I’ve known a lot of families whose sons/brothers were door gunners that didn’t come back. It was apparently one of the most dangerous jobs in Vietnam. Thanks for coming back, and condolences on your comrades who didn’t.
That’s easy to say, but if .303 slugs are zipping all around, you’re going to be rather strongly inclined to hit the dirt. Humans are humans.
War is not so much about accurate fire as it is about generally accurate volume of fire.
My best friend’s Dad flew Hueys on two tours in Vietnam, and was wounded by ground fire, and he says he felt rather safe, all things considered. The Huey was an amazing aircraft and could survive a lot before it went down. The great, great overwhelming majority of missions went fine.
Also, another vote for “Chickenhawk.” It’s not the most literary book but it’s a very raw, honest account.
While I was doing my *hang out with the Army *thing for the USAF we had USAF UH-1N helo gunships equipped with the 7.62 miniguns. Their mission was armed escort and fairly wimpy CAS, essentially the same as Viet Nam era Army Hueys. The guns were manned by door gunners and completely manually aimed.
I rode on any number of live-fire training missions. They’d operate in pairs such that one or the other helo was putting fire on the target almost continuously. They’d shoot a couple seconds, wait a couple seconds, shoot again, repeat. Done properly, as each gunship flew out of position, the other was just getting into position to keep the fire up.
They’d aim at a fixed target about the size of a delivery truck. With an experienced gunner, most rounds landed in or near the truck. If the truck was unarmored, at least some occupants would be dead or dying after the first burst, much less the fourth.
So in that sense, given a clearly visible stationary target, they were pretty accurate. And pretty effective at neutralizing or destroying it.
OTOH, there we were suspended a couple hundred feet above the ground doing a mere 90-ish mph. Any spot on the ground within a half mile in any direction might have a gunner who could shoot back. With two guns we could shoot at two enemy positions. But a circle a mile across could conceivably contain hundreds or even thousands of enemy gun positions.
So the gunships could be militarily effective, but only in situations where they were up against small clusters of bad guys, not massed formations.
Let’s not confuse the Gunships with the Slicks, m’kay?
When I read “door gunners”, I think of the crew chief and the gunner on either side of a UH-1D “Slick”. Slicks were for transporting soldiers, not for attack, and the guns were supposed to be for defense only. In the UH-1B and AH-1 gunships, the gunners (the guy who controlled the chin turret) were in the right or front seat respectively, and the pilot (in the back or left seat, respectively) controlled the attitude of the chopper for firing the side mounted guns or rockets. The gunships were for anti-armor, close in support, and prepping an LZ. Though I guess the B model Hueys had a chief and gunner in the doors in back too.
But my experience was in the 70s and is probably outdated.
Right. The purpose of suppressive fire isn’t to directly kill anyone, but to restrict their movement so that other soldiers (e.g. riflemen and snipers) can get in and do their thing. If an enemy pops their head up and gets hit by the suppressive fire, that’s a bonus, of course, but not the primary objective. Thus, judging machine gunners by hit accuracy is more or less missing the point of machine gunners.
The original question was about “door gunners”. The aircraft I was describing were Hueys, NOT Cobras. And the guns were free-traversing side-firing manually controlled 7.62 miniguns operated by enlisted gunners hanging out the sliding side doors of said Hueys.
Admittedly this was the mid 1980s, so not Viet Nam. But the equipment was pretty obsolescent then, and not much improved, if at all, over that used at the trailing edge of the Viet Nam conflict.
I have no experience but they certainly seem like they’d be effective at not only suppressive fire but even accurate fire at an exposed target. If you’ve ever been on a helicopter, as it enters the LZ, it’ll be maybe 50 feet high and going 25 mph and slowing. Seems like a good vantage point for a machine gunner.
As far as suppressive fire, Hueys would usually land in groups. If you have a dozen Hueys landing with 12 machine guns raking the tree line on each side, well, if I were a VC, I’d want to make sure my life insurance premium was paid up.
You also had the Loach, a small helicopter with a pilot and a guy with an M60 on his lap. Their job was to scout by flying low and hoping to be shot at. If they only ran into a few bad guys, they’d hopefully take them out then continue scouting, else they’d call for backup. My point being, they’d fly at treetop altitude and shoot people with M60s quite effectively. What they were doing was not entirely dissimilar than a Huey door gunner coming into an LZ at treetop level with an M60.
