@hamish971 I have been talking to the Colonel & others ,they have just been approved to do the following as a small "official "part of Honoring Capt Ron,first time it has ever been allowed -
The UDT-SEAL association are going to perform a ‘swim out’ ceremony in Ft Pierce, Florida from the the UDT-SEAL museum, where the first Underwater Demolition Teams Frogmen (UDT)were trained & the Navy SEAL Teams grew from . Navy SEAL legend Fred Fritsch is going to swim out from the beach and cast Capt Ron’s ashes under full military honors.
It is amazing how many hoops they have to jump through even over 50 years later due to the secret missions Capt Ron completed on the Nuclear Submarines & the early "Red Cell" type of security missions .
@hamish971 I have a lot of rare photos & Video etc from the battle fields in Nam & "The Spike Teams" ,"Over The Fence"operations from the early days of The Phoenix Program etc ,etc showing the wide variety of field modified weaponry they used,everything from ,but will not post anything l am not given the OK for it & after l work out how to hide faces etc ,in those pictures that need it,also the real story of a lot of the Op's right up till fairly recent that the public is either fed straight BS or never hear of & a lot that is not IMO to be proud of particularly among the new breed Celebri-seals.who have been making headlines of late .If they are of interest let us know & l will see what l can do .
I always found it interesting how back in the early days & right up to recent conflicts ,weaponry & equipment is shared among the various elite Special Forces without REMF interfering,makes you wonder what is being flown/shipped at any time. For instance the SEALs were given by the SAS (all very unofficially) some of the Original pommy versions of the Hush Puppy ,suppressed 9mm pistols for assassination & ambush Op's & one Capt Ron used had been used to kill a very high ranking SS, Nazi in.
He told how although they were big & unwieldy,after they made some modifications to the suppressor system , (all while on these floating barge "Heli port / airports" they used in Nam as bases, as they were so far away from any real support bases).They operated almost entirely at night, start of OP's landing at river bank start point at 10Pm pick up at 4AM, all going well ,transported out by Brown Water Navy in low profile ,heavily armed,specially modified, jet boats & if in heavy contact the Seawolves would be scrambled for dust off etc .They would test these original Hush Puppy & later versions before going out on missions by walking up to their posted sentries or small groups talking in the inky blackness & fire them behind their backs into the water & after these modifications they were never detected, even at those close quarters .
Once again Capt Ron was involved in Suppressed weapons that suited the SEALs more & the birth of the Mk 22 Hushpuppy based off the Smith and Wesson M39, a 9mm Semi Auto handgun, the SEALs used along side & with specially developed ammunition, as part of the program for their modified what they nicknamed the "Swedish K", the 9mm Carl Gustav M/45 submachine gun.They even modified the MK22 pistol grip/magwell to use a 13-round double-stack Browning HP magazine to increase firepower as well as a detachable stock & of course threading the barrel & increasing sight height to allow for the suppressor.
MK22
https://i.imgur.com/l4Ud57N.jpg
SEALs with the unsung hero locals,who working as Combat Interpreters,point man,they not only gained important intelligence but also saved the SEAL teams many times, as operating so far behind enemy lines warning of enemy movements near by or the SEALs being hunted was extremely important .
In any "official"posed pic like this they are rarely shown carrying the SEAL modified AK's they would use as point man,so if they walked into a ambush or "bumped" NVC on a narrow jungle path , they could gain critical seconds of confusion of the NVC to break/initiate contact.These locals while on point were fearless & had a type of unusual "formal "greeting they would shout out if they bumped the enemy ,that the SEALs immediately knew they were in for a hard time ie so instead of just saying Oh Hello ,they would say something like, Greetings kind sir.
https://i.imgur.com/vvVP4jA.jpg
Posed pic
https://i.imgur.com/UXh0XI3.jpg
Op combined forces
https://imgur.com/e6wM3px
Tiger Stripe & loaded for Bear
https://i.imgur.com/bde1EQ9.jpeg
Hope info/pic's were of interest ,let me know if you want me to dig up info on the Stoner 63 LMG or if you have any other questions
Last edited by bunji; 09-07-2021 at 05:20 PM.
Great photos and info thanks mate. I have heard of ‘silent’ pistols being used and shared between countries from WW2 all the way till now but I’ve never run into those models, thanks. I know members of SOG carried some kind of suppressed .22 pistol to deal with dogs ect as well.
That’s really interesting about the point man having an AK and alerting the team. It seems indigenous team members were invaluable to special operations teams in Vietnam for many reasons.
I’ve spotted that one of my favourite YouTube channels Forgotten Weapons has a lengthy video on the Stoner 63. I’m excited to watch it tonight but any info on how CPT Yeaw contributed to the development specifically would be super interesting if you knew anything further.
Hamish
How about the Browning Stinger.
Designed, built and used by a few US Marines on Iwo Jima in WW2?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygec...rgottenWeapons
Welcome to Sako club.
