So, what's the biggest gun you guys have fired?

[Kwik E Mart]

do torps count?

ditto on the young boy/man hunting stories...watched my dad wing a dove, pick it up and rip the poor things head off...not my cup of tea...

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: fbs

So, what's the biggest gun you guys have fired?

Had to chuckle at some of the responses. My old Drill Sergeant would approve:

"This is my rifle" (hold up M-16)
"This is my gun" (grab crotch)
"This one's for shooting" (shake rifle)
"This one's for fun!" (shake ****)

[bradfordkay]

That's only because your old Drill Sergeant was in the infantry. Guns belong to the artillery... [:'(]

[Knavey]

ORIGINAL: jetjockey

16" 50 cal, USS Iowa, as a wet-behind-the-ears midshipman on a Shake-Down cruise, summer '84. Well, OK, I wasn't actually permitted to fire a live round, but it was so cool just being there when they were.

Later I was to bravely use a 50 cal to defend my ship against a rogue 55 gal drum trying to infiltrate our borders.

We used fire hoses to "repel" boarders in Nova Scotia when greenpeace hippies tried to spray paint stuff on the side of TR. That was a fun day!

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: Knavey

ORIGINAL: jetjockey

16" 50 cal, USS Iowa, as a wet-behind-the-ears midshipman on a Shake-Down cruise, summer '84. Well, OK, I wasn't actually permitted to fire a live round, but it was so cool just being there when they were.

Later I was to bravely use a 50 cal to defend my ship against a rogue 55 gal drum trying to infiltrate our borders.

We used fire hoses to "repel" boarders in Nova Scotia when greenpeace hippies tried to spray paint stuff on the side of TR. That was a fun day!

Shoulda used .50 cal instead. [8|]

[rockmedic109]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

ORIGINAL: Knavey

ORIGINAL: jetjockey

16" 50 cal, USS Iowa, as a wet-behind-the-ears midshipman on a Shake-Down cruise, summer '84. Well, OK, I wasn't actually permitted to fire a live round, but it was so cool just being there when they were.

Later I was to bravely use a 50 cal to defend my ship against a rogue 55 gal drum trying to infiltrate our borders.

We used fire hoses to "repel" boarders in Nova Scotia when greenpeace hippies tried to spray paint stuff on the side of TR. That was a fun day!

Shoulda used .50 cal instead. [8|]

Should've used original WITP depth charges. That would've washed the maggots off.

[Big B]

Have to agree Kull, I noticed that too.
I fired the venerable .50 many times in the CAL ARNG (our M113's all had them), but it seemed to me that the .50 was more even impressive when it was fired near you in support - than being behind it pulling the trigger.
Reason was that you could perceptively hear (maybe feel?) the rounds going down range, I never experienced that with an M-60.

ORIGINAL: Kull

.50 Cal MG on a tripod. After a full day of firing the M16, it was quite a different experience. You feel the power with each round, and it doesn't take long before it starts to cross your mind that you NEVER want to be anywhere near the receiving end of those slugs.

Biggest gun I was ever really close to when live fired was the forward 5"L54 mount on the USS Fletcher DD 992. I was on the bridge wing sticking my head out to watch the live fire exercise. That was a bit of a mistake...that gun puts out considerable muzzle blast or concussion.




Biggest "boom" I ever made was throwing a live M-67 frag grenade. That kind of counts. "Molotov Cocktails" (which we were trained to make and get proficient in using) are mere "sparklers" in comparison. [:'(]

[Odin]

My biggest gun was a boring MG3.
 
And Panzerfaust 3, but only a training charge.[:(]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: fbs

So, what's the biggest gun you guys have fired?

Had to chuckle at some of the responses. My old Drill Sergeant would approve:

"This is my rifle" (hold up M-16)
"This is my gun" (grab crotch)
"This one's for shooting" (shake rifle)
"This one's for fun!" (shake ****)

lol......I had just read this while listening to my favorite internet radio station.....and the singer starts repeating the above. Vuja-de!

