One of my Friends was a Sgt. major with a reserve unit here, and until somewhat recently was still issuing WW2 patches from a box with 1944 contract date.

 

I have also seen a pic ( maybe here) of a desert storm/OIF soldier that was issued a Numbered Silver star!

I'm sure surplus dogtag chains are still in circulation. I've seen boxes at shows and have received chains in similar if not identical envelopes

I just got back from National Guard Annual Training, and as I was unloading my junk, I looked at my 1 qt. canteens, one is dated 1964, does that count? I really have no idea how long I've had it, possibly since 1987.

BKW

Late 80's 2nd ACR still had Greese Guns,, got to go to Turkey with one.

Greetings,

 

Though we no longer use them, I have a supply connex with items to be turned in such as all our "GP tiny's", mess kits and shelter half poles. Most of them are WWII dated though quite a few are VN era as well. Unfortunately (actually, fortunately) my Supply NCO has a fairly sharp pencil.

 

Best,

 

Pete

When my father's squadron deployed to Iraq the weapons they were issued were old Vietnam War M-16s and their body armor was a bunch of M69 vests, those were the only rifles the 33rd Fighter Wing had when my father's unit was called up. Halfway through the deployment they received new M-16A2s. They had to return the old rifles and every single round of ammunition that was not used, so my father a lieutenant colonel, and about ten airmen sat around during a sandstorm and emptied every single magazine. My father's command had about 250 personnel and every one was issued a rifle and about seven or eight mags. Let's see now that its summer and I'm outta school I gotta think... 250 x 7= 1750 mags. 1750 mags x 30= 52500 loose rounds. 11 people had to empty each magazine by hand and write down how many they had to turn back in. My father said his thumbs cramped up real bad after doing all that! But now his unit has better weapons and gear.

In the late '90's I stopped in a surplus store in Wartburg TN and the guy had a quantity of mint....still in paper wrapping.....WW2 M1 helmet shells. Most were late war but one was a mid war swivel bail, stainless rim, OD #3 chinstrap in pristine mint condition. All of them had inventory tags attached with 1980 dates. He was selling these for $5 each.

When my son deployed to Bosnia he was required to bring a helmet, body armour, and a weapon. He was issued a Vietnam era M-16. When he arrived the Army guys made fun of his old piece of junk. He just showed them the selector switch(full Auto) and they stopped bothering him. The only thing I regret was he had it the day before he flew out and we should have went out and sighted it in(Hee Hee) but we only had a couple of hundred rounds at his house. Robert

As I sat at work today ordering supplies on FEDLOG (those of you in the military know what that is) for our upcoming deployment I had to wonder, how many obsolete items from WWII or Korea (or vietnam) are still recognized in FEDLOG and might even have stock numbers. I know it would be silly to think that there is a warehouse with dust covered Norden bomb sights or something, but I know in the maze of military supply, some things must have been forgotten about and never taken off the books.

 

I did a basic word search for things like "flamethrower" for instance and that came up, but no details on it. No...I'm not going to try and sneak an order for a flamethrower through, but does anyone know of obsolete stuff in the Army inventory?

 

Mike

 

M2's?

I got only one place to say, Hawthorn Nevada! They wanted to close it in the 90's but after looking into what it would cost to do inventory and moving it as it has been the main Naval weapons testing station for many year's, it was removed from the list. You would never think that the main Naval weapons are made (at least they used to be!) and are tested there. I new a guy that worked there in the scrap Dept. as this is a main place for demilling ordnance for scrap sale's and he told me that there was so much in all the storage from over the years that it would be almost impossible to go through it all as the man power to do such would be silly and yes, there are jeeps in the crate among god knows what . If you drive by on Alt. 95 Hwy. to Vegas ( on the right hand side and the endless amount of huge bunkers are just mind blowing!) you will see row's of 14" guns removed from the old battleships with the names of the ship on them and they have one of the most incredible small Ordnance museum I have ever seen as they have been pumping it out since WW2. Any Seals that are on this site will know the place!

