As an Army Ranger who spent three tours of duty in RVN, I think your Father is feeding you a lot of imagination/wishful thinking...
By the way, what is a CT?

1. the military had a lot of trouble the first few years of issue in RVN with getting 30-round M16 mags to feed consistently.
2. armories are 99% replacement centers, at Division Level. Soldiers did not just "drop by" and have custom items turned out. The machinery to do so was not in-country then, nor is it in Iraq/Afghanistan today.
3. he would not have been carrying an AK-47. We had special permission coming from Division Level to carry enemy weapons.
The odds of him being able to shoulder a ruck with a thousand rounds, let alone pack it? It's easier to win the lottery.
4. we were required to carry 300 rounds of ammunition for the weapon we carried. That is a load in 130 degree/99% humidity weather for ten to twelve hours; day after day. Ranger Teams were out for three days max. An Infantry company would typically be out for eighty day stretches.

If he were actually what he says he was these days, ask him to show you his CIB* or tell you what his MOS was. Do not tell him what the letters stand for, just ask.

ISS

*the CIB stands for Combat Infantryman's Badge. It is awarded only to those with an 11-prefix MOS. That stands for Military Occupational Specialty. The 11-prefix is the combat arms field. 11B20 is basic combat infantry. The 11F20 is is Rangers/Special Forces. 11B/F2P is paratrooper (jump) qualified. When you make sargeant it changes to 11F4P.

I would guess your Father has just embellished the past a little from time to time, and is now trapped in that enhanced version of his service. Don't be too hard on him. He served when his country called, and that is the important part.

 

As an Army Ranger who spent three tours of duty in RVN, I think your Father is feeding you a lot of imagination/wishful thinking...
By the way, what is a CT?

1. the military had a lot of trouble the first few years of issue in RVN with getting 30-round M16 mags to feed consistently.
2. armories are 99% replacement centers. Soldiers did not just "drop by" and have custom items turned out. The machinery to do so was not in-country then, nor is it in Iraq/Afghanistan today.
3. he would not have been carrying an AK-47. We had special permission coming from Division level to carry enemy weapons.
the odds of him being able to shoulder a ruck with a thousand rounds, let alone pack it? It's easier to win the lottery.

CT's were as recall "Communications technicians" . They were Naval Intelligence. From what hes let on, it was usually him, or another CT, and a team composed of a dozen ROK's (republic of korea) designate to safeguard them. The seals were just coming into their own at the time and it seems CT's with support from other combat units did the same types of tasks.

He says their job was to gather data on enemy force deployment and general assets.

Sounds reasonable, I just doubt his combat experience. I do know he was blown out of a tower (I have slides from when they blew up one of our ammo dumps) and has suffered ridiculous back injury ever since.

I dont doubt he was a CT but I just don't think he saw much fighting. He definitely knows the horrors of it..and I just think he didin't care much for it. and he just sugar coats things for my benefit. I know more about weapons and ballistics than he does and I have a few weeks at the range and 4 years of google.

He definitely has knowledge of threat assessment , movement and navigation and general prudency as ive quizzed him...so I just kind of take his word for everything.

 

Standard combat load is usually 7 mags with the 8th in the weapon. Really depends on the mission, what is the standard in the company, and so on. I've seen a people carry two and I've seen others with seven and a bob full of more ammo.

Of course the amount of ammo a gunner carries and or stores is a completely different story on it's own.

 

I typically carried 16 x 30rd magazines for my primary rifle, and an additional 400rds on stripper clips in bandoleers. Ruck load was around 150lbs. that's not including anything attached to my LBV/LBE ie buttpack.

During one operation i went in with 3000rds of primary ammo. although the ruck load was not an issue we didnt go in with one.

 

3000 rounds? Come one now, that's the equivalent of 100 magazines, which would be about 90 pounds of ammo and magazines alone.

When I was on active duty (peace time), the standard load for a Marine rifleman was 7 mags, although most of us planned to carry 10 in combat.

As a reservist in a different branch, I was a part of SOCOM, and went out many times with Army SF. In Iraq on presence patrols and raids, I carried one mag (of the heavier Black Hills) in my M4A1, 6 regular (4 M855 and 2 of the newer Black Hills, not enough BH for all), one tracer, and rigged a velcro pouch to carry a 20 rounder on my helmet as a counter weight/ balance for my NODS. Each mag was loaded 2 under capacity, because I found it was much easier to seat when the bolt was forward than a full mag was.

