Vietnam Remembered

[BuoyJumper]

Here ya go John and Hans USN rivercraft in Vietnam.

John, thank you for your service.

U.S.N. STAB (Seal Team Assault Boat)

• Displacement: 3 tons (approx)
• Length: 20 feet (approx)
• Beam: 9 feet (approx)
• Draft: 2 feet (approx)
• Propulsion: 2 Outboard gasoline engines
• Speed: 35 kts
• Crew: 2-3 + 5-6 SEALs
• Weapons: 4 single 7.62mm mg, 1 40mm Mk 18 Mod 0 grenade launcher.

U.S.N. LSSC  (Light Seal Support Craft)

• Displacement: 5 tons
• Length: 24 feet
• Beam: 9.5 feet
• Draft: 1.5 feet
• Propulsion: 2 Ford 427 gasoline engines, 350 hp, 2 Jacuzzi water pumps
• Crew: 3 + 6 SEALs Weapons: 2 single 7.62mm mg and 1 .50 BMG.

         Note: 16 built by Grafton Boatworks. In service 1968.

[vftb]

Thanks for your post John, great stuff, all input on this thread is always welcome.  Thanks also for your clarification of STAB, it was either unfamiliar to me or I'd forgotten it  .  It always amazes me as to how many posters on this board are Viet Vets, on a percentage basis.  Although we didn't work a lot of the smaller inland water ways we did the larger ones, seems like we cruised some common water on the Bassac (fun place).  If you haven't been there, Chief Wells (Ronone) did a great write-up on what we, the Blackhaw, did; look here.

Here's the address of Chief Wells' entire site.

[pachesma]

Yep, that 2nd fotos them. Ours had Chevy BB's and them big huge "old fashioned" mercruiser outdrives. Felt like they weighed about 300 lbs ya had to pop ona them bad boys off!!! I THINK(these are ALL very distant memories now!!!) they used a "velvet drive" transmission.

I "THINK" (same excuse as above) Grafton built 20 or so off 'em and I wanna say Uniboat(same folks that made the PBR) built a couple, three of 'em as well.

Check out where the radar "doom" was, you were tall enough(which I was) ya could lean on it.

Get 10 or so guys witha full load-out aboard you'd have about an inch and a half of freeboard, give her the juice she still would get up and fly, which was the whole intent of the thing in the 1st place.

You'd sit in the middle of a couple canals in the middle of the night idling dead quiet(underwater exhaust) with an ambush team and as soon as ya heard something it was balls to the walls and do an insertion. Scream outa there, provide support, and then go back in there and get 'em.

Oh, thats right. Now I remember why I drank everyday of my life for the next 20 years!!-JRC

[vftb]

Here ya go John, exiting Song Bassac with the crew standing down:

Ours had Chevy BB's and them big huge "old fashioned" mercruiser outdrives.

Yeah, just what I'd want to do, take incoming sitting on top of gasoline 

[pachesma]

Ours had Chevy BB's and them big huge "old fashioned" mercruiser outdrives.

Yeah, just what I'd want to do, take incoming sitting on top of gasoline 


[/quote]


Yeah, but we were a small target and supposedly the fuel cells were "self-sealing". Course, a B-40 or something solve whether they were self sealing or not ina heartbeat.

And don't for one second think there was any kinda armor on either the "STAB's" or the PBR MkII's. Armor meant weight, weight meant slo-down, and speed was the only thing ya had.

And please don't think it was all that bad. This WASN'T in the 60's or even very early 70's when there was actually a war or war like combat occuring. This was at the end, post our gov't actually pretending to still be fighting a war.

LinebackerII, nixons Dec 1972 B52 bombing raids over Hanoi, happened shortly after I got there, and the "cease fire" accord was signed shortly thereafter. Most US troops were gone or shortly to leave, and our mission was essentially one of "mopping up the mess on the floor " after "the party" was over.

We were pretty much an unsupported non-traditional mission that I pretty much got volunteered into when; in the last week of boot camp in Orlando, asa dumb as an ox kid, foolishly raised my hand when a chief came by and asked if anyone in our squad had any experience working with small boats. And as up to that point in my life I was either working on cars on standing ona boat, I raised my hand. A guy that knew something about boats with some kind of mechanical knowledge, I musta been some kinda catch.

Welp, boot camp graduation, two weeks leave, eight weeks down little creek training, two more weeks leave, and the rest as they say, is history.

It wasn't that bad. While we didn't have a whole bunch of outside support(remember, orders and support are two very separate, very distinct things!!!), I was very fortunate to work witha bunch of people that ya couldn't ask for better.

And ya know whats sad about that, I can remember almost every face, every voice, every character, but you held a gun to my head right now I couldn't name by name except one other person, a BM3 named Young. From Texas. Other than that its a blank screen.

I also don't have any photos, of either my USN time or my USCG time. Well, I DO have a couple CG photos but they are just of people that musta got mixed in with other photos at my family home.

I DID have pics, almost six albums of 'em, and left em all at my family home when I got done being in the military as I kinda moved around alot. Have NO IDEA whatever happened to 'em-JRC

[vftb]

Here's a clip on Squadron Three I found on Youtube.  Anybody look familiar Jerry, supposed to be the Chase  :

[vftb]

Anybody look familiar Jerry

Crap, wrong person  ; who was on the Chase 

[BuoyJumper]

Hans,  I think Tim Hecht was on the Chase in Vietnam. 
We have some other Chase vets, Sonny, CHGuns, Jack but not in Vietnam that I am aware of.

[JerryM]

Well it could happen, but not in this case.

my only comment on this one would be ???? 5 inch 38 millimeter????????????? WTF  .  .  .  O

If I recall at all, a 38 caliber has a barrel 38 times the  bore in length or some similar stuff.
38 millimeters is just under 1-1/2 inches.

[vftb]

You gotta discuss that one with the gunners Jerry    If it's bigger than a .50, I'm lost   

[sparky]

Thanks for posting that video...have never seen much video on any of the CG Squadrons  Sure would like to talk with someone that was on the Point Gray with my buddy the polish cook, Wally Mikolajczak.

[vftb]

Sparky, if you scroll back through the Vietnam Remembered pages you can find a clip I posted on the Blackhaw.  Being an old black hull sailor yourself, it might interest you 

[vftb]

I'm not sure that everybody knows that the CG 82's in Vietnam were "Vietnamized" (turned over to the Vietnamese).  With Steve Watts' permission, here's a picture he took of a boat that had been turned over in Da Nang:

Quote Steve Watts:

sad day when we gave the boats away, the North came out with a great small boat navy didn't they.

[EX-CG-GM]

Well it could happen, but not in this case.

my only comment on this one would be ???? 5 inch 38 millimeter????????????? WTF  .  .  .  O

If I recall at all, a 38 caliber has a barrel 38 times the  bore in length or some similar stuff.
38 millimeters is just under 1-1/2 inches.

5"/38 has a 190 inch long barrel.  (Jerry's right, multiply the 5 times 38 and that's what you get.)  A 5" is 127mm.

[vftb]

Had an opportunity to visit Coast Guard (Government) Island for the first time in many years earlier this week.  In case you guys didn't know, somebody along the way remembered: