“The fire mission” - The Firearms Forum

02-26-2003, 06:23 PM

Mithrandir
V.I.P. Member
Posts: 48
(5/17/01 1:19:23 pm)
| Del All “The fire mission”
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All of us have memories…

Sometimes they blur with time and the sharp edges wear down so as to not hurt us as much…..

Other memories are recalled with a hoot & a holler as they are…. well…… FUNNY…..

This is one of those……

Western I CORP…….. close to a mountain they called Eagles Nest……

Well… we weren’t so lucky….. we sat on a mountain alright, but the top was so small that only a trailer park would fit in it…

And that is what it looked like…. a trailer park…. only the trailer park had no roads up to it….

It was so high that you could see for a long, long distance on a clear day…

If the clouds weren’t thick… or the fog was thin…

Everything had been brought up there by chops…. you know … the cranes……

The only other way up was to crawl up…. the sides were so steep that you , literally, had to crawl up it, you couldn’t stand up.

I had not been here before so this was a treat….

No enemy fire…. rifles wouldn’t reach and rockets just flew right by…. or up and over if you will….

They told me that there was an NVA mortar team that had been trying to hit them for the last 15 nights of so… but they couldn’t get close enough to do it…

Seems that they would sneak up to a series of small hillocks of the east side and try to launch from there…

But the mountains height defeated them as the mortar shells would only reach to within about 100 yards of the outer berm….

Sooo.. the guys would sit on the edge of the berm, drink warm beer, and take bets……

Night after night after night….

Well, there wasn’t much else to do up there except watch… listen… and bet on the NVA….

My team came in about 6:30pm and in scoping the place out, we saw two pads for chops … one was larger for Chinooks, eight to ten small bunkers (if you want to call them that) and two GP medium tents…..and the ever-present burning shit….

It got dark and long about 10PM or so… the shelling started……..

No one moved … with the exception of my team… WE didn’t know that they couldn’t hit us…. and the others just laughed and laughed….

Now… this pissed off our officer….. a Cpt. with a very good reputation with us and HE DIDN’T LIKE BEING LAUGHED AT NOR SHOT AT….

Turns out that that night… HE is the highest ranking officer on the AO…..

So he gets on the horn a calls for an airstrike….and the horn is tied to external speakers so everyone is listening to this….

UUUHHHH sir…… its raining…… can’t give you air……

So he calls for artillery…….

Uhhhhh sir……… They are all busy… or out of range (Kai Sahn was very busy that night)…..

So he literally YELLS into the mike and I might add to no one in particular… “OK….WHO THE HELL OUT THERE CAN DO THIS???”

After a very pregnant pause……a very small and faint voice comes on and says “ I can sir”

“SO OK DO IT… here is the co-ordinates “ and proceeds to fill them in…..”Fire when ready”

“Wilco” says the small voice…

Two or three minutes pass…..

Small voice says…..”three in the air, correct fire when ready”…..

We sit and wait…… and wait….. and wait….

One guy says……”rockets..or jets……. can you hear that….????

Yeah… I hear it… sounds like a wing coming in… hey.!.. did we get all-weather air in here???.. ALRIGHT THEN…OUTSTANDING……

BOOM,BOOM, BOOM…..The concussion waves throw us to the ground,

The bunkers collapse…

The Chinook leaps into the air and like a ship sinking rolls on its side and slowly crumples to the ground..

The Huey lifts up and sits on top of deus (Have NO IDEA why a truck is on top of a mountain that has no roads!!))

The generators all short out and one starts to busily burn……

Dirt clods beat us to death…. the shitter is gone, the burning stuff went over the other side of the wall first and starts a fire on the side of the mountain…..

All the antennas come down….

Noise stops…..

Small voice says “ did we hit it???? please advise”

Cpt. gets ups brushing a huge amount of dirt off on him and out of his eyes and hair….slowly looks over the edge

Brings the night scope to his eyes and look for the little hillocks…….

They are gone…. there are now three very large craters were the hillocks used to be…..

Only wifts of smoke are coming from the craters…..

“ok….. cease fire…. you got them….. good job’’

“HOWEVER *******IT…….. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS” shouting himself hoarse in the process….

Small voice says…. “roger that … cease fire, cease fire, cease fire……

“Thanks for the fire mission Cpt…. USS New Jersey out”

We never heard from them again…….

Their three rounds had been fired from 36 MILES away……..