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Biggest "boom" I ever made was throwing a live M-67 frag grenade.

Biggest boom I ever heard was when I was in ROTC, and we were crossing an airstrip when someone flew a F-5E on high subsonic some 50ft exactly over my head. You can't hear the darn thing as it approached, really a mesmerizing sight. My ears were ringing for hours.

[RevRick]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Have to agree Kull, I noticed that too.
I fired the venerable .50 many times in the CAL ARNG (our M113's all had them), but it seemed to me that the .50 was more even impressive when it was fired near you in support - than being behind it pulling the trigger.
Reason was that you could perceptively hear (maybe feel?) the rounds going down range, I never experienced that with an M-60.

ORIGINAL: Kull

.50 Cal MG on a tripod. After a full day of firing the M16, it was quite a different experience. You feel the power with each round, and it doesn't take long before it starts to cross your mind that you NEVER want to be anywhere near the receiving end of those slugs.

Biggest gun I was ever really close to when live fired was the forward 5"L54 mount on the USS Fletcher DD 992. I was on the bridge wing sticking my head out to watch the live fire exercise. That was a bit of a mistake...that gun puts out considerable muzzle blast or concussion.




Biggest "boom" I ever made was throwing a live M-67 frag grenade. That kind of counts. "Molotov Cocktails" (which we were trained to make and get proficient in using) are mere "sparklers" in comparison. [:'(]

I'll second that mistake... I did the same thing, but I had just walked out onto the sig bridge of the old Charlie Deuce - forward 5"54 cut loose a ten round rapid fire burst against an old tin can in a sinkex, and I was standing there with no ear protection. I have had tinitis since then to the extent that there is a constant whine in both ears - probably about 600 hertz. Aggravating, it is!

[Mifune]

Looks like only Kwik E Mart and I fired torpedoes. I myself Mk 48 torpedo, of course the boomer I was on had some pretty bad boys in the missle compartment. I didnt fire those though.

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Have to agree Kull, I noticed that too.
I fired the venerable .50 many times in the CAL ARNG (our M113's all had them), but it seemed to me that the .50 was more even impressive when it was fired near you in support - than being behind it pulling the trigger.
Reason was that you could perceptively hear (maybe feel?) the rounds going down range, I never experienced that with an M-60.

ORIGINAL: Kull

.50 Cal MG on a tripod. After a full day of firing the M16, it was quite a different experience. You feel the power with each round, and it doesn't take long before it starts to cross your mind that you NEVER want to be anywhere near the receiving end of those slugs.

Biggest gun I was ever really close to when live fired was the forward 5"L54 mount on the USS Fletcher DD 992. I was on the bridge wing sticking my head out to watch the live fire exercise. That was a bit of a mistake...that gun puts out considerable muzzle blast or concussion.




Biggest "boom" I ever made was throwing a live M-67 frag grenade. That kind of counts. "Molotov Cocktails" (which we were trained to make and get proficient in using) are mere "sparklers" in comparison. [:'(]

Reminds me of the time our Squadron XO came to watch a night range in grafenwoehr and walked up beteewen two tanks (M60A1s) so he could see better. Moron. The safety officer noticed it in time and yelled at him to back up, but the Major didn't hear him. A second later the two tanks fired, and I swear I saw him do a complete backflip before he landed face down in the mud.

At the time, we thought he was injured (actually we hoped, if the truth be known), but afterwards we've laughed about this idiot for 35 or so years. I tell the complete story in an as yet unpublished manuscript I wrote several years ago. Maybe one day you can see it and several dozen other such stories in print. Than again, maybe not.

[Big B]

Funny story. I can verify how loud the 105 of the old MBT's were.
The first piece of serious military hardware I ever heard live fired was a platoon of M-48A5's(?) at Camp Pendleton, when I was a H.S. senior back in 1974.
Our Dean of Students was an Air Force Reserve Colonel, and he got some of us into Pendleton for the Marines annual demonstration of its capabilities for the graduating Annapolis grads (as I remember the explanation - the Marines did this every year to recruit the Midshipmen to go Marine Corps upon graduation).

