Tag Archives: m3 grease gun

Getting Greasy

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Just 40 years ago this week.

Official caption: “Private First Class (PFC) Jose Ledoux-Garcia of Company C, 5th Battalion, 77th Armor, guards his M60A3 main battle tank during Central Guardian, a phase of Exercise REFORGER ’85. He is armed with an M3A1 .45-caliber submarine gun. Base: Giessen, West Germany (FRG), 22 January 1985.”

How about that open bolt on the M3! Note the short receiver M85/T175 (M19) .50 caliber machine gun in the tank commander’s copula, as identified by its crimped flash hider. It was distinctive for being one of the most unreliable machine guns ever adopted by the U.S. DF-ST-85-13234

It is hard to believe that only 40 short years ago, M60 Pattons and M3 Grease Guns were still on the front lines of the Fulda Gap. Both would linger on through Desert Storm.

As for the “Steel Tigers” of the 77th Armor, formed originally as the 753rd Medium Tank Battalion on 25 April 1941, they trained at three different bases in the south that have all been renamed since then and, receiving their first M4A1 Shermans in early 1943, shipped out for North Africa attached to the 45th Infantry (“Thunderbird”) Division.

Just missing the end of the Afrika Corps in Tunisia, they were soon fighting in Sicily (Operation Husky) under Patton’s command and their tanks spearheaded the first Allied unit into Messina, losing six tanks to 28 enemy tracks claimed. They fought for Naples and Rome, earned a French Croix de Guerre for the liberation of the Vosage in 1944, and continued on into Germany through the Ardennes and the Rhineland for VE-Day.

The Sherman-equipped 753rd fought in Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe, typically in platoon and company-sized elements spread out through the 45th ID. 

Post-war, they were redesignated as the Japan-based 77th Heavy Tank Battalion, equipped with M-26s and M4A4E8s, and saw much service in Korea, earning six campaign streamers with the 7th ID.

Then came eight campaigns in Vietnam with M48s in 1969-70, equipped with M60s, continued Cold War service first with the 5th ID and then with the 4th ID, including deployments back to Germany.

Eventually upgrading to the M1 Abrams, they deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo, then moved heavily from Schweinfurt, Germany in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2012 to the sandbox in support of the 1st Infantry Division and then the 1st Armored Division.

They are one of the few Army armor units to carry a Navy Unit Commendation, on the recommendation of the Marine Corps Commandant, earned during Operation Iraqi Freedom VI-VIII in support of I MEF.

Today, the Steel Tigers remain as part of the 1st ID’s 3rd BCT at sunny Fort Bliss, Texas, but, in true globetrotter fashion, they are currently on a rotational deployment to Poland, getting some snow time in.

Their official unit motto is Insiste Firmiter (To Stand Firm) and their battle cry is “Blood on the Axe” for obvious reasons.

Touring Germany with a Chopped Down M1 Carbine

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With personal space at a premium inside the tracked metal monsters of a World War II tank battalion, guns sometimes got unofficially smaller.

Check out this great image, snapped some 80 years ago this month, of two members of the 784th Tank Battalion at a railway marshaling yard in recently occupied Eschweiler, Germany on 23 January 1945, just after the Battle of the Bulge.

(Photo: W.C. Sanderson/ Signal Corps No. 111-SC-259409/ NARA NAID 276537211)

According to the official released wartime caption, the above shows Pfc. Floyd McMurthry (in the foreground) of Canton, Ohio, test-firing an M-3 Grease gun, while Pvt. Willie R. Gibbs (in the background) of Birmingham, Alabama, test-fires a sawed-off M-1 Carbine “which he shortened with his light tank to make it easier to handle.”

Let’s zoom in on that M1 a bit.

Judging by the size of the 8.5-inch handguard on the M1 Carbine, Pvt. Gibbs seems to have whittled this gun down to about 24 inches overall, with most of the 17.75-inch barrel abbreviated. The standard M1 Carbine went 35.6 inches overall.

No word on how the performance of the short-stroke piston action Carbine was affected in the above instance, although it is known that, some 20 years after the above image was captured, American advisors in Vietnam were often chopping down their M1s to more pistol length versions. Meanwhile, “Enforcer” pistols from Iver Johnson and Universal were marketed in the 1970s-90s with barrel lengths in the 9.5 to 10.25-inch range.

But that’s a different article.

For reference, the 784th Tank Battalion, a segregated unit equipped with a mix of M4 Sherman medium Tanks and M5A1 Stuart light tanks, entered combat in Europe in December 1944 and fought its way into Germany with the 104th “Timberwolf” Infantry Division.

Company B, 784th Tank Battalion at Sevelen, Germany on March 5, 1945. The two tanks to the left and right are M5 Stuarts while the vehicle in the center of the image is an M3 half-track. Note the extensive use of M3 Grease Guns, which remained prized by American armored vehicle crews through the 1990s. (U.S. Army Photo: SC 336785)

The 784th later linked up with advancing Soviet troops on the Elbe River and spent several months on occupation duty in Germany after the war. The 700-member battalion suffered nearly 200 casualties during its WWII service.

How Many Can You ID?