Lot of the guys decided then and there that their next tour was to be a gunner on a battleship...
==================

Anyone else ever deal with them?????

out

dap22
Senior Chief Moderator II
Posts: 542
(5/17/01 2:02:15 pm)
| Del Re: “The fire mission”
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Mith......you might say so, in an indirect way. One of the major hinderances of flying in Vietnam was trying to figure out who would get you first...........another aircraft, artillery, naval gunfire, Mr. Chuck, **** weather, or the fickle finger of fate. But getting around, contrary to common belief, was no easy thing, particularly for single ship aircraft such as dustoff. And we'd usually be going to where the action was. It was often difficult to get clearance through artillery fire (lousy radio commo or mission importance etc) and often it would mean that we couldn't take a direct route from point A to point B. Often was the case when any naval gunfire was occurring since we had no freakin idea how to contact the Navy.... so, to answer your question.....yes. And then, in '68 there were the SAM sites that just wouldn't shut down so we could do our jobs.............rat bastids.

homer4
Moderator
Posts: 607
(5/23/01 10:40:00 pm)
| Del Re: “The fire mission”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always knew that the choppers had to worry about ground fire from Charlie and the Nva and other choppers and aircraft as such Dave...never gave thought to incoming!...That certainly was a major concern huh! Never crossed my mind...Geez.

When ever a mission was called for I made a point of letting our unit back at the compound know that we needed them to help coordinate the mission with the Arvn Battery that was our support.Sometimes this aggravated Trung Uy some but he knew that it was best to have "round eyes" knowing our asses were hanging out.He drew some rebuke from Provence for adding traffic to the Net...but piss on em we felt.
...and two hard boiled eggs.

Bill · 11-27-2005, 03:17 PM

I had less than spectacular results from Navy Battleship gunfire. I was flying a Marine Artillery spotter who was adjusting fire onto some Cave entrances on a penninsula in I corps. Took about 10 rounds just to finally hit the rather large penninsula. Finally the rounds got close enough to have maybe scared any folks inside the caves. Was much happier with the typical results from our own artillery in the 101st. Hey maybe the Navy had bad chow or something else going on that day that affected their performance. Go figure.
Bill

Hope 69/70 · 12-23-2005, 11:04 PM

Welcome Bill,

From what I have heard the Navy had food that the other services only dreamed about.

Guess I had better be careful, Chief will be reading this......lol

Hope

Redhand · 02-26-2010, 09:58 PM

When I was at C-4 at the mouth of the Cau-Viet river we would all come out and cheer when the Ole' Girl would let loose with her big 16's. The rounds alot of times would go right over our compound. You wouldn't hear the first boom only the whistle going overhead. Then you would listen for the landing and the next boom out to sea. JOY!!! OH JOY!!!!

rooter · 02-27-2010, 04:40 AM

Dang Red, that's an old posting you dug out...written by one of the best who ever visited with us here....MITHRANDER, WHERE ARE YOU...CALL IN AND REPORT WITH SOME STORIES????? Speaking of the USS NEW JERSEY....I know it's been years ago, but posted somewhere herein is a colored photo of the 'JERSEY firing a broadside at IRAQI shore installation in 91....This former 'JERSEY crewmember gave me a small colored photo that caught the flight of a 16" round leaving the barrel of the gun...about 20 meters in front of the mushrooming flames and smoke, it seemed to hang there in space....I had this photo specialist blow up the small photo to a 16"x20" size that I framed and here on my wall...like I said, somewhere here in the postings is that picture...Chief

Mithrandir · 05-13-2010, 07:54 PM

Rooter...

not quite "back-in-the-saddle-again"...

but I am working on it...

say hello to all my friends out there.....

out...

rooter · 05-14-2010, 10:18 AM

Mith, like the hair-lipped boy might say, "MITH, WE'VE MITHED YA"!!!!! Hell, don't bother the saddle...do it bare-backed and jump on here and spin us some stories...I fear the troops are getting damned tired of my constant appearances...I've even had to resort to telling those half truths like the politicans do. Haven't heard from HOPE in the longest time and the same with GUNNER USMC....BERTO has been in puny health...every so often we have a new name and handle to deal with and greet on board. Take care of yourself....Chief

whymememe · 12-08-2011, 07:29 PM

I'm beginning to like this reading. I have always heard that Naval Gunnery was the most accurate available. I'm a big fan.

