Thread: FT 7.62-A-2
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Old 08-29-2018, 21:02   #1
CSB
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Clarksville, TN
Posts: 1,159
FT 7.62-A-2

Almost 15 years ago I posted this in a sister SOC thread:
Quote:
As a lieutenant/captain, I used to carry at the top of my ruck an ammo can, not the thin one from the 7.62 MLB 1-4, but the fat one like for the 5.56. Inside was a Ranger Handbook, Pathfinder Handbook, Jumpmaster Handbook, SAVSERSUP3 with trigraphs (SF commo stuff), GTA's on everything I could steal from the TASC (Demo Card, Mine Card, Bridge Card, Route Recon Card, etc.), a pilot's E6B calculator, firing tables for the M60 MG and the 81mm mortar, a bunch of those little green "memorandum" notebooks, pens, pencils, grease pencils, a spare compass, spare flashlight bulbs, earplugs, a slide rule (later a calculator when calculators were invented), tracing paper, map sheets, P38 can openers, and so on. I called it my "magic box."

Whenever a need arose, I could drop to one knee and somebody could lift the top flap on the ruck and open the "magic box," get what we needed, then reseal the box. It was totally waterproof, and even floated.

It has been through Ranger, Pathfinder, Special Forces, to Korea, Israel, Somalia, twice to Honduras, Roosevelt Roads PR, twice to FRG (when it was still FRG), and a bunch of stateside operations/ exercises.

Even when I became a LTC Judge Advocate senior staff officer, I carried my Magic Box. It's still in my garage. It probably belongs in a museum.
This weekend I was cleaning out the garage and there it was, covered in cobwebs and dirt. I literally had to hose the coating of spider webs, ant nests, roach shit off of it. But when I opened it, it was as good as new.

And there was one firing table I'll bet the 18B's haven't seen: FT 7.62-A-2.

Yes gentleman, that's the Firing Table for the 7.62 mm M-60 Machine Gun, when used in the tripod indirect fire mode. If you ever wanted to know why the pig has machined flats on top of the replaceable barrel, this is it. So you can lock the M-60 into a tripod, cinch it down, and adjust elevation with a gunners quadrant (see image attached) and fire the machine gun in an indirect fire mode, as if it was artillery, from defilade or behind fortifications, or over the heads of friendly forces in more or less safety (YMMV).

When you have more ammo than air support ...
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File Type: jpg IMG_7546.jpg (63.2 KB, 79 views)
File Type: jpg Quadrant.JPG (69.8 KB, 91 views)
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