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Pictures of yourself in the field/posing


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The French had MAT49s of their own design and manufacture. The US gave the Republic of South Vietnam M1A1 Thompsons left over from World War II when we phased it out completely for the M3A1 Grease Gun. Because of a period of time when the M16s started failing horribly, many people traded their M16s or found ways to grab other weapons, such as South Vietnamese Thompsons. SF Forces had more leeway with getting and obtaining weaponry than regular grunts, but with Vietnam, people managed to sneak in and carry many different weapons. A Vietnam veteran once told me he preferred the Sten over the MP40. Don't ask me how those got there. ;)

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Because of a period of time when the M16s started failing horribly, many people traded their M16s or found ways to grab other weapons, such as South Vietnamese Thompsons. SF Forces had more leeway with getting and obtaining weaponry than regular grunts, but with Vietnam, people managed to sneak in and carry many different weapons. A Vietnam veteran once told me he preferred the Sten over the MP40. Don't ask me how those got there.  ;)

 

While I'm not one to argue with a 'Nam vet, a very common misconception is that American soldiers used many different weapons. I have looked at literally thousands of pictures of servicemen in Vietnam and have talked with many Vietnam veterans and have found little to no actual evidence of different weapons being used outside of M14 and M16's (among regular infantry, SEALS and other "elite" forces... well not that many photos of them in the field exist). I personally believe there are two reasons for this: 1) different firearms make different sounds and in the heat of battle, if you've got a different sounding gun, you don't want to risk getting shot by your own men; 2) logistics... if you're a lowly Pfc. who's issued his ammo every three days by a Huey in the middle of a jungle you don't want to have to worry about getting .45 cal ammo for a Thompson, much less 9mm ammo for a MP40.

 

But since this is airsoft a Thompson isn't a problem.

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I was under the impression some SF units used the Thompson at their own discression in 'Nam. Can anyone else confirm that?

 

 

My father served in vietnam from 1965-1968, for most of his time he carried a Thompson sub machine gun, he served as a body guard for a colonel at the base he was stationed at in country, and a lieutenant that he was friends with gave it to him, where the lieutenant got it from, he doesn't know.

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Tmas, depends on the era and the unit as well. There was a period of time when the M16s were ridiculously unreliable and this was when different weapons were obtained. The sound issue was usually confined to the AK, where if you heard it, you fired at the direction it came from. Logistics is also another problem which is why it wasn't too common, yet not completely rare. Also, a lot of helicopter crews preferred different weapons, probably because of the issues with logistics that didn't apply. From what I understand, most units however were rarely cut off for a long period of time without resupply in Vietnam. The helicopters made mobility and resupply much easier and three days in the middle of the jungle is a bit of a stretch.

 

I think you interpretted the phrase 'many different weapons' to mean that many people carried different weapons whereas I meant there was a great variety of odd weapons that were found.

 

Another problem with photographs, is that while Vietnam was the first war in which a lot of visual media was presented, there is still a large amount that was never photographed or filmed. There are pictures out there of these occurences and quite a few testimonies describing what other weapons were obtained.

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