I'm a junior rotc nazi (only got 1 more semester, than the marines), and when I was going through our supply room, I found a wealth of stuff. considering our unit is only about 15 years old, some of the stuff was really surprising. I found a few ww2 ammo tins, one 30 cal belt box, and a M1 bandoleers box, the sardine can kind.( snuck those ones home) In our boxes of BDUs, I found some early camo from nam, and a ww2 marine helmet cover. All of our drill rifles (m1s) are marked with ww2 dates, but have had steel rods welded into the barrels. :crying:

While stationed in Okinawa in 1973 our station still had M37's that were made in the early 50's. The Coast Guard is still running ships that are over 40 years old (seems to be the average age of a CG Cutter).

 

Even in the 90's I was still running across water ration cans made in the 40's

 

Back in the "Old Guard" while thumbing through the Naval Supply Catalogs there was a listing for Submarine Sandals, I always wanted to get a pair. I'm just wondering are they still in the system?

 

Can anyone check to see if there is a gallon of "Prop wash" still in the system. :w00t:

Us Aussies still have F111"s from the 1960's and still flying.

I was trained on 1960's made M113 APC's and that was in the 1990's and guess what? We still have them in 2009!

As a young tank driver in 1978 I went to the Area Q store and bought 1943 dated singlets.

All our cleaning kits and tool rolls for the .30 and .50cal mgs are still leftovers from 1943.

Leo

If you're gonna talk about old equipment, the Air Force is still flying B-52H heavy bombers and the last one rolled off the line in 1962. There are still about 70 old BUFFs in the active inventory. When I was in the Air Force in the late 60's, there were still some active C-47's that had been in service since WWII. Then you have F-15's and F-16's that are still in service and many of those a/c were built in the mid 70's.

When I was stationed in Berlin with the Berlin Brigade in the 80's we still had Winchester Model 97 12 gauge Trench Shotguns and Winchester M1917 bayonets. We used them when the QRP (Quick Reaction Platoon) was on alert and the M113 APCs were loaded with their basic load of ammunition. The tracks were surrounded with concertina wire, but we had 24 hour roving guard around the perimeter, and we carried those shotguns with bayonets fixed. We also carried .12 gauge 00 buckshot slugs in an ammo pouch. During annual weapons qualification, we would take the shotguns to Parks Range and familiarize with them.

While I was at drill this weekend I was shooting the bull with some of the supply guys, trying to get a QM box of ACU unit patches - I was close until the First Sergeant walked in but he is cool with my patch collection, brags to all the guys in the unit...differant storty -

 

Anyways while browsing through there drawers I found about 10 boxed Vietnam war dated Purple Hearts, a QM box of Army commendation ribbons from 1983 and the best was a box of old items from the 194th Tank Battalion including DUI's, patches and other items - unfortunatly those are property of the armory, not uncle sam. Anyways if I get hit overseas I will get a VN era purple heart!

 

I am working on getting those PH's "Lost in the system" This one might require a case of beer and free run of drinks at the club in the armory.

 

Repsectfully,

PFC Kitt

Even though some respondents's concecption of what constitutes 'old' amuses me, this is nevertheless an entertaining post.

 

I have a friend who, before he parted company with the military, periodically went to Rock Island Arsenal. In the '90s he purchased a pre-World War 1 portable horse shoeing forge--in unissued conditon. He said property disposal had several dozen of them for sale.

Any new stories? Digging this one out from the forum depths

Wow! What a place to confess past logistics transgressions. Since enrolling here I have gone down mental lists of all sorts of items but this topic brings some of those items into sharper focus.

Vietnam~late '72:

We were turning out the lights on that one but life had already taken on a REMF attitude. We had all our ammo to turn in but the base ammo guy wanted all the ammo counted in boxes without lead seals. Took the stuff over to the base terminal and dumped it all in the amnesty box.

