vietnam rounds that I know for a fact that was booby trapped and it's head stamped with a 31 and 65 [south Vietnam Booby Trap Round], that's another story. If anyone knows the Book I am talking about let me know. I just picked up some loose ammo at a surplus store that is marked 31 and 70 and don't know if this is in the book or not. L.T

[teufelhunde.ret]

[Bluehawk]

Dang!

 

After seeing that I think even I could recognize that "distinctive sound"

[Linedoggie]

An AK on Auto does sound different to an M16 Just like you can tell between an M240 and an M60, the 240 has a slightly Higher rate that is discernable. Spend a few weeks at night in Baghdad looking for Bad guys and you learn to recognize the differential in sound between ours and theirs. Same with Indirect fire. Rockets make a Buzzing sound as the propellent exits the rocket venturi as opposed to the slight ripping sound a Mortar makes.

[45ACP]

I asked my father and he said it was Special Forces that was doing that. He said they would even leave full magazines along trails with a booby trapped round it. The "VC" when he found that mag thought he was the luckiest guy in the world a whole mag of ammo for his weapon. That was until pieces hit him in the face. Don't know anything about the book.

 

I can verify that Yes, they made a distinctive sound. Being in an Armor unit, We would have lots of firing going on and you could actually pick out an AK sound in the middle of all of this. As for us using the AKs ourselves, we had to be careful of the ammo we used as some were booby trap rounds. They would be inserted into enemy ammo caches or left laying around battle sites for them to use. They were made by many countries including the US and South Vietnam. I had a book on SKSs one time that had photos and the head marks on all AK/SKS rounds. Someone borrowed it and I don't remember who or where it went. I haven't been able to find one since. I do have one of the South Vietnam rounds that I know for a fact that was booby trapped and it's head stamped with a 31 and 65 [south Vietnam Booby Trap Round], that's another story. If anyone knows the Book I am talking about let me know. I just picked up some loose ammo at a surplus store that is marked 31 and 70 and don't know if this is in the book or not. L.T

[Bluehawk]

Having been a cargo aircraft mechanic not under fire of any sort, nor even seeing an armed aircraft, would someone please explain how it happens that a bullet is made to explode in an enclosed chamber with sufficient force to turn the firing area of the weapon into shrapnel?

 

If this is too dumb a question, then please ignore.

[DSchlagan]

...would someone please explain how it happens that a bullet is made to explode in an enclosed chamber with sufficient force to turn the firing area of the weapon into shrapnel?

Placing sufficient smokeless powder (esp. a 'hot', fast burning powder) in the case, will exceed chamber pressure enough to junk the weapon, and even wound the operator. I'm sure one could get even more creative as to explosive fill.

[AK101]

I have provided live fire instruction on foreign weapon systems to well over one thousand Marines. And while I never bring it up myself, in every class a student will bring up that the AK does indeed have a distinctive sound when compared to our service rifles.

 

On that same note there is a WW2 training film on the distinctive sound and ROF of the MG42.....know your enemy.

[Bluehawk]

Placing sufficient smokeless powder (esp. a 'hot', fast burning powder) in the case, will exceed chamber pressure enough to junk the weapon, and even wound the operator. I'm sure one could get even more creative as to explosive fill.

Thank you...

[sactroop]

Having been a cargo aircraft mechanic not under fire of any sort, nor even seeing an armed aircraft, would someone please explain how it happens that a bullet is made to explode in an enclosed chamber with sufficient force to turn the firing area of the weapon into shrapnel?

 

If this is too dumb a question, then please ignore.

 

 

Pull the bullet. Dump the powder. Fill the case with C4. Reseat the bullet. This can be done in the field. I've never been in the situation to do this,but I've talked to more than one Vet who did. The VC had a SOP of cacheing weapons when they dispersed after an operation. This made it easier for them to stay undetected. The caches were often discovered. Someone came up with the idea that instead of just seizing the weapons and destroying them, it could be more effective to bobby trap the weapons and get the bad guys that way.

[Bluehawk]

Pull the bullet. Dump the powder. Fill the case with C4. Reseat the bullet. This can be done in the field. I've never been in the situation to do this,but I've talked to more than one Vet who did. The VC had a SOP of cacheing weapons when they dispersed after an operation. This made it easier for them to stay undetected. The caches were often discovered. Someone came up with the idea that instead of just seizing the weapons and destroying them, it could be more effective to bobby trap the weapons and get the bad guys that way.

:w00t: Not to mention reduction of the schlepping!

[AK101]

Pull the bullet. Dump the powder. Fill the case with C4. Reseat the bullet. This can be done in the field. I've never been in the situation to do this,but I've talked to more than one Vet who did. The VC had a SOP of cacheing weapons when they dispersed after an operation. This made it easier for them to stay undetected. The caches were often discovered. Someone came up with the idea that instead of just seizing the weapons and destroying them, it could be more effective to bobby trap the weapons and get the bad guys that way.

 

Prolly gonna need a bit more then a rifle primer to initiate that particular secondary...

 

As far as the Eldest Son rounds go, they did not use C4 AFAIK, it was a PETN type powder.

 

Here I am about to poke a hole in something.....

 

[Linedoggie]

Having been a cargo aircraft mechanic not under fire of any sort, nor even seeing an armed aircraft, would someone please explain how it happens that a bullet is made to explode in an enclosed chamber with sufficient force to turn the firing area of the weapon into shrapnel?

