woerm
Member
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
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