Were you a 60 gunner bro?......
I pulled every duty from AB, AG, gunner, and Weapons Squad Leader, but spent most of my time in the line. When we had 60's, every gun team had their own set of spare parts on hand for THEIR gun. Pistons, feeder pawls, extractors etc... It was the ONLY way to keep those pieces of shit up and running.
We had FN MAG-58's as well, and they fired twice as fast, three times as long without stoppages, and could suck up a fabric bandolier and spit it out without stoppage, but "big Army" wouldn't let us use them for anything other than special missions due to "political" reasons...ie $.
Eventually somebody pulled their head out of their ass and hooked us up with what became the M240B back in 93', which eventually became the Infantry standard.
The infantry in Vietnam was primarily used as bait. Sent into the jungle to find the enemy, make contact, hold them in place, & bring the Artillery & Aircraft to kill them. Most of the US casualties in Vietnam came from booby traps & walking into ambushes. The enemy chose when & where to fight most of the time...hell of a way to spend a year in the jungle....
That's another sore spot.
They sent most of those boys in the bush with only TWO fucking belt fed weapons per rifle platoon, which is criminal IMO. High explosive is THE number one killer, followed by belt fed weapons. Rifles are "meh" at best, and complete shit when used in any kind of sustained / automatic fire role.
To this day, the U.S. Army is STILL sending dudes into the fight under-gunned, and under-trained, when it comes to belt fed weapons. We're just fortunate enough to have been fighting retards that don't know shit either.
