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I had two old single shot 22s , a Stevens and a Winchester. They both were manufactured in the 1930s. One had a 26 inch barrel, the other a 27. Firing a typical 22lr round, 1100 fps or so ,sounded like firing a pellet gun.

Two of my grandkids are now honing their skills with them.

Sorry, no pics.
 
Much more than a single firearm but wondering how many of you have experience with most of this equipment?

Suspect some of us can identify every piece of equipment in the picture and describe in detail how it's used!


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Put me on the old fart list. It took me a while to realize that Molle was not a woman of legend from the middle eastern theaters. Give me the old web gear any day. ;)
 
Husker88 said:
Put me on the old fart list. It took me a while to realize that Molle was not a woman of legend from the middle eastern theaters. Give me the old web gear any day. ;)
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I had to laugh at your comment on Miss Molle! When I retired we were still using all the gear pictured and it worked. No such thing as a plate carrier back then but did have flak vests but not many folks wore them due to the heat. The one piece of gear worn all the time which is missing from the picture is the bonnie hat. Still have a couple today and wear them when working outside. The thing everyone liked about the old web gear was it's adaptabiity. For example, mags were always carried in canteen pouches. Back in the good old days!

Regards
 
I kept as much of my old stuff as I could get away with, but since discharge it's either fallen apart from age or was stolen along the way.

Flak vests. The few I ever saw were on door gunners on some of the chopper units, or "requisitioned" by officers. Imagine.
 
The only thing that I’ve ever used from that picture is a folding entrenching tool. Well it should be in that picture.

I only became draftable the same year the draft ended. 1973?
 
Husker88 said:
I kept as much of my old stuff as I could get away with, but since discharge it's either fallen apart from age or was stolen along the way.

Flak vests. The few I ever saw were on door gunners on some of the chopper units, or "requisitioned" by officers. Imagine.
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Had a friend who was a Huey gunship pilot in Vietnam and when they flew they sat on their flak vests because all the small arms fire they took from the ground. You are right in that many of the door gunners wore flak vests.
 
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The attached picture shows most of the brands that were packed in the C-ration meals. Brands did vary from year to year and you had no idea what you were getting with each meal. Typically there were 4 or 5 cigarettes per pack. These became prime trading material for both those who didn't smoke or ones who wanted a specific brand. I also attached a picture of the matches. I think I still have a package or two of matches.

After Vietnam and when the military went to the original style MRE they did away with giving cigarettes. But cases of Vietnam era C-rations could still be had and were sought after. Funny -- the original MREs, which came out in early 80s, were so bad that the troops renamed them - Meals Rejected by Ethoniopans!

Everyone opened their C-ration meal box and starting trading all the contents. Some of the meals were great but no one liked the "Ham and Lima Beans" which were remamed "Ham & Grenades". You couldn't give them away.

The other thing that most Vietnam era folks still have today on their key ring is a P-38 can opener which was used for a multitude of tasks beyond opening cans. Was the multitool of the era.

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CaddmannQ said:
What? No condoms?
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Condoms had lots of uses in Vietnam. If tape wasn't available a condom was used to cover the muzzle of a M-16 or shotgun to keep out debris and water. They were also used to store things like fuses, lights, matches, etc which needed to be kept dry so they would function when needed. Also used by air crews in their bailout survival packs as water containers since they couldn't carry a canteen.

Field expedient uses. Back in the Vietnam era no one had all the specialized gear that the troops have today. There are articles and books detailing all the "in field" things that were used by both the ground troops and air crews.
 
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Many years ago I read the Vietnam era Army Expedient Fieldmanual. Some pretty interesting information on how to deal with a broken truck.
 
Individual packages were wrapped outside in cellophane with a little gold pull tab to open and when you opened a package there was a foil wrapper inside. The majority of the packs had four cigarettes. Can't remember but seems like one or two brands of unfiltered ones had five in a pack.

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The other big barter item was beer. Think PBR for a while became the national beer of the Vietnam War. There were other American brands plus a local beer named "33".

Cost of beer back then was around 15 cents a can but barter was how much of the beer was obtained.
 
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