60 Year Old Ammunition

Polak · November 2, 2005

Thought this was interesting...............................

'Fiddy-Cal' Becomes Weapon Of Choice In Iraq

By David Wood, Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON -- U.S. troops in Iraq are firing .50-caliber machine guns at such a high rate, the Army is scrambling to resupply them with ammunition -- in some cases dusting off crates of World War II machine gun rounds and shipping them off to combat units.

In the dangerous and unanticipated conflict that has intensified in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, the gun that grunts call the "fiddy-cal" or "Ma Deuce," after its official designation, M-2, has become a ubiquitous sight mounted on armored Humvees and other heavy vehicles.

Above the staccato crackle and squeak of small arms fire, the fiddy-cal's distinctive "THUMP THUMP THUMP" indicates that its 1.6-ounce bullets, exactly the weight of eight quarters, are going downrange at 2,000 mph. The bullets are said to be able to stop an onrushing car packed with deadly explosives dead in its tracks from a mile away. A .50-cal round can travel four miles, generally not with great accuracy.

At closer ranges, it is so powerful that a round will obliterate a person, penetrate a concrete wall behind him and several houses beyond that, gunners in Iraq have said.

"You can stop a car, definitely penetrate the vehicle to take out the engine -- and the driver," said Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who recently retired after commanding the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq.

Merely "the noise of it is huge. Intimidating," Swannack said. But it's so powerful, he added, "I would not use it in an area where there's lots of noncombatants."

In the 1990s, fiddy-cals and crates of .50-cal ammunition gathered dust as the Army struggled to shed its heavy image and become lighter, quicker and more high-tech. Fiddy-cals are early Industrial Age artifacts, invented by John Moses Browning during World War I. Browning's 1919 drawings specified machined steel plates and rivets; today's manufacturers haven't monkeyed with his basic design. The gun alone weighs a bone-crushing 84 pounds, not including its 40-pound tripod and heavy brass-jacketed ammunition.

Outmoded or not, when Iraq erupted, the Army and Marines reached back for the .50-cal and its heavy killing power.

Swivel-mounted in the turret of a Humvee, the gun can lay down a heavy steel blizzard, 40 rounds a minute, on grouped insurgents or vehicles, and is often used in convoys or at checkpoints as a last resort to stop suicide car bombers.

Small wonder, then, that the steady increase in .50-cal use began to rapidly drain ammo stockpiles. At the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky., ammunition left over from Desert Storm, Vietnam, Korea and even World War II had been stored in massive concrete bunkers, including some 12 million rounds of .50-cal. They began shipping it off to Iraq.

By the time the war stretched into its second year, the Blue Grass stockpile of .50 cal had shrunk to 4 million rounds.

The Army surged production of new .50-cal ammunition, taking on more than a thousand new workers at its Lake City ammunition plant in Independence, Mo.

"Fifty-cal is crazy," said Bryce Hallowell, spokesman for Alliant Techsystems Inc., the contractor that runs the plant. Four years ago, Lake City was manufacturing about 10 million rounds a year; currently it is producing at an annual rate of 50 million rounds and rising.

Even that five-fold increase hasn't been enough.

At Blue Grass, Darryl Brewer, a combat medic in Vietnam, is chief of logistics for the ammunition depot. Recently, he started pulling out .50 cal. crates marked 1945. He opened some up and peered inside.

"Pristine," Brewer reported. "It's in lead-sealed cans, like sardines. Just like it was made yesterday."

The 1945 ammunition was opened and test rounds fired to check for reliability and accuracy, standard testing done for all aging ammunition. "They find anything wrong, they'll do a suspension," Brewer said, adding with some pride, "Very seldom you see that in a fiddy-cal."

Fifty-cal rounds are linked into belts that are fed from steel ammo boxes into the side of the weapon. At Blue Grass, technicians have to replace the World War II links, using a "delinker-linker" machine so old they had to make parts for it before it would work. The relinked rounds are sealed back in ammo boxes, like sardines, and shipped.

Once grunts open up the boxes in Iraq, "then you start to have deterioration," Brewer said. "Stuff goes pretty fast."

Like other workers at Blue Grass, Brewer, 58, has a personal stake in the war, and the ammo. His son, 1st Lt. William Bryan Brewer, deploys to Iraq in December as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. Conceivably, suppressive ground fire from .50-cals will force insurgents to keep their heads down as his aircraft passes.

"We got a couple guys with sons over there," Brewer said. "That's why we're kinda particular to make sure this stuff is right when it goes out.

"It could save their lives one day, you never know."

Wingnut · November 2, 2005

Yeah...Don't ever be the idiot that gets stuck carrying the extra two barrels for one of those suckers. You will be hating life in the first 10 minutes of that hump.

trever1t · November 2, 2005

THUMP" indicates that its 1.6-ounce bullets, exactly the weight of eight quarters, are going downrange at 2,000 mph.

Come on! 2500-2800 FEET PER SECOND maybe!!! Give me a break! That's a mile in 2.5 seconds or so. Jeez is the public so silly?

OUMike · November 2, 2005

THUMP" indicates that its 1.6-ounce bullets, exactly the weight of eight quarters, are going downrange at 2,000 mph.

Come on! 2500-2800 FEET PER SECOND maybe!!! Give me a break! That's a mile in 2.5 seconds or so. Jeez is the public so silly?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL yea...that is obviously a typo. 2,000 fps is more like it.

trever1t · November 2, 2005

They made the fiddy illegal in CA because they (who the F(&K are they) think some gang banger might take a 30 lb rifle that costs $1500+ and fire rounds at $1.50 each at jumbo jets flying at 200-400mph, or Oil storage tanks!!

The media is sooooo biased it makes me ashamed. What happened to realistic journalism??

Rant over, sorry

Wingnut · November 3, 2005

They made the fiddy illegal in CA because they (who the F(&K are they) think some gang banger might take a 30 lb rifle that costs $1500+ and fire rounds at $1.50 each at jumbo jets flying at 200-400mph, or Oil storage tanks!!

The media is sooooo biased it makes me ashamed. What happened to realistic journalism??

Rant over, sorry

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They aren't worried about a gang banger doing that. A gang banger has zero motivation for doing something like that.

They're worried about the crazy nutbar engineer that got laid off from Boeing or Exxon a month ago with $3000 left on his credit card, nothing to lose, and an axe to grind.

Polak · November 3, 2005

They made the fiddy illegal in CA

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Now that's funny right there, I don't care who yar!

Lets look at the truth in this one. The legislators passed some law that says we can't have these weapons, and they site their drive to keep them out of criminals hands. When the truth is, the criminals can get them anytime they want. Just like before the stupid "feel good" law was passed. These laws are made to help a legislators image. They sound good out loud or on paper, but really mean nothing.

I mean really. Can you picture someone robbing a MiniMart w/ a .50 cal. Two trips into the store, one for the tripod and one for the weapon. Then three trips out, on for the loot, one for the weapon, and one for the tripod. Four if they want that super big gulp and a slimjim.

Then, you or I, "Mr. Legal, Registered, Firearm owner" pull up to the MiniMart during the robbery, shoot the robber dead and we get to go to court, be found not guilty, then have the robbers family rake us in civil court for wrongful death. Now we're in the poor house cause the robbers family has most of our posessions. All we've got left is our truck and a bed full of government food, (prolly Salisbury Steak!)

God Bless America!

trever1t · November 3, 2005

Yup!

taco · November 3, 2005