Comments by "GunFun ZS" (@GunFunZS) on "The BAR M1918A3 by Ohio Ordnance - Shooting and Mechanism" video.

  1. My grandfather fought in WWII Pacific theatre for the whole show. He used one of these during the island clearing at the end, although I think he used a Thompson more. Basically they would give the BAR to the big guy in the squad. He seldom talks about actual fighting in the war, but he has talked about how they used the BAR a few times. The method he has talked about was like this. They would have a sling hanging from the front (or maybe a pair connected together). I think the bipod was removed. The squad would keep moving fairly quickly and leapfrog each other.  The BAR was walking suppressive fire, but not in the "walking fire" method. If enemy was encountered by surprise, the BAR guy would step on the end of the dangling strap with his left foot, and lift the gun up against it. This would control muzzle rise and he would shoot short bursts as would have been done as a light machine gun off of a mount.
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  2. I wasn't saying all of them did this, just the group grampa was with... He doesn't talk much about the fighting directly, but I gather he was not the first wave of any landing. Rather he seemed to be moving inland after they had a beach-head. Other times he talks about securing prisoners that were very young boys.
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  3. MrAgentd About other stuff yes, but not about that time very much any more. He's 90 now. He really only started talking about this kind of thing in the last 10 or so years, and then not very much. I'd get a lot more details about things when say a news story would criticize a modern soldier's judgment call. Oddly he was more likely to tell strangers about this stuff than family, so a lot more of the details came up when overhearing what he was telling other people. Now he seems to be more comfortable talking about things, but he is getting old enough that he gets events mixed up. So for about the last two years, I wouldn't consider a story to be very reliable unless it matched in detail something I have heard him talk about years ago too. There's a window in the day that is best for conversation, and it tends to coincide with working hours. You know how that is. To him combat and war were not "cool" so he didn't often talk about them directly. i.e. In a conversation about pastoring (his main profession), the civil rights movement might come up. That would lead to his disgust about how the navy failed to give as good training to the black people that were assigned as replacements for his deck guns, (.30 cal machine guns vs aircraft in this case, and some thing bigger too.) which lead to him having to do training on some people more or less in battle. From this, I can infer that he had gun crew people under him die, since they needed replacements, but he has never talked about that directly. I try not to ask him things he doesn't seem to want to talk about. I assume there's a good reason.
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  4. nowthisis2stupid It was a war. 1) After the beginning of the war, many soldiers were pressed into action with little training at all.2) He said this guy did it, not everyone. Marines are not magical men with uniform thinking and behavior. This individual apparently didn't match your idealized notion. 3) people often stop caring about stuff that is normally important to them when they are disillusioned, exhausted and terrified. - You know, the normal conditions of war? 4) a lot of standards get relaxed during active combat, either because their command is too busy to enforce them, or because they are not practical. Marines have meticulous uniforms in training, but they soil them like every one else when shooting starts. From what my grandfather described, at a certain point many servicemen chose the weapons they wanted rather than what they were issued. Perhaps this guy chose a gun bigger than he could handle and only drug it until he had an opportunity to grab something else. 5) we don't know that this guy even did it constantly. The annecdote could have just been one bad day for him.
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  5. [eye roll]  "Knowing your gun inside and out" would imply for instance that you knew operating force came from the gas tube, and that your issued gun was not a piston driven AR. Both of which I recently had two active duty marines claim. That's a long ways short of being a "weapons designer or an expert in ballistics" and also of "knowing their weapons inside and out." The truth is, that in any group, the people who care about guns know how they work and how to run them, and the rest of the people know only as much as they are required to know. Marines, Army, Cops, etc. They do enough to qualify. The ones who care do enough to be proficient, and an exceptional few work to become masters. -- You seem eager to condescend and to willfully misunderstand. You say you don't have time to argue, but the evidence shows that to be false. You've insulted me a few times now, but at least you fairly did the same when you chose your screen name.
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  6. Never mind. Mixed up on the comment chain. Also, a lot of people neglected their weapons. One of the things he talks about was that after a few of the people who were under him were killed, he had a few black sailors assigned to be on his AA crew. The navy had only really trained them with the expectation that they would do service roles like kitchen work, so they were unprepared for the first engagement and melted their barrels. He felt that the navy did them a real disservice and made sure they knew what to do ASAP.
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  7. nowthisis2stupid 1, I don't just go off of my grandfather's stories. I knew a few other people who fought in WWII, and have worked with a lot of veterans of more recent conflicts. I have good friends and family, and coworkers in each branch. I read history, including military. I am not an expert, but I am informed. 2) who said we were talking about the beginning of the war? I think we both agree that most of our servicemen at the beginning of the war were thoroughly trained. (In the tactics of WWI) From every discussion I have had with military people, I have found a couple consistent themes. First, every branch and every unit has  screw-ups. Men that no one respects, who are sloppy, stupid and dangerous. BAR dragger might have been that guy. Who knows? Maybe the next day his Sgt. bawled him out and made him clean that gun flawlessly. We weren't there, but there is little reason to doubt the account. It was memorable because it was unusual, after all. Second, almost all of them find that they actually want to change their issued kit shortly after getting into their actual field role. (Which is often not the one they were trained for... For all we know, BAR dragger was trained to wrench on jeeps for the marines.) Once they are in their non-practice role, they tend to get more leeway and opportunity to swap stuff out. For instance, my combat medic friend from the army ended up leaving most of his med kit in the armored ambulance so that he could carry more "israelis" and more ammo. People could claim" army medics don't shoot, and they carry the following items...." but the real world isn't like that.
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  8. Interesting. Grampa was (and is) much more interested in things he did to help people after the war. One of the things I like about him is his honest attitude. He would never refer to his peers as "the greatest generation." 
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  9. I actively deny that claim. I have had recent conversations with active duty marines which made it clear that while they knew the basic operation and maintanence of their service rifle, they knew almost nothing about it's operating principles, ballistics, or how similar / different it is to that of other branches.
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  10. Or about anything on a youtube comment. Worst case is I am an idiot, and he can just calmly ignore me without needing to spend his time to state his assumption that I am uninformed.
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  11. Jersey Streicher Cool. Few ideas are unique.
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