Cold War/Current question

[woerm]

after the M-16 question I also rememebered another odd thing when I was a Brat in Germany.

One of Dad's corporals was really hacked off

he was trying to clean (for inspection I would guess) a real live WWII sten 9mm

reason he was hacked (at himself) was it had been issued during an alert, w/ some boxes of ammo and mags. For the Alert all the trucks were supposed to be armed, usually with some sort of machine gun on a scraff ring (IIRC) to keep from 'scaring' the locals' the unit CO issues the co drivers (grease monkies) subguns (M2 carbines, M3's etc) this poor guy got issued the sten in a rainstorm. He sat in an open Duce and half for what ever time the trip took and when he got home the put the poor gun in his locker wrapped in a blanket (duh).

He had to literally hammer the thing apart and had to borrow some of my dad's tools to get it cleaned up. During the clean up he showed me how it was semiauto, there was a slot, not a well for the trip lever, he was ticked about that, too. he said it was mainly useless.

I guess he lived over it. He later made Staff Sarg.

I was wondering if the don't 'scare the locals' bs was generic to Europe or SOP everywhere?

Given Alerts (even training) were an indication that serious business was at hand why not at least load up the heavy guns?

I had figured out the reason for the sten (it was cheap and available as was the ammo) I'm still not quite sure why the US Army was buying (this thing had US markings, ordnace proof, etc genuine article) semiauto anything.

any one have any info?

r

 

[Corporal K]

No offense, but what on earth are you talking about?

 

[woerm]

Corporal K

well several quesitons

Q1

was it generic to try not to alarm the locals during alerts

Q2

Why not at least carry the right guns anyway.

Q3

What on earth was the US Army doing buying semiauto anythings (stens in this case)WWII or Cold War period.

The question bubbled up to me while reading over the M16 thread.

r

 

[Treo]

Where I was at we loaded everything every time we had an alert.

The locals had no issue W/ us because we were the mainstay of the local economy.

We had 1911s , M-16 A1s, M-2 .50 cals & M-3 grease guns.

I think the general Idea was if the 8 inch howitzer didn't scare them the fifty wasn't going to either

 

[NukemJim]

I think the general Idea was if the 8 inch howitzer didn't scare them the fifty wasn't going to either

LOL Great line and great logic.

NukemJim

 

[sacp81170a]

We ran convoys out for dispersal training with Mark 19's and M-60's mounted up on HMMWV's. Never gave a thought to whether or not we scared the locals. "Course, if you're convoying nuclear armed ground launched cruise missiles, not much else is gonna be scarier. Now that's some firepower right there, I don't care who ya are...

 

[threefeathers]

I was in Berlin when the wall went up, the more we were armed the safer the German civilians felt. Later on a Reforger in the Fulda Gap the German's brought us Bier and Brats and offered to halp us dig foxholes.
It was us or Ivan and they knew it.

 

[Hook686]

I was a dependant back in the 50's on a USAF base in Western Massachusetts. The main base had the runway with a spot for B-52 bombers on alert.

About 5 miles away, beyond a forrest of pine trees was a place called "Stoney Brooke". It was a three wire fenced area with earthen bunkers that stored the nuclear weapons for the B-52s. There was a rail line that connected this nuclear storage facility to the base runway system. SAC Security Police patolled this pine tree area, the rail line and Stoney Brooke with pickups having mounted machine guns, armed teams and armed Security Police with dogs.

As a Boy Scout, we scouts would come across these patrols periodically (as we did our campouts in this pine tree forrest area) and get chased off by the SPs. As I recall, most of the SP's on foot had M1 Garands. The guys in the trucks had .45's in addition to the machine gun and I even recall seeing a Carbine, or two, probably M2.

These SP's were not beyond shooting at anyone getting too close to Stoney Brooke, or a B-52. I only saw US WWII firearms being used.

 

[Titan6]

I was in the Fulda Gap when the wall came down. Didn't know till three days later. Came in and there were a bunch of E. German cars broken down on the side of the road everywhere. By that time the Germans were getting really tired of three generations of Americans. Must have been a zillion rules on what you could and could not do, mostly to do with the environment.

 

[sacp81170a]

These SP's were not beyond shooting at anyone getting too close to Stoney Brooke, or a B-52. I only saw US WWII firearms being used.

If you should happen upon a restricted area sign on any of our nuclear facilities, you will see in big bold red letters: "USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED."

And they mean it.