I carried one mag in my pistol, two on my plate carrier (vest) and one in a pouch on my knife sheath, which was attached to my belt. The SF soldiers were similarly armed, or rather, they made sure we were armed in a fashion similar to them . We were almost always close to or in vehicles, which had a lot more ammo. I personally loaded the extras into mags, which I then placed in the bandoliers that the clips came in. I also carried two M67 frags.

Each of us carried (or had in the vehicle) a pack with at least 6 rifle and two pistol mags. I added a red smoke, 2 flash bangs, MBITR radio battery, AA batts for my GPS, NOD, and EOTech, water bottle and Hooah bar.

I know for a fact there were members of one high-speed unit that dropped down to one in their M4 and only 3 extra mags, with many of them not carrying pistols in order to save weight. I think that was going too far.

 

Not everyone in the military becomes involved in the in and out workings of weapon systems.

And there really is no typical load out for a special Operations soldier. It depends on unit type and mission objectives as well as many other factors.

When you state Special Forces you are talking about the "Green Berets" like 5th or 10th group. Their mission is very different from say Navy Seals, Rangers, Marine Force Recon and others. Which are all part of SOCOM (Special Operations Command).

 

Not everyone in the military becomes involved in the in and out workings of weapon systems.

True...but it seems those who wish to survive in and excel in their environment would learn the ins and outs of what they are associated with. To better their efficiency and efficacy. Or maybe im deluding myself as that is just my mindset. Im a pragmatist to the core.

 

if you include vest ammo helmet pack and weapon water your pushing close to 100lbs+ of gear
that said most of the special forces guys i have worked with had a similar load to us just had more flexibility in what they wanted to play with that day but what the load is is mission specific for both infantry and sf and how many mags you take is 7+1 in weapon if you want to carry more its your perogitive no one will say you cant have ten mags as long as you dont bitch out and ask people to carry your extra crap

I would say that sf in actuality probbably carries less than reg infantry as they have acces to assets the reg guys dont they can get gear airdropped to them if needed where as reg guys dont get that much special treatment but from my experience in iraq our rigs were set up very similarly the brand of gear might be a little different but similar nonetheless

 

A thousand rounds of ammo is about a case of ammo. That would equal to about 33 or 34 magazines which is too many to carry for the individual person on patrol. This would be especially true for guys lugging an AK-47 rifle around unless he was only carrying ammo and nothing else for like an emergency re-supply which did happen on occasions. It would be like you coming under attack, running low on ammo and a team gets dispatched to re-enforce your group with people and ammo. Then some guys might be assigned to carry in a case of ammo or other emergency supplies. So I can see where carrying a thousand rounds of ammo could be possible in some events but not as a standard or normal patrol event.

In Viet Nam the average rifleman on patrol carried about 20 or so magazines for their M-16 rifles. Each of those magazines held 18 rounds in them. So that meant that most riflemen had about 360 bullets or so to use when trouble struck. When SF teams moved out they carried about the same load. Both SF teams and line infantry groups would get re-supplied by helicopter when out in the field. Line infantry groups would get a basic re-supply that would generally last for a week. SF would get their re-supply dropped at a field location/friendly village which was supposed to last about a month. SF would augment their food resources with stuff that they locally purchased or could find. SF pretty much lived off of the land when possible which often meant eating locally provided/grown food.

In one airborne line unit I was in, all of our M-16 riflemen would each have the 20 magazine capacity as their basic load. In addition to the basic load when the guys were inside of the perimeter that we would work out of, stationed around the perimeter were extra magazines that were kept loaded for times when we got probed or hit by the enemy. So basically in the perimeter a rifleman would have 20 mags on him with like another 20 or so magazines stashed in a fighting position.