 

If this is too dumb a question, then please ignore.

There was a "Psyops" program where AK ammo was salted into VC/NVA Caches. The Normal gunpowder had been replaced carefully with C-4 Explosive. IIRC the program was called Eldest Son, Pole Bean. Chamber one of the docotored rounds and when you pull the trigger the weapon explodes on the firer with lethal results. Idea being to have the enemy not trust their weapons. The ammo was AK (7.62X39MM) and some 82mm Mortar rounds.

[Linedoggie]

..............................................

[DSchlagan]

Eldest Son cartridges originally were reloaded with a powder similar to PETN high explosive, but sufficiently shock-sensitive that an ordinary rifle primer would detonate it. This white powder, however, did not even faintly resemble gunpowder. SOG's technical wizard, Ben Baker - our answer to James Bond's "Q" - decided this powder might compromise the program if ever an enemy soldier pulled apart an Eldest Son round. He obtained a substitute explosive that so closely resembled gunpowder that it would pass inspection by anyone but an ordnance expert. While the AKM and Type 56 AKs and the RPD light machine gun could accommodate a chamber pressure of 45,000 p.s.i., Baker's deadly powder generated a whopping 250,000 p.s.i.

.....

 

But as a result of these cross- border efforts, Eldest Son rounds began to turn up inside South Vietnam. In a northern province, 101st Airborne Division paratroopers found a dead Communist soldier grasping his exploded rifle, while an officer at SOG's Saigon headquarters, Captain Ed Lesesne, received the photo of a dead enemy soldier with his bolt blown out the back of his AK. "It had gone right through his eye socket," Lesesne reported.

 

Chad Spawr, an intelligence specialist with the 1st Infantry Division, heard of such a case but, "didn't believe it until they walked me over and opened up the body bag, and there he was, with the weapon in the bag." Unaware of SOG's covert program, Spawr attributed the incident to inferior weapons and ammo.

 

Boobytrapped mortar rounds took their toll, too. Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division soldiers came upon an entire enemy mortar battery destroyed - four peeled back tubes with dead gunners. In another incident, a 101st Airborne firebase was taking mortar fire when there was an odd-sounding, "boom-pff!" A patrol later found two enemy bodies beside a split mortar tube and blood trails going off into the jungle. On July 3, 1968, after an enemy mortar attack on Ban Me Thuot airstrip, nine Communist soldiers were found dead in one firing position, their tube so badly shattered that it had vanished but for two small fragments.

 

Boobytrapped ammunition clearly was getting into enemy hands, so it was time to initiate SOG's insidious "black psyop" exploitation. "Our interest was not in killing the soldier that was using the weapon," explained Colonel Steve Cavanaugh, who replaced Singlaub in 1968. "We were trying to leave in the minds of the North Vietnamese that the ammunition they were getting from China was bad ammunition." Hopefully, this would aggravate Hanoi's leadership - which traditionally distrusted the Chinese - and cause individual soldiers to question the reliability (and safety) of their Chinese-supplied arms and ordnance.

 

One Viet Cong document - forged by SOG and insinuated into enemy channels through a double-agent - made light of exploding weapons, claiming, "We know that it is rumored some of the ammunition has exploded in the AK-47. This report is greatly exaggerated. It is a very, very small percentage of the ammunition that has exploded."

 

Another forged document announced, "Only a few thousand such cases have been found thus far," and concluded, "The People's Republic of China may have been having some quality control problems [but] these are being worked out and we think that in the future there will be very little chance of this happening."

 

That, "in the future," hook was especially devious, because an enemy soldier looking at lot numbers could see that virtually all his ammo had been loaded years earlier. No fresh ammo could possibly reach soldiers fighting in the South for many years.

.....

 

Major John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.). Wreaking Havoc One Round At A Time. American Rifleman. May 2008.

 

Full copy of article available here, containing much more info.

[polecat]

Wow! Great read DSchlagan, thank you for posting that. SOG sure was crafty.

[Bluehawk]

... "Only a few thousand such cases have been found thus far..."

 

Well, what the heck, only a "few thousand" here and there.

[DSchlagan]

@polecat, you're welcome. The complete article, in link above, is a good read.

 

I do have one of the South Vietnam rounds that I know for a fact that was booby trapped and it's head stamped with a 31 and 65 [south Vietnam Booby Trap Round], that's another story. If anyone knows the Book I am talking about let me know. I just picked up some loose ammo at a surplus store that is marked 31 and 70 and don't know if this is in the book or not. L.T

Yeah, prolly not in one's best interest to be out plinkin' with pre '73 head-stamped 7.62 x 39's. :ermm:

Hard to say if complete records even exist/declassified of all the particular head stamps used for each of the 3,638 rounds known to have been produced. One would believe that they stuck to just a few variations of head stamps for ID purposes.

[sactroop]

Don,

Thanks for the article. It’s nice to hear, (as Paul Harvey used to say) the rest of the story. Back in the early 70’s the story of the C4 was the common thing we would hear about the exploding AK’s. When your NCO tells you something you tend to go with it. Also some of the Vets I’ve known who where in the bush would relay the same story. The same guys also said that C4 was pretty safe to handle until you put a blasting cap in it. It would burn if lit with fire but needed a big push to actually go boom. In light of that AK101’s point about the rifle primer makes sense.