Anyway, I heard them fire while we were on post and the tanks were not in sight...I thought they must have been very close...just behind some buildings across the street - it was so loud. Wrong. Then I found out they had actually fired from a great distance from where I was (at least 1/4 to 1/2 mile away) at that time.

When the show started and we were in the stands watching - the tanks appeared in front of us and did a live shoot, I realized how wrong I had been earlier.
I can't imagine standing between two of those beasts when they let go a round.
Another thing I learned that afternoon - not all 105's are equal.
There was 3 gun battery of 105 howitzers em-placed to our front also. When the howitzers fired - they sounded like mere pop-guns compared to the tanks' 105 rifles.
One last note about the 105 howitzers and the time of flight of shells.
When the tanks fired, their targets were about a mile distant and the rounds hit in a second or so after firing (as an uninformed observer would expect).
When the howitzers fired, their target was a hill about 10 miles distant. They fired - we watched the designated hill. They fired again...we kept watching, they fired a third salvo ...we were still waiting - no impacts yet. I think it was about a full minute before the first rounds landed...then the second salvo, and finally the third. So I realized there were fully three full salvos in flight down range long before the first round hit.

All in all it was a grand afternoon for a high school kid. [:)]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan
...

Reminds me of the time our Squadron XO came to watch a night range in grafenwoehr and walked up beteewen two tanks (M60A1s) so he could see better. Moron. The safety officer noticed it in time and yelled at him to back up, but the Major didn't hear him. A second later the two tanks fired, and I swear I saw him do a complete backflip before he landed face down in the mud.

At the time, we thought he was injured (actually we hoped, if the truth be known), but afterwards we've laughed about this idiot for 35 or so years. I tell the complete story in an as yet unpublished manuscript I wrote several years ago. Maybe one day you can see it and several dozen other such stories in print. Than again, maybe not.

[Bearcat2]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan



Reminds me of the time our Squadron XO came to watch a night range in grafenwoehr and walked up beteewen two tanks (M60A1s) so he could see better. Moron. The safety officer noticed it in time and yelled at him to back up, but the Major didn't hear him. A second later the two tanks fired, and I swear I saw him do a complete backflip before he landed face down in the mud.

At the time, we thought he was injured (actually we hoped, if the truth be known), but afterwards we've laughed about this idiot for 35 or so years. I tell the complete story in an as yet unpublished manuscript I wrote several years ago. Maybe one day you can see it and several dozen other such stories in print. Than again, maybe not.

I used to AI the M60's; I would sit on top of the turret and observe the crew, they would fire the main gun and the blast was just liking hitting you in the face, and the pressure on the eyeball was a little unnerving at first. After the first 20 or so rounds, it really didn't bother me anymore and I got used to the noise. Since I was almost directly behind the gun; after doing this for about 100 times, I could actually pick up the rounds in flight.

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: Termite2

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan



Reminds me of the time our Squadron XO came to watch a night range in grafenwoehr and walked up beteewen two tanks (M60A1s) so he could see better. Moron. The safety officer noticed it in time and yelled at him to back up, but the Major didn't hear him. A second later the two tanks fired, and I swear I saw him do a complete backflip before he landed face down in the mud.

At the time, we thought he was injured (actually we hoped, if the truth be known), but afterwards we've laughed about this idiot for 35 or so years. I tell the complete story in an as yet unpublished manuscript I wrote several years ago. Maybe one day you can see it and several dozen other such stories in print. Than again, maybe not.

I used to AI the M60's; I would sit on top of the turret and observe the crew, they would fire the main gun and the blast was just liking hitting you in the face, and the pressure on the eyeball was a little unnerving at first. After the first 20 or so rounds, it really didn't bother me anymore and I got used to the noise. Since I was almost directly behind the gun; after doing this for about 100 times, I could actually pick up the rounds in flight.

