Congratulations on this historical find. !!! Its a great helmet with a story and unlike any Ive ever seen, you even have the Man wearing it on film!!! Amazing!! Thank you for sharing this!   Dave

Would appear to be totally suitable for use with M14 magazines.  Consider, also, that when the US entered the war in Vietnam, the RVN were using large numbers of M1 Garands and BARs.  An experimental "universal" type ammunition pouch that could hold the BAR and M14 magazines (and no doubt, M16 20 rd. mags) seems entirely possible. Also, there were a very large number of foreign militaries (including some NATO, South Korea, and Japan) receiving US surplus small arms that included the M1 and BAR, so updated magazine pouches for the BAR that would work with the M1956 web gear again makes sense.  Foreign manufacture can't be ruled out. On the other hand, the total absence of manufacturer's markings does not fit with official fielding of test and experimental equipment.

You left out pics of the 1969 or so vintage 3 cell M16 mag pouch for 30 rd. mags that did not have the flaps, and only the straps and square spoon holders on the side of the pouch, and not that big pocket on both sides................

M1961 in what sense? The USMC M14 cartridge belt and single mag pouches wouldn't be used that late by M16 armed riflemen, other than the M1941 "Y" suspenders, but remember a lot of Marines wore gear suspended from the "pistol belt strip" at the bottom of the M1955 flak jacket like my dad did. Other than that it probably would have been more use of the M1956 gear, even though it was Army issued gear...............and, most of the pouches save for the mag pouches were M1910 belt hook mounted. Considering all of the mixing and mis-matching back then, almost any mix would be "correct"...............

. mikie,    knowing that you have to pay for medical care over there was this one of those cases of OWS, ' Open Wallet Surgery '   🤣 🤣    Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 24 May  2O26.   ..

In 40 years of collecting I have never seen any piece like this. If it was part of the M1967 nylon gear, there's no way it would have been made for a BAR. Never seen any pics of US troops using the BAR in Vietnam. Also, anything  even experimental M1967 is so marked just like all the other pieces of gear you posted pics of; so if the "BAR belt" is not marked anywhere with a nomenclature of some kind, I would venture to say its something somebody made up, as anything can be repro'd or custom made. 

Hello all: Just joined the site, and as a 40 year collector, I probably should have been on this site much sooner. I live in the Ft. Worth, TX area and primarily focus on WWII AAF and USMC Vietnam era stuff, as my grandfather was a B-17 tail gunner in WWII, and my dad was a radio operator in 1st Battalion 9th Marines "The Walking Dead" at Khe Sanh in Vietnam. Look forward to being on here. 

I’ll add an appendix to your story with one of my own. I was in my early 30’s and recently went through my divorce and living on my own. About midnight I started getting severe abdominal pains. I thought it was a bad case of gas but different somehow. It got worse so I eventually decided to got to the hospital. The emergency room folks suspected appendicitis but were confused that  I was not showing some of the usual symptoms. They stuck me in a very chilly exam room only wearing one of those annoying stupid hospital gowns. Brrrrr. They did let me put my socks back on. Nice of them.  Eventually my blood tests came back and again pointed to appendicitis. But I still didn’t match some other symptoms. Still confused, they eventually decided to do exploratory surgery. Nurse put an anesthesia mask over my face and told me to count backwards from 100. I remember getting all the way down to 97. Next thing I knew I was in a recovery room. Doctor came in and told me that when they opened me up my appendix was just about to burst. Another 5 minutes and I would have been in big trouble. To date, this has been my one and only major surgical experience. Thank goodness. The only upside of the whole thing was that the young nurse taking care of me while I was in the hospital was quite cute and friendly. The medicine there is!  mikie

Not me, I'm about to throttle some people's enthusiasm!  😉

sounds plausable