Rifle in combat

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bcbr

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Which place to put this ? L&P,here,S&T,?
While reading and then watched Black Hawk Down ,the part where the two Delta men went in to protect the downed men on the chopper.
M14 and some type of M4/M16.
They did good and i am in no way critizizing them,a couple of questions for exp men.
When they were running low on ammo did they or should they have picked up and used more of the locals stuff?
In the movie it looked like they were being to selective in thier choice of shots?
What about the mini guns on the choppers,could they be used after a crash?
Would you loose the mini gun on a crowd like that to keep them back?
Was the guys who took out the recoilless gun at night doing a good tactic firing 1 rd and the blowin the gun ,instead of turning it on the bad guys?
Seems they had no big guns ,2 or 3 grenade launchers.
I am going to reread the book.been 2-3 yrs.
Another good source of info on this tremendous battle? Books,mags articles,links etc.?
Seems they were very diciplined in thier fire esp around the down men in those choppers.
Also the causualties inflicted on the bad guys seem very low to me.
Thanks for the help.
 
Gordon and Shugart went in knowing they might not survive.

They went in because there might have been crash survivors, and you do not leave your own wounded behind.

They probably hoped they could hold out long enough for some of the Rangers to rescue them, because they were severly outnumbered.

Miniguns are electrically operated, and there was no power to operate them. Probably could not have brought them to bear on the crowd anyway.

Somali casualities were very heavy, the rocket and gun runs by the AH-6 gunships caught a lot of people in the open.

Mark Bowden's book is still the best as far as I know on the subject.
 
If I remember correctly from reading Mike Durant's book, "In the Company of Heroes", Shughart and Gordon were there for quite a while (nearly an hour?) holding off skinnies until they were both mortally wounded.

Also if I remember correctly, they killed at least a confirmed 25 of the Somalia National Guardsman, with no telling how many more armed rioters.

The minigun wouldn't have worked as they needed electrical power to operate, and with the helicopter being non functional, this wasn't an option.

Highly recommended book, too. Excellent read, it gives you alot of insight into what Mike Durant went through and his feelings on the event.

It also gives you alot of information on what actually happened there that is NOT in the movie nor the book version of BlackHawk Down. This is partly due to things that Durant didn't want the families to know about until recently, as the book was written about a year or so ago.
 
Since I obviously wasn't there, my observations are theorys only and based on the movie at that, sooooo, take them for what they're worth.
First, most of the guys they shot were around 15-20 yards away, not a distance I'd like to run to try and get some locals piece. Second, mini-guns are electrically powered and with the chopper down, there would have been no power to run the guns. Third, the guy on the recoilless probably realized how exposed the position was and knew that to remain there was suicide. And finally, what is a "big gun" to you? The convoy vehicles had M2 .50 cals and MK19 Grenade Launchers for their up guns. The dismounted infantry was armed with weapons ranging from 7.62 M60's and M14's, to 5.56 SAW's, M4's, and M16's. Those seem plenty big enough to me, but then, I'm just a squid!
 
"Second, mini-guns are electrically powered and with the chopper down, there would have been no power to run the guns."

OK, I wasn't there so I really do not know all the facts, but here is what I do know...

Yes, the mini-guns requier electricity to run, but unless somone flipped the Master Power switch off, the the bird would still have power from the batteries. Now, of course the fuse block could have blown, which is plausible, but they should have been able to use the guns, of course, the ammo would have worked in thier M14s as well. Hard to say since none of us were there, but I know I would have at least tried if I were in thier place.
 
of course, the ammo would have worked in thier M14s as well.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if they even did run out of ammo before succumbing to their wounds, but even if they did, I don't think they could have de-linked the rounds and reloaded their magazines while in that firefight.They were just too busy trying to keep the crowd away at a managable distance and pinned down.

I guess the same could be said about trying to get a miniguns working (which also could have been visibly damaged from the crash).