02-26-2003, 06:23 PM	#1
Guest Adnanced Senior Member Posts: n/a	“The fire mission” Mithrandir V.I.P. Member Posts: 48 (5/17/01 1:19:23 pm) \| Del All “The fire mission” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of us have memories… Sometimes they blur with time and the sharp edges wear down so as to not hurt us as much….. Other memories are recalled with a hoot & a holler as they are…. well…… FUNNY….. This is one of those…… Western I CORP…….. close to a mountain they called Eagles Nest…… Well… we weren’t so lucky….. we sat on a mountain alright, but the top was so small that only a trailer park would fit in it… And that is what it looked like…. a trailer park…. only the trailer park had no roads up to it…. It was so high that you could see for a long, long distance on a clear day… If the clouds weren’t thick… or the fog was thin… Everything had been brought up there by chops…. you know … the cranes…… The only other way up was to crawl up…. the sides were so steep that you , literally, had to crawl up it, you couldn’t stand up. I had not been here before so this was a treat…. No enemy fire…. rifles wouldn’t reach and rockets just flew right by…. or up and over if you will…. They told me that there was an NVA mortar team that had been trying to hit them for the last 15 nights of so… but they couldn’t get close enough to do it… Seems that they would sneak up to a series of small hillocks of the east side and try to launch from there… But the mountains height defeated them as the mortar shells would only reach to within about 100 yards of the outer berm…. Sooo.. the guys would sit on the edge of the berm, drink warm beer, and take bets…… Night after night after night…. Well, there wasn’t much else to do up there except watch… listen… and bet on the NVA…. My team came in about 6:30pm and in scoping the place out, we saw two pads for chops … one was larger for Chinooks, eight to ten small bunkers (if you want to call them that) and two GP medium tents…..and the ever-present burning shit…. It got dark and long about 10PM or so… the shelling started…….. No one moved … with the exception of my team… WE didn’t know that they couldn’t hit us…. and the others just laughed and laughed…. Now… this pissed off our officer….. a Cpt. with a very good reputation with us and HE DIDN’T LIKE BEING LAUGHED AT NOR SHOT AT…. Turns out that that night… HE is the highest ranking officer on the AO….. So he gets on the horn a calls for an airstrike….and the horn is tied to external speakers so everyone is listening to this…. UUUHHHH sir…… its raining…… can’t give you air…… So he calls for artillery……. Uhhhhh sir……… They are all busy… or out of range (Kai Sahn was very busy that night)….. So he literally YELLS into the mike and I might add to no one in particular… “OK….WHO THE HELL OUT THERE CAN DO THIS???” After a very pregnant pause……a very small and faint voice comes on and says “ I can sir” “SO OK DO IT… here is the co-ordinates “ and proceeds to fill them in…..”Fire when ready” “Wilco” says the small voice… Two or three minutes pass….. Small voice says…..”three in the air, correct fire when ready”….. We sit and wait…… and wait….. and wait…. One guy says……”rockets..or jets……. can you hear that….???? Yeah… I hear it… sounds like a wing coming in… hey.!.. did we get all-weather air in here???.. ALRIGHT THEN…OUTSTANDING…… BOOM,BOOM, BOOM…..The concussion waves throw us to the ground, The bunkers collapse… The Chinook leaps into the air and like a ship sinking rolls on its side and slowly crumples to the ground.. The Huey lifts up and sits on top of deus (Have NO IDEA why a truck is on top of a mountain that has no roads!!)) The generators all short out and one starts to busily burn…… Dirt clods beat us to death…. the shitter is gone, the burning stuff went over the other side of the wall first and starts a fire on the side of the mountain….. All the antennas come down…. Noise stops….. Small voice says “ did we hit it???? please advise” Cpt. gets ups brushing a huge amount of dirt off on him and out of his eyes and hair….slowly looks over the edge Brings the night scope to his eyes and look for the little hillocks……. They are gone…. there are now three very large craters were the hillocks used to be….. Only wifts of smoke are coming from the craters….. “ok….. cease fire…. you got them….. good job’’ “HOWEVER *****IT…….. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS” shouting himself hoarse in the process…. Small voice says…. “roger that … cease fire, cease fire, cease fire…… “Thanks for the fire mission Cpt…. USS New Jersey out” We never heard from them again……. Their three rounds had been fired from 36 MILES away…….. Lot of the guys decided then and there that their next tour was to be a gunner on a battleship... ================== Anyone else ever deal with them????? out dap22 Senior Chief Moderator II Posts: 542 (5/17/01 2:02:15 pm) \| Del Re: “The fire mission” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mith......you might say so, in an indirect way. One of the major hinderances of flying in Vietnam was trying to figure out who would get you first...........another aircraft, artillery, naval gunfire, Mr. Chuck, ** weather, or the fickle finger of fate. But getting around, contrary to common belief, was no easy thing, particularly for single ship aircraft such as dustoff. And we'd usually be going to where the action was. It was often difficult to get clearance through artillery fire (lousy radio commo or mission importance etc) and often it would mean that we couldn't take a direct route from point A to point B. Often was the case when any naval gunfire was occurring since we had no freakin idea how to contact the Navy.... so, to answer your question.....yes. And then, in '68 there were the SAM sites that just wouldn't shut down so we could do our jobs.............rat bastids. homer4 Moderator Posts: 607 (5/23/01 10:40:00 pm) \| Del Re: “The fire mission” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always knew that the choppers had to worry about ground fire from Charlie and the Nva and other choppers and aircraft as such Dave...never gave thought to incoming!...That certainly was a major concern huh! Never crossed my mind...Geez. When ever a mission was called for I made a point of letting our unit back at the compound know that we needed them to help coordinate the mission with the Arvn Battery that was our support.Sometimes this aggravated Trung Uy some but he knew that it was best to have "round eyes" knowing our asses were hanging out.He drew some rebuke from Provence for adding traffic to the Net...but piss on em we felt. ...and two hard boiled eggs. -->