As to using enemy weapons, in most line units such weapon usage was often discouraged. But once a guy got to the field, rules went out the window. In the unit I was with we sometimes had people who DID carry AK-47s instead of American issued M-16 rifles. And, sometimes in field perimeter locations, a group or platoon of soldiers "might stockpile extra weapons" to use when attacked at. These extra weapons were ones that we confiscated or took from enemy soldiers that we killed or captured. In one location where I was at, we had one of the enemy's belt-fed 7.62 caliber machineguns that we used to augment our own M-60 machineguns. So you never knew exactly what you would find depending on how things were run out in a field location. And we also had a Vietnamese colonel who worked with our troops that loved to carry an AK-47 for his field rifle. That led to some of our guys also carrying AK-47s too. But these guys were also our pointmen and/or slackmen who wanted to use the sound of the AK-47 rifles to confuse the enemy if or when we made contact with them on patrol. A pointman was the leading man on a patrol who looked for boobytraps and ambushes. While the pointman concentrated on the ground, the slackman would watch out in front of the pointman for possible enemy troops suddenly popping up. Both of these particular spots were specialty spots generally covered by two guys who were dependent on each other like brothers. In other words, these two guys were a highly specialized team who did nothing but cover for each other.

When I wasn't on patrol and was back at my field location, at my assigned fighting position I would keep a wooden ammo box loaded with extra stuff for me to use if or when we got probed. In that box was an extra C-ration meal for me to have if things became prolonged. I had some extra toilet paper in the box, some extra grenades and some pre-loaded rifle magazines for my rifle. In addition, I also kept an old M-1 grease gun with a couple of extra pre-loaded magazines for it just in case things got real close and I wanted real .45 caliber knock down power. Another guy in a different fighting position did keep an AK-47 with extra magazines at his defensive position which he was prepared to use if things got bad. I can also remember another guy who had scrounged an old BAR with a few extra magazines which he kept at his defensive fighting position. The idea for the extra weapons was that it was easier to grab a pre-loaded, pre-positioned rifle than it was to reload in some emergencies.

 

I always carried 6 mags on me and kept a BOB in the truck that had an additional combat load in it. Since we was mounted the entire time i also threw in an extra can of ammo just in case. I was in the turret behind the MK19 or M2 so i tried to keep as much stuff off of my vest as i could reasonably do so. I also had the 203 and had to carry that load aswell.


-Nate

 

I am not and was not SF but typical infantry combat load was 210 rds of 5.56; 6 mags plus one in the weapon assuming you are a rifleman. When I was an m60 gunner I had aspirations to carry 1,000 rds of 7.62 ammo on me and I found out one person carrying that much ammo was ridiculous. Disintegrating link belts of 7.62 NATO weighed approximately 6.5 lbs (I think from FM 23-67). 1,000 rds would weigh 65lbs.

Do you like to drink water? You have to hump it in and at approx 8lbs per gallon it got heavy quickly.Like to have sleep gear and some extra socks and tshirts for a long mission? You like batteries for your coms? Wanna eat? All that stuff adds up.

Yes we had many 100+ lb rucksacks on short missions but turning your ankle and wearing yourself out before you got close to your patrol base was not ideal.

Returning to your question, I felt comfortable with carrying 4 magpouches which held 3 mags each. This was with the old LCE's and I do not know how feasible it is with the new load bearing vests etc.

Former 11B3P

 

As stated before, loads were always mission-specific. normally, 10-12 twenty round clips were standard, if i remember correctly. Understand this however, we are prepping for SHTF conditions, not deep insertion. Knowledge of weapons and tactics is very beneficial, but equally important is knowing basic first aid, commo and gardening.
Get past the "sexiness" of Special Operation units and focus on what emergencies can occur and how to effectively deal with those emergencies and you will be better off. If SHTF there will be no Huey on hand for extraction or resupply. You'd be better off emulating Jerimiah Johnson than John Rambo. just my $0.02 :thumb:

 

JJ/Rambo



Yep,
To paraphrase Comanche Snipers Dad, "Experience is the best teacher for those not smart enough to figure it out in the first place".Staying out of a fight and only fighting when it is absolutely critical is the only way to increase your odds of survival. That is the one thing, that drives me nuts anytime the discussion of how to deal with Raiders/MZB comes up.Most on here, want to take them on with "Small Arms" only, It will not end well for them.And I can't say what I want to on the forum because of restriction and "BIG" brother watching.But you are right ,without food(Gardening Skills),ability to remain Healthy(First Aid), Survival Shelter,and the ability to have safe water, ALL the WEAPONS will be left for the ones smart enough to figure it out. Sorta like when Jerimiah found the .50 cal frozen to the body of the Trapper killed by the BEAR.:

No white Flags Above My Door
Daveeds

 

Your father served, that demands respect alone. I was lucky, joined in 69 and was assigned as a Radioman in the Navy. Discharged in 77 and was never involved in any combat. at times I feel guilty for not being in combat but I guess support jobs were needed too.

