The History of the War Wagon Bomb
By Don Langlois, War Wagon Crewchief/Gunner
Edited by Don Callison
Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved
The scouts were getting a little disgusted with having to make
pass after pass over bunkers and throwing frags out to attempt
opening holes in the tops. One problem was that the bad guys were using
platic sheets when making their bunkers so that they could stay dry and
maybe be to keep the CS from getting to them. Our Frags just bounced
off the plastic.
Jim Ormsbee, Frecka, maybe one other crewchief and I were on the
flightline discussing the making of bigger and better explosives than
the frags were were using. The next day I returned from a mission and
lo and behold, we had a new connex and inside was a huge crate of frag
fuses along with a crate of C-4 plastic explosives and TNT. All one
pound blocks.
We started using the stuff the next day and it was doing wonders. We no
longer had to keep making passes over the things we wanted to tear
apart.
We started with one pound each of C-4 and TNT. The TNT had a tin
covering with a hole where a frag fuse could be screwed in. We taped
them together with masking tape at the time.
A fews days later we began having problems with some of the frag fuses
from the crate being duds and we had to start using two one pound
blocks of TNT with two frag fuses. Then we began getting creative with
the sizes.
The average bomb weighed from three to four pounds, but some of us
decided the bigger the better. We had some pilots who would come out to
the flightline and lend a hand, using their creativity as well.
We all knew the risks of carrying the explosives on board. Yet, we all
knew the risks we were taking when just using frags. The bigger risk
was cutting your odds down by reducing the number of passes it took to
destroy some of those bunkers. And any scout can tell you how elaborate
some of those bunkers were constructed.
With one small bomb you could put a hole in the top
and drop in a CS on the second pass, where before it could take several
or more passes to accomplish the same objective. It also saved on fuel
and time.
Hey Generals and all you who took that away from the best damn Cav unit
in Nam.
Up yours
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