Very, very brave men, going into that situation, seeing it from the air and knowing the odds against them. I hope Clinton finds a special place in hell for sending those soldiers in under equipped and then giving in to those warlord thugs after so many brave men fought and died over there.
 
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We all owe a tribute to those men and others like them who have given us our freedom and protected it for so many years through so many very difficult campaigns.

And, ole billie boy will not find Marines protecting him where he is going once he checks out. Won't be any there!
 
Thanks

I will be ordering the book asap,In The Company of Heros.
 
Good replies. The book is very good, and I will have to pick up Durant's book next time I'm at the book store.

I'll just add that I'm pretty sure the two snipers were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor for that action.

To go into a situation like that, pretty much knowing that you will not survive...I couldn't do it. Glad there are people on our side that can!
 
It's been a long time, but I seem to recall that the mini-guns fire when the barrels spin, electricity or not. We had to be careful getting on and off the little birds, making sure you didn't step on the barrels and give them a spin.

I believe the ammo for them rode in trays, feeding from cans in the bird. It would be difficult to access in a hurry or under fire.

I spent a couple of years in 3/75 back in the '80s, and at the time the SOP for a bird going down was for somebody to quickly shot off the power so that the fuel pumps don't make a bad situation even worse. Not sure what the SOP would have been in '90s.
 
I spoke with Mike Durant for several minutes at a Barnes and Noble when his book came out, and he signed it for me.

According to what he was saying, the power was gone, the bird was pretty well trashed and even if they'd wanted to AND had power, the angles were wrong I think to get the minis in the fight.

I remember either reading or hearing him tell it (I did ask about his part in the shootout) that when his MP5 went dry, he was so out of it he didn't even think about his pistol. He had at least another 30 rounds (two mags or more). Granted, if he'd have kept shooting, they might have killed him at that point.
All three of them are brave, brave men. But Durant said he was no braver than anyone else would have been in his positon. I don't know about that, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff as a news photographer that I didn't necessarily have to do.
 
I recall hearing that the overall casualties for the locals was believed to be around 1500 in the fighting with Americans(not just that one location with the single downed helicopter). Anyone know if that is accurate?
 
There is no accurate count of Somalia dead and wounded. The estimates I've seen vary widely.
 
They (Gordon and Shughart) did recieve the MOH for their actions in combat.

Interesting side note: When Mike Durant went to Gary Gordon's hometown to give a speech at the commeration of a monument in Gordon's honor, he wanted to talk about the MOH, but knew nothing of it's history. He went to the library to rent a book on the MOH and found that much to his disappointment, the book had not been rented out in over twenty years.

The last person to rent out the book was Gary Gordon, twenty years earlier.
 
I understood Durant's MP-5 was damaged in the crash and became a "bolt action" weapon... he kept having to manually clear the action.

Shugart handed Durant Gordan's rifle after he was incapacitated. (I think Shugart was the one carrying the M-14 sniper variant.) Any 'bad guys guns' were laying 25-100 yards away from downed chopper, the buffer zone created by the Delta Snipers.

I'll keep an eye out for Durant's book.
 
I'll second the recommendation for Mr. Durant's book -- it is excellent.

Another good book on the subject is "The Battle of Mogadishu", written by several men who were involved in the battle. It does not cover the actions of Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart in any detail, but is a good read.
 
As I understand it, US troops inflicted casualties as high as 10,000 on the opposition- the "low end" estimates of enemy casulaties still give over 10 to 1 in favor of US troops.

Shughart and Gordon did pick up enemy arms, btw...

John
 
"If I remember correctly from reading Mike Durant's book, "In the Company of Heroes", Shughart and Gordon were there for quite a while (nearly an hour?) holding off skinnies until they were both mortally wounded."

Actually, I remember hearing that they held them off for several hours.

As hard as it is to believe (due to the mathematical odds of good guys to skinnies), I heard it was actually very possible that just those 2 could have held off all of the the skinnies until backup showed up.

Joe Mamma
 
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