Shooting up or down at a hard angle is a tough thing unless you are trained for it. Door gunners were trained for it; Mr. Charles was not. So while cruising or at elevation the door gunner has the advantage.
As the chopper would be approaching or leaving the LZ, not so much. We’re closer to the same plain and Charles has a clear target. And he doesn’t have to hit the gunner to be effective/win – just the chopper. So there I would say he gets the advantage.
I don’t know for a fact that this is a true story, but the fact is that this story went around.
Background True Info: M60 machine guns needed a “loader” to help feed the belt into the gun. Which worked fine on the ground, but wasn’t possible when you’ve got one mounted on a Huey. So, the gunners would attach a c-ration can to the side of the “pig” to help the belt feed properly. It wasn’t major surgery, all they needed was some baling wire and a pair of lineman’s pliers.
The story is that a gunner was working on the c-rat can on his M-60 when a “journalist” approached him and asked if he could ask him a question. The gunner said sure and the journalist asked him “Is it difficult for you to shoot innocent women and children?” The gunner, who was finishing up with the can, stood in the chopper, wrestled the M-60 around for a few seconds, and then answered “Naw. You just don’t lead them as much.”
As Carl mentions below the Cobra in Viet Nam had a minigun (or 2) in the nose turret. The 20mm came later when the Cobra was modernized for Cold War anti-tank tactics. Although it is similar to the Vulcan the Cobra was equipped with a M197 20mm Automatic Gun. Basically a Vulcan with 3 barrels instead of 6.
The Cobras with the M197 20mm gun carried 700 rounds.
The Cobras with the 7.62mm minigun carried 4,000 rounds.
I was in an active duty unit with modernized Cobras and a Guard unit with museum piece old Cobras.
It’s from the movie Full Metal Jacket
No. It was standard USAF lore in the 70s, if not sooner. And per Ranger Jeff, apparently US Army lore in the 70s as well.
In the USAF version the question was asked of F-100 jocks how they could strafe women & children. The laconic answer: “Easy; you just don’t lead 'em as much.”
FMJ took it from the military, not vice versa.
The “lead 'em less” line is from Dispatches, by Michael Heller, who was a war correspondent in Vietnam, so ostensibly true. Heller wrote some of the dialogue in FMJ, and if you know the book he basically just cribbed a lot from himself.
It was a common joke during the war. I’ve read books by veterans where it was said as a joke among their buddies. Of course, they didn’t write the books until years later and even if their memory was accurate, it still might have started with Heller then became common.
It’s actually Michael Herr, not Heller. Memories.
You’re right fubaya, it might have been a common joke that Herr mistakenly thought was an original thought, or perhaps it’s clear in the book that the gunner meant it as a joke and I missed the context. Don’t have the book any more to check.
This article:
This Secret USCG Program Saw Exotic Armed Choppers Take On Fast Boats
suggests that CG personnel could hit the engine of a smuggler’s speedboat from a helicopter using a 50 cal sniper rifle. Perhaps door gunner fire might have been more accurate than we assume? Though I’m sure it was mainly intended as suppressive fire.
The smugglers weren’t shooting back—all of the videos I’ve seen of that sort of thing were nighttime intercepts from some distance away. AIUI, they were far enough away that the bad guys would be unlikely to get effective fire with handheld small arms onto the helicopter, but close enough for the .50 to have a short time of flight. With a laser rangefinder, knowing the exact range would be fairly easy. The Seahawk or Dolphin helicopter matched speed as best as possible with the boat, on a parallel course, so all the shooter had to contend with the large crosswind from their travel. Presumably, they’d practiced similar shots before, so they knew how to account for downdraft and the downward angle of the shot. Fire a shot into the engine area, have your spotter give a correction, and continue until the speedboat’s tuned racing engines and coolers get tired of having holes poked in them. The more I think it out, it doesn’t sound very difficult.
Google, ‘Texas DPS Helicopter shooting’ for what happens when you don’t take care to set up the shot, and instead start blasting away. Not to mention tires are a lot smaller than a Cigarette boat’s engine compartment, and the shot cone to hit tires is going to come a lot closer to the passenger compartment than a shot on the boat engine. Of course, the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing. Just disgusting. Sadly, I think I’m one of the few people in Texas that thinks so.
Not to mention the human beings who suffered the same fate on the other end of the gun.
Those on the other end of the bullet might not feel so complimentary.
Firing a .50 cal Barrett from a Dolphin? I’d recommend a Ma Deuce.
It is called war.
It is not very pleasant on either side.
Ask me how I know. :smack: