Jump to content

BAR Belt in the Vietnam War


New Romantic
 Share

Recommended Posts

New Romantic

I started this topic several years ago on the old Gunboards, and here it is revived for interesting coversation.

 

Many of us who take an interest in the Vietnam War often associate the BAR ammunition belt with Special Forces, LRRPs, and other specialized, elite units. This topic is about the BAR belt being used by regular infantryman. Many of the soldiers I've observed wearing the belt appear to be automatic riflemen carrying the automatic version of the M14.

 

The photos I'm posting here are of 25th ID soldiers during 1966. If anybody has any other soldiers from other Divisions feel free to post them, but try to limit the photos to regular line infantrymen-ie-no elite troops.

 

 

This photo shows a soldier sometime in late March- April 1966 wearing the BAR belt. No bipod is on the M14 but it appears to have the selector switch for automatic fire.

post-599-1205247057.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

craig_pickrall

Frankie, interesting topic. I just wanted to mention the soldier to the left also has a bipod on his M16. You can find pics of those in use but not many.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic

This "posed", or put together photo shows a rifleman wearing the BAR belt. Note the M6 bayonet and bipod on his M14. The M8A1 scabbard is worn on the suspenders loop on his right shoulder. His canteen is worn under his right arm and this leads me to believe that maybe he has it attached to the side adjustment tab on his jungle fatigue shirt. So far I have not found any good shots of soldiers wearing the canteen on the BAR belt. If the canteen carriers are the M1956 the only place to attach them is on the BAR belt's adjustment strap- or on the buttpack if is worn.

post-599-1205247505.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic

A final photo I've found shows a soldier in the summer of 1966 preparing to move out for a night ambush patrol. His M14 has the bipod and he carries a claymore mine bag which most like carries a claymore for the ambush, but it may also carry extra Magazines for his M14. All soldiers in his squad ( not shown) wear subdued rank and insignia.

post-599-1205247824.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pwmiraldi67

wow

those are really great pix, Ive never seen that before.

 

I know that some Special Forces troops took the BAR belts off the integrated small belt and would thread them onto a M1956 belt and then cut off the mail and female ends, this would allow the many BAR pockets but also allow the wearer to attach canteens and other M1956 items too.

 

although some BAR belts don't allow you to do this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic
wow

those are really great pix, Ive never seen that before.

 

The photos are from "Tropic Lightning the 25th's 25th In Combat", published in Oct or Nov 1966. You should pick up a copy, there's one on eBay and another on Amazon, but they're not cheap, $90-$125. It might be of some use to you for futures articles or books you write. I'm lucky my dad saved his copy, a lot of great pics plus full rosters of soldiers that served in the 25th, by unit, during 1966.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pwmiraldi67

thanks Sir!!

 

It just goes to show ya, just when you think youve seen it all, along comes a set of pix Ive never seen! Awsome, its always nice finding new stuff to get excited about, Im going to ebay right now and check!!

Thanks again for sharing!!

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Greg Robinson

Interesting topic....I had no idea that BAR gunner belts were worn that late. Does anybody have knowledge of the BAR being used in Viet Nam? I remember the Marine Corps was still including a "familarization fire" course in it's infantry training program as late as 1967. I loved that course.....we got to fire the BAR....a terrific weapon so long as you didn't have to carry it. :)

 

Greg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting topic....I had no idea that BAR gunner belts were worn that late. Does anybody have knowledge of the BAR being used in Viet Nam? I remember the Marine Corps was still including a "familarization fire" course in it's infantry training program as late as 1967. I loved that course.....we got to fire the BAR....a terrific weapon so long as you didn't have to carry it. :)

 

Greg

 

 

Greg

 

You are right very fun to shoot Slow Automatic and Fast Automatic.

 

I thought worst part was disassembling and reassembling -64 parts

 

A friend on mine in Special Forces wore a BAR belt in Africa in the 90's-the local troops had FN/FALs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic
Does anybody have knowledge of the BAR being used in Viet Nam? I remember the Marine Corps was still including a "familarization fire" course in it's infantry training program as late as 1967.

