MY GOD!
one dead APC for every 400 RPG rounds fired.....
sounds good, but.....
during tet, in the gia din area of saigon, after a particularly nasty
night engagement, i counted 13 M-113s burned out or immobilized from
from RPG hits.
and that.8 percent casualty rate per hit?
those tracks were full of dead ARVNs, dead ARVNs carpeted the ground around
them, and the ARVN wounded were everywhere....
it was a slaughter. the VC RPGs busted through those tracks like they were
made of toilet paper, and the RPGs, RPDs, and AKs mowed down any survivors.
also, track after track, had bullet holes punched through their "armor" from
12.7 mm HMG hits, as well 12.7mm and 7.62mm bullets stuck into the "armor"
that failed to penetrate.
as you can tell, this made an impression on me, and i was already impressed
with the RPGs performance from being on the business end of ithem as a grunt
too.
> --- DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote:
Uh, I have an innate tendency to disbelieve any and all statistics produced in
Vietnam. For a variety of reasons.
> night engagement, i counted 13 M-113s burned out
And anyone who thinks they can say exactally how many
RPGs were fired to kill those M-113s is straight
guessing, right? I presume the ARVNs and their advisor were a little busy to
sit down and take notes. So if the question got asked, someone took a guess
and that guess got put down as a fact and factored into the calculations.
> also, track after track, had bullet holes punched
M-113 early versions weren't intended to stop anything
past 7.62mm. Couldn't today without applique armor, which the US doesn't use.
john, i am not claiming these stastics as believable at all.
i was goggling my mind at the stupidty of any one believing such a thing and
then putting those numbers in print for all to peruse.....
in the RVN one RPG fired at an M113 that scored a hit-and most did
score its was my observation- meant one blown away M-113.
LOL!
also, for an enemy that seldom had more than RPG in the spout and 5 or 6
reloads per launcher, those numbers are science fiction.
i know there were not 100, or even 50 RPG launchers involved in that
engagement blazing away; actual numbers would be a much more
believable 4-5 launchers, probably less.
> --- DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote: