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Friday, September 16, 2022

The Thumper: History Of The M79 Grenade Launcher

Lamar Bradford had a curious gift. He was raised on the streets in Baltimore. Lamar played a little high school baseball, but gave that up when he dropped out of the 11th grade. On his 18th birthday, Lamar’s wealthy Uncle Sam sent him a very official letter.

There was absolutely nothing special about being a young draftee in 1968. Six months after he got his draft notice, Lamar touched down in Pleiku. He knew exactly nobody in the entire godforsaken country of Vietnam. The vagaries of fate and the inscrutable machinations of the Army admin system landed him in the 4th Infantry Division.
-Alemaster
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8 comments:

  1. DTGSeptember 16, 2022 at 6:08 PM

    Absolutely LOVED the, 'blooper'. First qual course was in '74. Stayed current until' 85. Super accurate, much more so than the XM148 or M203....

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  2. Bright EyesSeptember 16, 2022 at 6:10 PM

    Bloop. I have seen Blooper men that could damn near drive nails with them things. See that brown left to the left of the hooch? Put one there. Gott damn on the money.

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  3. LowellSeptember 16, 2022 at 6:16 PM

    "the inscrutable machinations of the Army admin system..."

    There's a truism if one ever existed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. BildoSeptember 16, 2022 at 6:52 PM

    The XM-148 was a painful bastard to fire repeatedly due to the narrow buttstock on the old M-16s but the M-79 was much better. It was accurate as hell too.

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  5. AnonymousSeptember 16, 2022 at 8:05 PM

    The thumpers were amazing and simple to operate and punched way beyond their weight class. A thumper story... we were loading a squad into our UH1 for a move to an active sector. As they all climbed in, the guy carrying the thumper banged the stock on the deck as he sat down and the round fired. It punched a hole through the overhead but missed the rotor. Due to the short travel distance, the round never armed and we never found where it landed. As to the aircraft, a quick look saw no wires, cables or tubes were hit so I helped the crew chief put some green hundred mile an hour duct tape over the hole and away we went.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2022 at 12:12 AM

      I worked with a Vietnam vet 35 years ago who loved the M79. He delivered dispatches to units in the field and carried one loaded with beehive rounds when he went out. He said when he'd get on the chopper to go out the pilot would take the M79 away from him and give it back when they set down. I guess he'd heard about incidents like this.
      wildbill

      Delete
  6. ShellSeptember 17, 2022 at 8:46 AM

    I was a mech grunt '81-'83. Never got to handle a blooper but loved the -203. I learned to use the sights at Benning but later did it by feel. Pissed off some of the powers-that-were when I shot better with it that way than when they ordered me to use the sights "...like you're supposed to, PRIVATE!"

    Fuckwits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GregSeptember 17, 2022 at 10:25 AM

      I agree, had a 203 when I was in, the sights sucked.

      Delete

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