Re: WWII songs - Lili Marlene

From: Ronald Gillen (gillen@NCONNECT.NET)
Date: Mon Apr 12 1999 - 14:24:28 PDT


Tim Merry wrote:
>
...... our carriers
> were also fitted with the .5in Browning machine-gun (a belt-fed
> job with three sorts of bullets in series - ordinary,
> armour-piercing, and incendiary). ........

Tim,

I 'worked' on a quad-.50 which was mounted in a small
electrically driven turret
on wheels and could easily be towed by a jeep.

While primarily an AA gun to defend a 40mm battery from low level
strafing it could be put to other good uses too.

Under sustained fire it could chew a brick wall to small pieces.
It was powered by a small gasoline driven DC generator mounted
on it and could, in an emergency, run on its truck battery for
about 1/2 hour. I don't know why it wasn't put to much wider use.
Seated in a half-trach it could be a fearsome weapon,
in Korea we had single 40mm Bofers mounted in half-tracks
mostly used to clear the hills of Guerrillas.

Regards ..... Ron Gillen


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