Okinawa, early to mid '70s:

Nylon flight gear out the wazoo. They literally handed the stuff to you. The same for jungles, od & camouflaged.

When the war ended in '75 all the ships headed for Vn delivered their stocks to Okinawa. The results, 1100 steel snap links {I have just a few left} and warehouses full of everything an army needed.

Me and a friend bought a goup of M~37s for $1500, fixed two of them and sold the third one to break even. We also bought an ambulance version and M~38 to sell to again break even.

Lotsa medals all the way to the Air Force Cross {still have every one of them}.

When the SF moved out I picked up truckloads of tech and training manuals which were put to use a few years later. One guy wanted a case of steaks for an M~1 carbine, that didn't work out.

Sacramento, Ca: Found out we could order old trucks and jeeps from salvage for free if they were not for their original purpose so we submitted requisitions for M~37s & M~38s for aerial delivery but they had to be drivable. The catch was we had to go get them {Wi, Ka, etc}. No go on that one.

Base salvage had boxes of old blue nylon flight gear. Got several of those but traded some of them for a new M~151 to use at a deployment site. Had to leave it because we couldn't fly it out. Still have a duffel full of blue stuff.

Iceland~ '76, '77: Should have grabbed the box of old G~1 jackets to use for parts but I didn't need them then.

There was a warehouse of pre M~37 trucks and equally vintage field gear for the base rapid response force. I grabbed a gas cap for my M~37 and a T~handle E~tool for a keepsake. There is probably some old guy downtown with all that stuff since the base has been turned over.

Red Flag: It only takes a 9/16" wrench and cross point screw driver to field strip a M~37, at least it seemed so then. Wrenched a lot of parts off M~37s waiting their turn on the gun range.

1978 was my last year as an additional duty supply guy. My boss, an old friend moved me to another area he felt better suited my poker faced skills ;-}

I may be wrong, but tank crews were issued M3 grease guns during DS.

The 82nd's Sheridan Bn, 3/73rd Armor did.

As has probably been said, just because something has an NSN and shows up in FEDLOG in no way what so ever means you can order it and it will actually show up. Also doesn't mean the military has it in stock at any location anywhere. The supply system is quite a bit more complicated than that.

 

As for "old" stuff still floating around the active duty Army, I have a 1955 date tripod in my unit arms room and a 1966 dated bob-tail trailer in my motor pool.

 

Vance

I have a 1967 dated Imperial, 4-blade stainless steel us pocket knife right here in front of me. It is in near mint condition. I've requested to be buried with it along with my Camillus 1967 JPK. You never know when you may need it! Danny

Base salvage had boxes of old blue nylon flight gear. Got several of those but traded some of them for a new M~151 to use at a deployment site. Had to leave it because we couldn't fly it out. Still have a duffel full of blue stuff.

 

 

So exactly what do you have of the blue stuff - jackets, flight suits, ... ?

I photographed these 1968 dated poles outside my tent at Transit Center Manas, Kyrgystan in May of 2012 while on my way to Afghanistan.

MSG BKW

 

Just after Desert Storm I was doing some extra work at my reserve armory. I got a call from the Air Force Reserve at Selfridge Air Base and they asked if we needed any National Defense Medals, so I said yes and arranged to go get them. When I arrived the girl took me behind the counter and there were full cases of these medals instead of the usual box or two. So, I got 400 of them and then I noticed the gold mine! The girl said her predecessor had gone a bit wild ordering and I was able to get nearly every award the Air Force had as well as many Army awards, from the DSC down. I got Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, and Purple Hearts in the black cases in boxes dated 1943! My Brigade Commander was a collector in Ohio and we had a field day with this stuff. I made several trips and was just amazed that they were getting medal sets in the 90s from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as well as the current stock. So, I believe the items are still scattered out there. My last unit in 2007, had bayonets for the trench shotguns but I could never get one as they were on the books... Scott

 

As an added note, my last unit also had .45 magazines left over.