"I know members of SOG carried some kind of suppressed .22 pistol to deal with dogs etc as well."
@hamish9701 Around a Hunting Camp fire the Colonel told how the early SEALs & MACV-SOG "Spike Teams " used 22 rifles they had modded by accurising,shortening the barrels & suppressing & scoped with a 2X with a German style post & rail reticle .
They used these to Snatch VC "Tax Collectors" who were valued for gathering intelligence to a very high level & sometimes used as double agents .These scumbags were always protected & escorted by well trained NVC ,so as the Colonel explained they would set up a Snatch'em ambush site along a heavy jungle cover ,narrow trail section ,the Tax Collector would normally be placed near the middle of a column of usually 6-8 NVC escorting him on his tax collecting rounds .
The SEALs would mate 4-6 Claymore mines rigged at hip height in the jungle cover, spaced closely together ,they then waited for the column of NVC to enter the kill zone ,the 22 was used by placing the post reticle on the Tax Collectors leg bone, below the knee & shooting him in the knee cap .With no noise it looked like he had fallen after twisting his knee & as he hit the ground the waist high Claymores were set off wiping out the NVC. The NVC guards would be annihilated, with as described by those who used the tactic, the Tax collector looked like a bucket of spaghetti had been dumped on him, he was then safely snatched up & was usually that shocked by being covered in bits of his former guards they would be scared silent ,until they loaded him on a Seawolf chopper to take back to the CIA guys for interrogation. They used what they called the Snatch'em Ambush for years & it was copied by other SF groups around the world.
They always said pigs & Roosters were the worst sentry animals they had to deal with ,as the dogs were always starving & poorly treated, a bit of food thrown to them would see them soon turn sides & wag their tails as they creeped past them , they always said they would have been able to supply a fast food chain with the amount of them they used the Hush Puppy's on .
If you can ,would you post a link to that show on the Stoner 63 as l have never seen a show featuring them ,l do not get on the computer much apart from on sourcing gear for the farm,here & catching up with our girls who live overseas.Thanks
Last edited by bunji; 09-07-2021 at 07:26 PM.
there must be some interesting 12ga weapons around...mate HAD a metal stocked rem 1100 at one stage and sold it...for the 10-30 yard taked about earlier....deadly.
Ive heard tell of a belt fed 12ga that was used on conveys of vehicles it sprayed roadside and stripped any vege cover darn quickly....there is video been around for 5-6 years now of full auto 12ga made for military purpose and the demo of it is mind blowing.
I’m sure there is some mighty funky 12GA contraptions for sure, I wonder how much SF used shotguns during the Vietnam war.. @bunji any stories about them?
Yeah that would do the trick alright, I’ve heard a variation of that where instead of using the .22 they placed a c4 charge just far enough away to stun but not kill the prisoner, the rest would be taken care of my the claymores same as the .22 setup. The bloke who tested it placed various sized charges close to himself till he found what worked, would be one hell of a headache after that!
https://youtu.be/vCNw9Z2Q3T0
https://youtu.be/8LVWNGRjD0g
Here’s two videos, one with background on the system and the other shooting the various types, super cool.
Last edited by hamish9701; 09-07-2021 at 09:57 PM.
@hamish9701 Thanks l had never even heard of him ,he has a video on the Swedish K to which the SEALs rated highly & are great fun to shoot, as like a favorite of mine the Grease Gun ,the Swede K has a easily controllable rate of fire & are sweet to shoot.
@Micky Duck l have shot a Select Fire Auto Remington shotgun, one of the Nam SEALs had in his collection, they are what the 1100 was loosely based off later on .The version the guys used were called the Remington 7188 MK1 & they prefeered them over even the popular bottom ejecting Ithaca, the biggest problem was the shells were based off standard sporting cases & they failed under the hard use initially.The SEALs had the Special Forces Weapons Testing Centers design special rounds with 00 Buck & what they preferred to use on bunkers/mini tunnels hidden under Hooch's was the later XM257 that was a high brass No 4 buck loading , that killed on both ends.
The REMF's still manged to cluster fuck the new development by loading them into bright red duck hunting cases.just what you want when you are fighting that close you have to paint your face green & that with the extra weight /limited ability to carry enough 12G ammo lead to the being passed over by the SEALs. They also tried a 25 flechettes shell ,but the nail as far as wide spread use by the SEALs was already done. The later full Auto shot gun you may be thinking about is the drum fed AA12.
https://i.imgur.com/gWgK3vP.jpg
Last edited by bunji; 09-07-2021 at 10:30 PM.
In the war museum in Canberra you will see Vietnam era SLRs with the barrels shortened and the flash hider sitting just below the gas plug.
The heavy barrel SLR designed for full auto bursts is the L1A2.
The L1A1 would go full auto by putting a ring pull shim under the trigger dear, but that would nullify semi auto function. Standard SLRs used on full auto used to split the stocks.
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