Forward assist

[n5wd]

Well, I guess I was in a different Air Fore than the other guys, as I was sent to Vietnam after attending the 3AZR81150 Combat Security Police course ('s funny how you always remember some numbers, like AF SN before we went to SSAN's). For those weeks, we basically lived with our M-16's in anticipation of being a Skycop on one of the bases where the Air Force had to provide their own security on the wire (at Phan Rang AB, in my case). I wouldn't even guess as to how many .223 rounds we fired during the course, along with blanks for the exercises, plus 40mm grenades, 12ga shotgun rounds, Plus 3 hand grenades each, a few smoke grenades, etc.

Anyways, though the Aussies (#2Squadron RAAF) security folks provided most of the night ambush patrols on our wire, for a while, our senior staff wanted the USAF guys to be able to do the patrols, since there rumors of the squadron moving down to Vung Tau with their helicopter squadron.

The Aussies had a bit of schooling for us before hand, and one of the things they drilled into us was travel in what we'd consider condition yellow, so as to prevent accidental discharges from giving away our location, then when we reached the ambush point, to silently go into "red" and the use the forward assist to insure in-battery condition.

I wound up doing only one night ambush patrol and didn't manage to pull the trigger once that night, though I would swear there were 13 NVA Main Battalions traversing our AOP that night.

Forward to today -picked up a Bushmaster CF-15 earlier this fall, and it does NOT have the forward assist.

[myntalfloss]

IIRC, the forward assist was not on the original AR-15,but was added to the M-16 once it started being used in VN, and the weapon would get fouled from jungle whatever.

When I got there in '69, all of ours had the forward assist. But, if the round didn't feed properly, you didn't know it untll you'd pulled the trigger and since the M16 didn't have double strike capability,the forward assist was moot and you just racked another round. The prevailing opinion was that the ball-type powder was causing FTE's. Apparently they had changed the powder as I don't recall any problems.

[OldCannon]

Yes, but only because I didn't want the target on the 100 yard range to hear the bolt drop.
I, like jrma, was USAF and was not allowed to play with battle rifles. Unlike jrma, I know why because the range officer told us. His claim was we were dumb enough to shoot ourselves in the foot if we were allowed to even breath on a battle rifle.

They did let was shoot ARs with .22 conversions on them in basic training. Mine had a FTF every third round.

Oh god how I remember that. When I found out I got the "expert marksmanship" ribbon I was stunned. I was at the range on one of those rare COLD days in San Antonio, the rifles didn't want to work and neither did the instructors.

(I was Elec Warfare, so I figured I'd never touch a rifle other than my Lackland Shooting Gallery and Carnival training, NOW look at how far I've come )

I was fortunate enough to socialize with a lot of Army and Marine folks, so the whole SPORTS thing was taught to me as part of "off-duty" rifle work.