 

Greg

 

The ARVN were using the BAR as late as 1968. Here's a photo of my father training with ARVN soldiers in the Mekong Delta in 1968.

post-599-1205265633.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a picture of Australian SAS captain Peter Shilston as Mike Force company commander (as far as I can remember) with a BAR belt.

 

post-467-1205273220.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Charlie Flick

Frankie:

 

I think I remember that discussion on the old Gunboards Militaria site. (I think a guy named "Webgear" was the moderator there. Wonder what happened to him.? That was a very good site until it fell apart.)

 

Here are a couple of pics that you should find of interest. I have no info on the who, when or where the photos were taken, but they are clearly BAR belts being used for the carriage of M16 magazines.

 

You are correct about the use of these belts in RVN by LRRPs, the SOG guys and others. You can sure carry a lot of mags with one of those belts. These guys here are no doubt not regular infantry.

 

Note that one of the pics does show a canteen which appears to me to be mounted on the belt.

 

Hope this helps you.

 

Regards,

Charlie Flick

 

BAR_Belt_in_RVN_ed.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Charlie Flick

Frankie:

 

Here is the second pic. How about those tiger stripes!?! Note that Jet Pilot Knife he is sporting as well.

 

Charlie Flick

 

 

BAR_Belt_RVN.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

pwmiraldi67

here are two

the smaller team is Project delta 1967

the 2nd is RT Idaho with Tilt Meyers, note two of the men wear the BAR belts,

paul

post-2472-1205294637.jpg

post-2472-1205294659.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Greg Robinson
Frankie:

 

I think I remember that discussion on the old Gunboards Militaria site. (I think a guy named "Webgear" was the moderator there. Wonder what happened to him.? That was a very good site until it fell apart.)

 

Charlie

 

I don't remember the discussion but I remember "webgear". I was thinking about him just recently and also wondered where he was now. He ran a good forum for webgear. I looked in my email address book and found this entry.....I assume it's the same guy....JIm "Webgear" Zeidler

 

Greg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

craig_pickrall

Webgear wasn't really a collector. He was part of Gunboards and volunteered for the job as MOD. He had an interest in military gear but not really much knowledge. He got more involved in his real job and also got sick. Due to this he driffted away from the forum. That is when it started down hill. It was left unattended and then the forum software started to have problems and then the spammers found it. It must have been an ideal breeding ground for them as they had pretty much taken over just before it was shut down. Close to the end there were many posted complaints and a new MOD was appointed to "clean it up". He made a lot of tuff talk and then disappeared. Jim reappeared just before the end. He explained his position (problems) which most people could understand but then he lashed out at the members doing the complaining like it was there fault. They were just trying to save what had been a good forum. I just wish I had printed more of what was posted there. I lost some things when I abandoned MCF but not near as much info as was lost at Gunboards.

 

To me one of the biggest problems with that forum was that old posts were deleted by age regardless of content. I spent a lot of time creating reference threads just to have them deleted. Back in those days with dialup and one pic per post it took about 1 to 3 minutes per pic to load. I can probably load 10 or 15 pics in less time today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic

Thank you Andrei, Charlie, Paul, and Spike for posting those very nice, interesting photos.

 

So it seems that the belt being used by regular infantry must have been a rarity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic
Frankie:

 

Here is the second pic. How about those tiger stripes!?! Note that Jet Pilot Knife he is sporting as well.

 

Charlie Flick

post-68-1205291132.jpg

 

Nice photo Charlie, I see the canteen back there and I wonder how he secured it to his belt. It looks like he may have put it inside one of the pouches? It doesn't seem the canteen would fit and I've never tried to see if it does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

surplus sammy
This is my recreation of an automatic rifleman of the 25th ID in 1966.

This is one thing Ive thought about recreating for myself.

Can I get a look at how you did the inside ?

How you attached the H harness etc.

Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Romantic
This is one thing Ive thought about recreating for myself.

Can I get a look at how you did the inside ?

How you attached the H harness etc.

Cheers

 

It's really quite simple, nothing fancy about putting the ensemble together. The suspenders attach to the belt as they would to a pistol belt. Let me know if there's anything I can clarify for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...