I Did Not Shoot At Him
There are times when people get a little jumpy and come to the wrong conclusions. That happened one time down in Texas at a range with my old friend Lieutenant Colonel Wall. This happened after the showdown over putting his sleeves down and his Irish Setter comment. (See story titled “Two Irish Setters and the Lt. Colonel”)
We were firing the weapons systems on the P model Cobras in Texas and having a good time. Like most good situations in the Army a commander wanted to come along and look over people’s shoulders even though he didn’t know what was going on. To make matters worse he was riding in a helicopter with our troop commander who, though an aviator, didn’t know much about helicopter gunnery or ranges.
The platoon leader was flying in the front seat of my Cobra and we had been having a good day shooting all the weapons systems. We had made several trips down range and everything was shooting well. The two commanders were in a Scout helicopter and came down range to watch the shooting.
I fired the rockets from the back seat and that was fine. The platoon leader then started firing the electrically operated gun that shot four thousand rounds a minute of 7.62 millimeter. He was hitting targets left and right and really going to town. You could literally say that the gun was really smoking.
When four thousand rounds a minute are going through six barrels those barrels get very hot. The gun had an automatic interrupt that stopped the firing after six seconds. If a gunner was quick on releasing the trigger and squeezing it again there was virtually no interruption in the bullets and he could shoot the entire load without stopping. The platoon leader wasn’t doing that but he wasn’t giving the barrels much time to cool down either.
After firing about three quarters of the load of ammunition the gun jammed. Under normal firing the gun spun more than once around after the rounds had stopped being fed to it to make sure the barrels were empty of bullets. If unfired rounds were left in the hot barrels they would heat up and go off at unexpected times. When a gun jammed it always stopped with rounds in the gun and these rounds would heat up and go off (called cook-offs).
Our gun had just jammed when along came the two commanders. They flew right past us just off our right side. Being in front of an armed helicopter is never a great idea and it was against range regulations. As soon as they passed us I keyed the radio microphone and spoke their call sign. At the same instant that I spoke the call sign a round cooked off and flew past them. It was a tracer round which can be seen day or night and they both heard and saw it.
They immediately broke right and wanted to know who had fired that round. I keyed the mike and said it came from my aircraft. The troop commander came back instantly and said we were to report to the arming pad. Those boys thought I had taken a shot at them! My calm response on the radio was, “I will return to the arming pad as soon as the barrels have cooled on the gun so we don’t have any more cook offs”.
During the five to ten minutes that we sat there hovering waiting for the barrels to cool the platoon leader in the front seat got more and more nervous. More than once he said, “We’re in trouble now”. My answer to him was, “We’re not in trouble. We did not hover in front of an armed helicopter. And we aren’t the ones that don’t know what we are doing on a range”.
After we were certain that the barrels had cooled and there was no chance of any more cook offs we flew back to the arming pad. I landed the aircraft and started the shutdown procedure. During shutdown the engine had to be cooled two minutes at an idle before being shut off and many systems needed to be shut down.
As we were turning things off and cooling the engine the two commanders approached the aircraft without our noticing them. When I looked up they were standing right outside my side of the aircraft right in front the rocket pods that still had some rockets in them. Rockets are fired by a small electrical charge and can easily be set off by stray voltage or static electricity.
It is very common for not all of the rockets to fire. The rockets were by far the most dangerous weapon on the aircraft as far as accidental firing and killing people. The aircraft had not been grounded with either of the two grounding wires required after landing nor had the weapons guys made sure the rockets were safe and would not fire.
So I opened my canopy door and yelled, “Get back away from the aircraft. You are standing right in front of the rockets that haven’t been cleared!” Two things then happened at the same time. The platoon leader hung his head because he thought I had probably driven the last nail in the coffin and the two commanders looked at the rocket warheads facing them and stepped back.
I rolled the throttle off to shut the engine down completely and then said to the commanders that as soon as the aircraft was shut down and secured I would answer any of their questions. The weapons guys came up to the aircraft and we coordinated the grounding and clearing of the rockets. I told the weapons guys not to touch the machine gun because I needed to explain how it worked to the commanders.
After the shutdown was complete I got out of the aircraft and invited the commanders to approach the aircraft. Opening the door to the machine gun I said, “Now, let me explain how the gun works and what just happened down range”. Carefully removing the jammed rounds and the rounds still in the barrels I showed them how the gun had rounds left in the hot barrels. The both understood that rounds left in hot barrels sometimes got so hot that they ignited on their own and were shot out of the barrels.
As I stood up from where I had been sitting showing them the gun, I added, “There are two other thing we need to talk about. You have violated two range regulations. First you went forward of an armed helicopter down range and second you walked in front of weapon systems that had not been cleared. Both incidents would normally be reported to the range officer. Either one of those violations normally gets people kicked off the range if they aren’t killed. I suggest that you have someone who knows what to do on a helicopter gunnery range accompany you at all times”.
Lieutenant Colonel Wall said nothing and walked off. The troop commander said, “Thank you” and walked off behind him. The platoon leader just shook his head. I guess he couldn’t believe that I added the part at the end about the violations the commanders had made at the range. As far as I was concerned, we had escaped twice without anyone being hurt by their mistakes and we couldn’t afford to take any more risks with them doing dangerous things.
Too many times we think the worse when something happens. I guess the two commanders thought that I had shot at them. Obviously I had not shot at them because if I had shot at them I wouldn’t have missed them by a hundred feet. Like the two commanders, sometimes things happen because others don’t know what they are doing. Other times things happen because we don’t know what we are doing. Either way it’s best to check things out before jumping to conclusions. And it’s always wise to think the best and not the worse when it comes to other people and their actions. Most folks do the right things most of the time.