Again, my hat's off to those that served then and now.

 

My typical load out was:

6 - mags 5.56 (+ 1 in well)
3 - mags 9mm (+ 1 in well)

I also carried a few spare mags in my ruck usually 10 mags total 5.56. Even being LRS-D we were never tooo far from QRF. I needed more room for water, 3-4 days sleeping on the Tigres dictates what you need. Most times it was water> more ammo.

Dont be too rough on your Pops. I sat down the other night with a bunch of guys from my unit. It was pretty funny how each of us have distinct memories and some of them dont match up. Oh and that was only 5 or so years ago....

 

3000rds of 5.56x45mm loaded into 30rd mags weighs in right at 100lbs, a little less in ammo cans. But yes one hell of a load. only ever did that once and never really want to have to do it again. Still less then my long haul ruck at the time but real damn difficult to move fast when you cant ditch the load to fight. Thankfully didn't have to get far to drop it off.

101st

 

6+1 for me with the 7th I'D, back in The 80s. I do not remember that changing when the post went lite inf.
Recon3

 

I know everyone here is talking about ammo, but lets not forget everything else. every time i have worked with SF, they have been very careful to dissiminate mission critical equipment. That means everyone carries a few mortar rounds, a belt of whatever crew served weapon their team has, radio batteries, regular load of ammo, someone has the satcom, extra antenna, individual equipment and someone mentioned water, and everything else. I had the "priviledge" of carrying one of the packs when one was not available to do so. It was about 190lbs. its regular practice to ruck up on the ground and get help to your feet.

its also not like movies, when donning that kind of equipment, there is no moving fast. its very calculated and careful, knees and ankles blow out easily with that kind of weight.

 

its also not like movies, when donning that kind of equipment, there is no moving fast. its very calculated and careful, knees and ankles blow out easily with that kind of weight.

I will second that. plenty of hurt ankles from rushing and had a cpl damage his knee and had to limp his last five miles with a locked up knee. Gotta be careful when hiking. Thankfully this wasn't in country. If it had the scenario could have been worse.

 

So very true Macguyver.

I didn't get into a full list, just my usual ammo load for primary weapon and then one extreme instance of an ammo load. the list can go on from what you listed as well. Frag grenades, Smoke grenades, Claymore, Law rocket / AT4, Laser designator, MRE's, First aid, Snivel gear (dependent on Enviro), LZ/DZ marking devices and it can go on.

You are not a light infantry man at this point, knees, ankles and back can pay a high price. Moving fast is a shuffle, if anything more then that is needed it's drop the gear and go because something went wrong.

 

Very interesting discussion.

Thanks to OP for bringing up, thanks to all those for sharing, and for your duty to our country.

 

Also keep in mind that different units worked in different ways. The airborne and SF would set up in field positions and work out of those areas. That meant that they generally did not hump with their mortars. The mortars stayed in the field location and would give support fire from that position. With units like the 4 Infantry Division in Nam, they were always going on sweeps that lasted from 4 to 6 weeks along the border. After they had done their sweep they would stand down for a few weeks in the rear at An Khe (Camp Radcliffe) for like 2 weeks. When the 4th did their sweeps they carried their mortars and mortar ammo with them which did create awful heavy rucksacks for those guys.

Also keep in mind that the mission designated what your teams/squads/platoons and units would or would not use. On LRRP missions the biggest piece of firepower that we carried was often the M-203 grenade launcher. No mortars. The idea for a LRRP mission was get in, gather info and get out. Most missions were short termed, like about 4 days in length. So when on LRRP missions you traveled light. Same thing for an ambush mission. Except on an ambush mission you would carry extra Claymore mines.

Guys in the armored or mech units had everything mounted on top or inside of their vehicles and they always carried more stuff. The 1st Air Cavalry was reported to have had units throw their rucksacks on helicopters in the morning, start off on patrols and then have the helicopters drop off their rucksacks in the evenings. So different units did things in a variety of ways which always drove the enemy nuts because they didn't know what to expect from our guys.

