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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