Yeah, the AI's really had fun, didn't they? When not in my tank firing, I was in the tower sensing the rounds. Which reminds me of another story.

I was OIC of a tank range for another battalion. They had a diminuative cpatain company commander I had been a field controller for for several army field tests (the old ARTEPs). He was a pompus little twerp. Well, one night one of my tank commanders and I were in the tower scoreing the runs and decided that when captain X came up to observe the firing after his run (it was Table VIII, the final qualification range), we'd pretend to be using some modified dice to do the scoring. My NCO had a pair that had "short right," "over left," "over," with almost no "targets". Well, sure enough after el capitanos run the tower door opend up and I glanced behind me to see this liitle short guy standing there, so after each round we started rolling the dice. "Short right," then "Over," then "doubtful left," and so forth. Of course we were sensing the rounds correctly for the official score.

After a few minutes I heard a the guy behind us say, "that's pretty funny captain," and as I turned around I noticed the two stars on the guys helmet, "I hope you're actually putting down the correct scores." OUr commanding general was also about 5 feet 6.

I had to leave before the next tank went downrange to change my drawers.

[bigred]

ORIGINAL: fbs

ORIGINAL: Big B

Biggest "boom" I ever made was throwing a live M-67 frag grenade.

Biggest boom I ever heard was when I was in ROTC, and we were crossing an airstrip when someone flew a F-5E on high subsonic some 50ft exactly over my head. You can't hear the darn thing as it approached, really a mesmerizing sight. My ears were ringing for hours.

I recall an airforce jet was simulating a straf mission against me while I was driving my lonesome jeep thru the high desert of Ft Irwin Califoria. The second time around he went 20 feet off the ground and dusted me, so I fingered him. On his third run I pulled out my trusty 40mm flare pistol and fired a training "artillery air burst " in front of his flight path to get him to leave me alone. The jet jock did alter his path in an extreme fashion(hehehe). The flare pistol worked good on coyotes also.

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: Mifune

Looks like only Kwik E Mart and I fired torpedoes. I myself Mk 48 torpedo, of course the boomer I was on had some pretty bad boys in the missle compartment. I didnt fire those though.

to be fair, we "dropped" it rather than "fired" it, but still pretty cool...

[bigred]

The above stories reminds me of an order I recieved once. My Col comes up to me (with no witnesses)and states "the army has a range control mentality" (Much later I realized enforced by law). Ft. Irwin is the only base in the US where you can fire a 105mm main gun round in any direction and the only thing you might hit is other troops. The concern is that the old 105mm had a range of 55miles and could kill a civilian.
Up until we made the change the brigades visiting Ft. Irwin had to go to a specific location (a firing range)"designated" by range control DOD civilians to zero the main tank gun. Normaly at most bases every firing range has a max elevation, max right azumith and max left azimuth as defined by DOD civilians who run all firing ranges to insure ther civilians off post are not killed by training gunnery.

Being a mechanized inf guy I did not realize until I started this program that every day a tank gun has to be re-calibrated because of all the moving and shaking of the tank destabilzes the weapon/mirrors as the day progresses.
So what we wanted to accomplish was to teach the armor battalions how to "zero" recalibrate the main gun every day in the field. To do this:
1. the s4 had to bring plenty of target panels for his one month deployment.
2. The s3 had to locate a good firing site and designate such for all units to be aware.
3. The s3/s3air had to dispatch 1 platoon of infantry to protect the firing range from stupid soldiers who like to drive down range during live fire.
4. I recall one 1st Lt 3months junior to me that did not post his road guards as per instructions and his battalion s3 got an m60/7.62 bullet in his jeep radiator.

Back to the original post I sometimes wonder in amazment at the 36 platoons of infantry and 18 battalion commanders I had to ride w/ in live fire at Ft. Irwin. I feel like a cat w/ 9 lives.
FUN AND GAMES-until u really lose a friend. Les Infantiles.

[jolly_pillager]

Either the AT-4 or the Bushmaster, depending on what you mean by "big".

I have fired several TOW's in simulation, though! [:)]