11-27-2005, 03:17 PM	#2
Bill V.I.P. Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 130	Re: “The fire mission” I had less than spectacular results from Navy Battleship gunfire. I was flying a Marine Artillery spotter who was adjusting fire onto some Cave entrances on a penninsula in I corps. Took about 10 rounds just to finally hit the rather large penninsula. Finally the rounds got close enough to have maybe scared any folks inside the caves. Was much happier with the typical results from our own artillery in the 101st. Hey maybe the Navy had bad chow or something else going on that day that affected their performance. Go figure. Bill

12-23-2005, 11:04 PM	#3
Hope 69/70 Advanced Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 2,549	Re: “The fire mission” Welcome Bill, From what I have heard the Navy had food that the other services only dreamed about. Guess I had better be careful, Chief will be reading this......lol Hope __________________ WAC - HQ. USARV / G1, Long Binh - Feb 69 - Feb 70

02-26-2010, 09:58 PM	#4
Redhand Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 605	Re: “The fire mission” When I was at C-4 at the mouth of the Cau-Viet river we would all come out and cheer when the Ole' Girl would let loose with her big 16's. The rounds alot of times would go right over our compound. You wouldn't hear the first boom only the whistle going overhead. Then you would listen for the landing and the next boom out to sea. JOY!!! OH JOY!!!!

02-27-2010, 04:40 AM	#5
rooter VMBB Senior Chief Of Staff Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Marty Robbins old hometown, Glendale Arizona--a suburb of Phoenix. Contributor Posts: 9,267	Re: “The fire mission” Dang Red, that's an old posting you dug out...written by one of the best who ever visited with us here....MITHRANDER, WHERE ARE YOU...CALL IN AND REPORT WITH SOME STORIES????? Speaking of the USS NEW JERSEY....I know it's been years ago, but posted somewhere herein is a colored photo of the 'JERSEY firing a broadside at IRAQI shore installation in 91....This former 'JERSEY crewmember gave me a small colored photo that caught the flight of a 16" round leaving the barrel of the gun...about 20 meters in front of the mushrooming flames and smoke, it seemed to hang there in space....I had this photo specialist blow up the small photo to a 16"x20" size that I framed and here on my wall...like I said, somewhere here in the postings is that picture...Chief __________________

05-13-2010, 07:54 PM	#6
Mithrandir Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Durango Colorado, the right knee-pit of Colorado Posts: 822	Re: “The fire mission” Rooter... not quite "back-in-the-saddle-again"... but I am working on it... say hello to all my friends out there..... out... __________________ Esse Quam Vidiri

05-14-2010, 10:18 AM	#7
rooter VMBB Senior Chief Of Staff Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Marty Robbins old hometown, Glendale Arizona--a suburb of Phoenix. Contributor Posts: 9,267	Re: “The fire mission” Mith, like the hair-lipped boy might say, "MITH, WE'VE MITHED YA"!!!!! Hell, don't bother the saddle...do it bare-backed and jump on here and spin us some stories...I fear the troops are getting damned tired of my constant appearances...I've even had to resort to telling those half truths like the politicans do. Haven't heard from HOPE in the longest time and the same with GUNNER USMC....BERTO has been in puny health...every so often we have a new name and handle to deal with and greet on board. Take care of yourself....Chief __________________

12-08-2011, 07:29 PM	#8
whymememe Former Guest Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: FEMA Region IV Contributor Posts: 1,445	Re: “The fire mission” I'm beginning to like this reading. I have always heard that Naval Gunnery was the most accurate available. I'm a big fan.