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Check out this layout of Warsaw Pact and WWII Allied small arms captured by U.S. Marines of the 22nd MAU from Cuban stores of the Grenadan People’s Revolutionary Army in that briefly-Marxist British Commonwealth nation in October 1983:

Note the Marine in the top left corner in ERDL camo with a slung M16A1, M1 helmet, smoke grenade, and early PASGIT kevlar vest. Notably, the Army’s 82nd Airborne and Ranger units in the same op had kevlar helmets. DOD Photo 330-CFD-DN-ST-85-0202 by PH2 D. Wujcik, USN, via the National Archives. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6395935

Give up?

Official caption: Seized weapons on display are: (clockwise from the back) Soviet-made 82 mm M-36 mortars, 5 Soviet 7.62 mm PK general-purpose machine guns, two Bren light machine guns, 7.62 mm ammunition, two AK-47 assault rifles, an RPG-2 portable rocket launcher, a 7.62 mm Mosin-Nagant rifle, a Czechoslovakian made Model-52 7.62 mm rifle and a US-made .45 cal. M-3A1 submarine gun

Z Man Loadout

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The “Z Special Unit” or “Z Force” detachments, immortalized in the early Sam Neil/Mel Gibson action film Attack Force Z (which included some great suppressed M3 Grease Guns and folbot action from an Oberon-class SSK) ripped up Japanese held islands throughout WWII. There is a really fascinating history behind these units and the redoubtable men who served in them.

Check out this loadout, showing a Webley/Enfield revolver, M1 Carbine, the wicked Welrod suppressed .32 “special purpose” gun, a machete (or possibly one of William E. Fairbairn’s Smatchets), and pack, courtesy of A Secret War.

Now, that looks fun. (Photo: A Secret War)

Fairly Well Preserved Ammo for 50 Years in the Drink

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Vietnamese media recently reported on a pile of vintage small arms ammo that was recovered from the mud of the Tiền River that looks like it just came from the factory. 

Local media showed members of the Vietnamese Army inspecting the ammo, reportedly illegally salvaged from the river near Thuong Phuoc on the Cambodian border and confiscated by Border Guards. It has been underwater for decades, purportedly in a deep-sixed PCF, perhaps one that was put there in 1975 by its ARVN crew during the final days of the regime. 

The fact that it was in fresh water and likely covered by a layer of mud surely helped but either way, you have to hand it to the quality of those green ammo cans, much of which likely dated to WWII anyway. 

Guns of the U.S. Army, 1775-2020

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While you may know of today’s standard U.S. Army infantry rifles, and those of the 20th Century, how about those present at Lexington and Concord or the line of Springfield muskets from 1795 through 1865? What came after?

For all this and more, check out the easy 2,000-word primer I did for this last weekend at Guns.com.

The forgotten 50 year insurgency in West Papua

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Called the province of Papua Barat by Indonesia, who annexed the region from the Dutch in 1963 as a part of the New York Agreement that got Holland out of their East Indies colony for good, many locals in West Papua would rather just see their independence as a free state. Over the past 50 years, there have been a variety of efforts both by domestic groups and idealistic would-be freedom fighters from abroad to pry West Papua away from Jakarta, all with little success.

Today, a contentious highway project has reignited a smoldering conflict, reports Australian media, and clashes between Free Papuan groups and Indonesian security forces are mounting, while an internet blackout and media dead zone keep the war under wraps.

“We will kill, we will fight,” says Sebby Sambom, a Papua New Guinea-based spokesman for the armed independence movement. “We will continue to fight — no compromise.”

West Papuan separatists armed with a variety of weapons including M3 Grease Guns possibly left behind from the Dutch Indies War of the 1940s, an Italian BM59, an FN  Minimi light machine gun (with the jam-a-matic magazine installed) and several Pindad rifles, a clone of the FN FNC. The Minimi and Pindad are surely former Indonesian military weapons under new management. 

More here.

Silent Grease

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When I was a kid, I loved the early 1980s Australian action flick, Attack Force Z, which was loosely based on the Z Special Unit actions of WWII.

Sadly, and not to ruin the movie, but Z ops often turned into suicide missions in which many teams just were never heard from again. Especially great in the movie is the first few minutes, which show a Royal Australian Navy Oberon-class submarine surfacing and, decks almost awash, discharge the commandos in their boats.

Of note, the Z commandos in the movie use suppressed M3 Grease Guns to good effect. So naturally, I went all a ga-ga when I saw this in Indy last month.

More in my column at Guns.com.

When you are flying a Cessna 170 at bug-top level in Southeast Asia, fire suppression is relative

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Two M3 grease gun smg submachine guns mounted to a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog for suppressing fire Vietnam:

(Source: oftheirownaccord.com)

When it comes to captured enemy weapons, the Army never throws anything away

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I recently had the chance to tour U.S. Army’s Museum Support Center at Anniston Army Depot, the keepers of the flame for military history in the country.

The 15,200-acre installation in North Alabama was established in World War II and overhauls both small arms and vehicles for the Army. A longstanding tenant on the sprawling base, based out of Building 201, is the Museum Support Center, operated by the Center of Military History. The CMH maintains an immense collection of 650,000 historic items across 228 sites including 57 large museums that are a part of the Army Museum Enterprise. Items not yet on display, waiting for a public home, or are excess to current museum needs are stored in the “Army’s attic” in Anniston.

In secured storage at the MSC are 13,000 live weapons of all sorts, ranging from 13th Century Ottoman gear to guns captured recently in Afghanistan…and they were gracious enough to roll out the red carpet for me:

More in my column at Guns.com

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