I was in 3 different units in Viet Nam. In one unit we pretty much stayed inside of a perimeter with our heavy mortars and worked there. In another unit, we prowled around and lived out of rucksacks while on recon missions. In the third unit, we had a perimeter but we used the LBE and butt pack for the prowling that we did as airborne line infantry. It was an interesting way to live.

 

My step dad had some pictures from when he was in Vietnam. One of the pics is of him getting ready to go out(when asked about the picture he gives 2 answers as to what he is about to do, either patrol or ambush are the answers he always gave). In that pic he has an m-16 with one magazine and two seven pocket bandoliers loaded with 20 round magazines instead of ammo on stripper clips. So for him in that picture he had 15 twenty round magazines, 15x18=270, I don't know if he had more ammo or magazines anywhere so I can just tell you how much could be seen in the picture.

ymmv

 

6+1 for m 16
2+1 for 9mm
thats what we carried in iraq, but it also varied according to the mission

 

Back in the day, 83-87, whilst attached to 1st SOCOM at Bragg, I recall the following load out:

On LBE we had 4 -30 rnd mag pouches, plus one in weapon, 13 total...also carried 2ea 1 qt canteens, and a butt pack, 2 ponchos,..Misc stuff too, pistol either a .45 or 9mm and couple extra mags, flashlight, bandage, etc..compass...normal 11b stuff/snivel gear...

Large ALICE had alot of other stuff: pig food, claymore, 5.56 bandolier or two, extra prick batt, 2qt canteen and then the rest....more snivel gear...

Since i was 72E, i got to carry the prick too...life was good then...we didn't run anywhere carrying that schitt....

I still have scars on my back from rucking....

 

I hear ya, I have scars on my vertebrae from rucking. Thankfully Uncle Sam reimburses me for my imminent immobilization.

Every troop and unit I was in loaded differently depending on the mission and environment.

I love hearing these hardcore stories of 150 lbs of gear etc...helps weed out the posers.:thumb:

 

With Recon Bn it varied with mission, but I guarantee on my last tour I was carrying the most weight I'd ever had in my entire career.

10+1 for M4, 5+1 for M9 for ammo then all of the typical infantry gear, armor, etc, plus all my medical gear. For "supposedly lightly armed, reconnaissance men we carried a lot more **** than the average grunt did".

 

Not only did I carry a million pounds, I had a 500,000 pound aid bag. At least thats how it felt at the time... And I brought 360 rounds with me. I scoffed at 210. I never used them all on mission, but it was like a security blanket. If I could I would have snuggled with them like a child. And my London Bridge is my BOB now.

 

Several of my friends and students are deploying in 2 weeks. They are all 11B's and they carry minimum 300 rds of ammo with them on patrols and HVT raids.

 

I was an HFRTO in LRSD in South Korea. We carried fourteen 30 round mags( 420 rounds) and my rucksack being the RTO carrying the PRC 104 weighed in at 140-150 pounds. In the winter maybe more due to the extra cold weather gear. We went on 6 day missions and had to be completely self sufficient for those 6 days. This meant enough food, water, batteries, commo equipment, snivel gear and an extra set of BDU's and few pair of socks. Everything packed in your ruck and on your back.

My experience in both LRS and a Recon Scout in the 82nd is that light infantry meant your ruck was heavier than everyone else. Being out front and ahead of the rest of the follow on units meant you had to be self reliant. That meant packing more **** so that you did not need a resupply often.

In South Korea carrying a 150lbs ruck up those mountains was no small feat. Still think that's some of the hardest **** I ever did in my life.

 

I can not tell you what the Green Beanies carry and that is likely to be mission specific anyway.

I can tell you what I carried in Iraq in 2004, six 30 round mags in a saw pouch and one in the rifle for 210 rounds on my person and another 7 mags in a back-pack in the hummer. So if the truck were to break down I would have had to carry 420 rounds on my person, or 2X what doctrine said that I should carry.

As for the Viet Nam stories most Soldiers carried bandoleers of extra 5.56 ammo in addition to their' basic load so 210 plus 100 per bandoleer so that would be at least 310. Some carried all that plus 7.62 belts for the squad M-60. Any Soldier who ran out of ammo during a firefight made an oath to never do that again.

The heavy IBA body armor used in Iraq meant you could not carry as much so a lot of ammo sat in the truck within easy reach.