Milsurp After Hours

... another part of Nam S**t:

Responsiveness of Artillery Fire. Because of the nature of the Vietnamese war and the large number of civilians living within areas where enemy contacts are initiated, there are certain mandatory clearances and checks that artillery units must obtain prior to a fire mission. In this particular case, the Daily Journal showed that the request for fire reached the artillery liaison officer's desk at the 1st Battalion, 50th Infantry Tactical Operation Center at 2040 hours. Clearance for a "trash grid" (the zone where the canister from an illumination round will impact) was obtained at 2051 hours.

This was from a situation report following an amubish at An Ke! 11 minute wait for illumination is 12 minutes too late! Sometimes it was 45 minutes before out OP got smoke rounds to adjust for HE fire.

I hope there not doing this 'stuff' in Iraq!

Thanx dante'

Guess in that regard we were lucky.....our AO was nearly 100% Free Fire Zone. We shot who & whatever anytime we felt like it. We were dab in the middle of the Iron Triangle, to hell with District! Occasionly we would be too close to a ville where we'd get stalled a little, but this was rare.

Infantry battalion LNO sections cleared for artillery fire in their AO in relation to where their troops were. I don't remember a problem with how quick that permission was given, either when I was in the field or acting as an LNO operative. When there was a village involved, the firing battery would have to get further clearance from whatever the local Arvin command structure was. That was where there was a problem from time to time. Also air data had to be posted and cleared as well... this done through the battery, not the LNO section.

A lot of times in the delta when I was an FO and wanting arty to clear mines near a village, fire would be turned down because of not getting Vietnamese military clearances. In such cases we got a "contact only" permission, which was like no permission at all.

Another thing that bothered me at the time was that sometimes one system didn't allow for a check fire from another that made a mistake. I had this happen while I was in the LNO section for the 3/506 in the 101st my last few months in Nam. I had turned down some grids for H&I fire in the Ashau valley because of proximity to night locations of some of our troops. Then one of our elements started taking fire. I could tell by the discription of how the rounds were falling near and away that it had to be H&I from some battery. A call to the Arty higher up at brigade got no response other, than "it has to be coming from your location". I knew better because I could hear that nothing was being, or had been fired. I demanded a check fire giving the autherized initials. By the time they tracked down the Arvin battery firing into our AO, the fire mission was over. Nobody was hurt, fortunately. Somebody had screwed up somewhere.

e had DT's 108 and 109 that produced immiedate production of Willy Peter only if we had contact. A radio command to FDC of Delta Tango 109 and the FM was inniatated.

I will say that 'some' of the FM's we requested were unnessecery, but four surveyors setting alone (except for 12 Civilian Irrugular Defencs Group milisa ) on top of a hill in indian country... we took on a tad bit o' paranoa! Also, we got Cobra and/or gunship backup, although artillery and aircraft could not be in the same AO.

when we called in FM's, it was for local enemy activity around our AO, or as an addition to LURP, recon, or other alies that we had radio contact. If a base camp, CAP or 5th. SF Ville, Pleaku AFB, or other large facility was being attacked we joined in with other units to track the enemy and direct artillery or Puff, Spookey or gunships.

Thanx Dante'