Ever wonder what it would be like to expend 850 rounds of 7.62 Nato with ONE trigger pull? (M60/mark43)
Go here and watch a lucky bastard having the time of his life.....it took 1 min and 45 seconds to go through that many rounds btw...
When I was with the ---FD (unit withheld for protective reasons), USAR, I was a member of the small arms weapons certification team. It was our responsibility to provide a safe environment for every USAR unit in a three state area to have a safe place to go to requalify with their M16 rifles, .45 sidearms (officers) and the good old Ma Deuce M60 .50 MG. We provided the range, range personell, and ammunition.
As anyone familiar with government depts. may be aware, a dept's. budget for the next year is somewhat affected by what they spent in the current year. If you economize, in what would be a responsible manner for a private concern, you are actually penalized by a drop in the next years budget...in other words, what you don't use, you lose.
Well, it seemed that we were close to the end of the fiscal year, and due to a change in scheduling, our unit found itself with 5,000 rounds of .50 and 1,000 rounds of .223 ammunition that WOULD have been expended if this change had not occurred, and we would most likely be shorted by that amount in the next year, when we actually were looking for an increase in the TOE, due to an extra two units being added to our schedule then....The Major told the Capt. to "handle it", the Capt., being intelligent, asked the Top to look into what could be done to solve the problem. The Top asked the Primary range crew for suggestions....We told him we would solve the problem, just as long as he didn't ask any probing questions ;).
Seems that the very next day, we had an urgent request for a range requal for a unit that nobody had ever heard of...considered to be "hush-hush"; the unit was to be deployed and their Top wanted to make sure his people had the requisite range time to be "legal" on paper.
Upshot of it is, the the primary range crew expended all 6,000 rounds in what was the most enjoyable range experience I have ever had, before they deployed to their favorite adult beverage disbursement establishment.
The unit received a 10% increase in their next fiscal budget.
In march of 1950, Fort Lewis had a surplus of paint and gasoline. They ordered us to paint all the barracks with a 50-50 paint-gasoline kix.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at December 16, 2005 10:29 AM