We were firing the weapons systems on the P model Cobras in Texas and having a good time. Like most good situations in the Army a commander wanted to come along and look over people’s shoulders even though he didn’t know what was going on. To make matters worse he was riding in a helicopter with our troop commander who, though an aviator, didn’t know much about helicopter gunnery or ranges.
The platoon leader was flying in the front seat of my Cobra and we had been having a good day shooting all the weapons systems. We had made several trips down range and everything was shooting well. The two commanders were in a Scout helicopter and came down range to watch the shooting.
I fired the rockets from the back seat and that was fine. The platoon leader then started firing the electrically operated gun that shot four thousand rounds a minute of 7.62 millimeter. He was hitting targets left and right and really going to town. You could literally say that the gun was really smoking.
When four thousand rounds a minute are going through six barrels those barrels get very hot. The gun had an automatic interrupt that stopped the firing after six seconds. If a gunner was quick on releasing the trigger and squeezing it again there was virtually no interruption in the bullets and he could shoot the entire load without stopping. The platoon leader wasn’t doing that but he wasn’t giving the barrels much time to cool down either.
After firing about three quarters of the load of ammunition the gun jammed. Under normal firing the gun spun more than once around after the rounds had stopped being fed to it to make sure the barrels were empty of bullets. If unfired rounds were left in the hot barrels they would heat up and go off at unexpected times. When a gun jammed it always stopped with rounds in the gun and these rounds would heat up and go off (called cook-offs).
Our gun had just jammed when along came the two commanders. They flew right past us just off our right side. Being in front of an armed helicopter is never a great idea and it was against range regulations. As soon as they passed us I keyed the radio microphone and spoke their call sign. At the same instant that I spoke the call sign a round cooked off and flew past them. It was a tracer round which can be seen day or night and they both heard and saw it.
They immediately broke right and wanted to know who had fired that round. I keyed the mike and said it came from my aircraft. The troop commander came back instantly and said we were to report to the arming pad. Those boys thought I had taken a shot at them! My calm response on the radio was, “I will return to the arming pad as soon as the barrels have cooled on the gun so we don’t have any more cook offs”.
During the five to ten minutes that we sat there hovering waiting for the barrels to cool the platoon leader in the front seat got more and more nervous. More than once he said, “We’re in trouble now”. My answer to him was, “We’re not in trouble. We did not hover in front of an armed helicopter. And we aren’t the ones that don’t know what we are doing on a range”.
After we were certain that the barrels had cooled and there was no chance of any more cook offs we flew back to the arming pad. I landed the aircraft and started the shutdown procedure. During shutdown the engine had to be cooled two minutes at an idle before being shut off and many systems needed to be shut down.
As we were turning things off and cooling the engine the two commanders approached the aircraft without our noticing them. When I looked up they were standing right outside my side of the aircraft right in front the rocket pods that still had some rockets in them. Rockets are fired by a small electrical charge and can easily be set off by stray voltage or static electricity.
It is very common for not all of the rockets to fire. The rockets were by far the most dangerous weapon on the aircraft as far as accidental firing and killing people. The aircraft had not been grounded with either of the two grounding wires required after landing nor had the weapons guys made sure the rockets were safe and would not fire.
So I opened my canopy door and yelled, “Get back away from the aircraft. You are standing right in front of the rockets that haven’t been cleared!” Two things then happened at the same time. The platoon leader hung his head because he thought I had probably driven the last nail in the coffin and the two commanders looked at the rocket warheads facing them and stepped back.
I rolled the throttle off to shut the engine down completely and then said to the commanders that as soon as the aircraft was shut down and secured I would answer any of their questions. The weapons guys came up to the aircraft and we coordinated the grounding and clearing of the rockets. I told the weapons guys not to touch the machine gun because I needed to explain how it worked to the commanders.
After the shutdown was complete I got out of the aircraft and invited the commanders to approach the aircraft. Opening the door to the machine gun I said, “Now, let me explain how the gun works and what just happened down range”. Carefully removing the jammed rounds and the rounds still in the barrels I showed them how the gun had rounds left in the hot barrels. The both understood that rounds left in hot barrels sometimes got so hot that they ignited on their own and were shot out of the barrels.
As I stood up from where I had been sitting showing them the gun, I added, “There are two other thing we need to talk about. You have violated two range regulations. First you went forward of an armed helicopter down range and second you walked in front of weapon systems that had not been cleared. Both incidents would normally be reported to the range officer. Either one of those violations normally gets people kicked off the range if they aren’t killed. I suggest that you have someone who knows what to do on a helicopter gunnery range accompany you at all times”.
Lieutenant Colonel Wall said nothing and walked off. The troop commander said, “Thank you” and walked off behind him. The platoon leader just shook his head. I guess he couldn’t believe that I added the part at the end about the violations the commanders had made at the range. As far as I was concerned, we had escaped twice without anyone being hurt by their mistakes and we couldn’t afford to take any more risks with them doing dangerous things.
Too many times we think the worse when something happens. I guess the two commanders thought that I had shot at them. Obviously I had not shot at them because if I had shot at them I wouldn’t have missed them by a hundred feet. Like the two commanders, sometimes things happen because others don’t know what they are doing. Other times things happen because we don’t know what we are doing. Either way it’s best to check things out before jumping to conclusions. And it’s always wise to think the best and not the worse when it comes to other people and their actions. Most folks do the right things most of the time.
posted by Bruce | 9:15 PM
1 Comments:
Good story. The story I wrote about Suggins blowing away the flight crew, really happened to us. Immediately, the flight crew was jumping to conclusions because it appeared so. It is always better if the commander of units have had experience in the MOS of the group they are commanding. Sadly, it seldom works out that way.
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