Has anyone ever heard of this: M72 LAW tube recycled into a mortar tube?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

A "friend of a friend who knows a guy whose uncle was in Vietnam" sort of story: through pretty much that exact channel I heard that late in the war, discarded LAW tubes were turning up in captured weapon caches converted into 60mm mortar tubes and subsequently the order went out that LAW tubes were to be beaten flat before being discarded.

Sounds specious.

Anyone

[Abbott Shaull]

A "friend of a friend who knows a guy whose uncle was in Vietnam" sort of story: through pretty much that exact channel I heard that late in the war, discarded LAW tubes were turning up in captured weapon caches converted into 60mm mortar tubes and subsequently the order went out that LAW tubes were to be beaten flat before being discarded.

Sounds specious.

Anyone

The discard tubes were used for any number of things. It wouldn't surprise someone would get the bright idea how to fire a 60mm mortar in them. Yet, they were big for IED type of booby traps for the most part. Due to the fact that many US troops would think anything about a discard tube until someone kicked it or stumbled over it....

[95th Rifleman]

Never heard of mortars but discarded LAWs where used by the VC for a wide variety of booby traps. One common one was to line up grenades inside the tube with the pins out but packed tightly so the strike lever was still in place. They would be rigged in the treeline so a patrol could trip the device, tiliting the tube and letting the grenades roll out overt the patrol.

This was just one of many ways to make use of a discarded LAW which is why US forces where instructed to recover or "make safe" LAW tubes.

[Legbreaker]

Yes, they were occasionally used as one or two shot mortar tubes which is why we were taught to wrap the expended weapon around a tree after firing.
You couldn't get more than a shot or two out of them though before they self destructed, but that one shot may be enough to kill a few of your people.

[dragoon500ly]

Not just LAW tubes, whenever any fire base or Special Forces A camp was abandoned, it was standing orders to remove or destroy any pipes as well. There were also orders to flatten C-Ration cans after use, material just too damn useful as bobby traps.

[HorseSoldier]

And in the boonies a lot of units would leave a detachment to ambush on the site where they'd done a field resupply. NVA would come looking for left over goodies (both of military use as well as comfort item type stuff) and it was usually a good spot to catch a squad or two in the open.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

And in the boonies a lot of units would leave a detachment to ambush on the site where they'd done a field resupply. NVA would come looking for left over goodies (both of military use as well as comfort item type stuff) and it was usually a good spot to catch a squad or two in the open.

From the same source I also heard that LRRPs had a fun hobby of finding AK clips in NVA caches, so they'd strip out half the rounds, pop the slug out of the next round down, stuff the entire casing (including leaving the powder in) with a little wad of C4, then reloading the clips and putting them back...

[dragoon500ly]

From the same source I also heard that LRRPs had a fun hobby of finding AK clips in NVA caches, so they'd strip out half the rounds, pop the slug out of the next round down, stuff the entire casing (including leaving the powder in) with a little wad of C4, then reloading the clips and putting them back...

Your source had it backwards, when the LRRPs/SOG operators went into the field they would bring AK mags with them, either boobytrapped with a small charge of C-4 with a pull detonator (as the follow rides up, loading fresh rounds....) or with rounds preloaded. If they found a cache or had a contact that resulted in dead NVA/VC, they would drop a couple of mags near the body and sooner or later, some luckless NVA would find a fully loaded clip and thank his lucky stars!

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Your source had it backwards, when the LRRPs/SOG operators went into the field they would bring AK mags with them, either boobytrapped with a small charge of C-4 with a pull detonator (as the follow rides up, loading fresh rounds....) or with rounds preloaded. If they found a cache or had a contact that resulted in dead NVA/VC, they would drop a couple of mags near the body and sooner or later, some luckless NVA would find a fully loaded clip and thank his lucky stars!

AH. Okay, gotcha. I heard these war stories ages ago so it may have been explained properly to me, I just remember wrong.

[Fusilier]

AH. Okay, gotcha. I heard these war stories ages ago so it may have been explained properly to me, I just remember wrong.

You may have actually remember it the way it was told to you. I'd say its safe to say half of all war/army stories are either total fiction or have a large degree of inaccuracies or exaggerations.

[Raellus]

Your source had it backwards, when the LRRPs/SOG operators went into the field they would bring AK mags with them, either boobytrapped with a small charge of C-4 with a pull detonator (as the follow rides up, loading fresh rounds....) or with rounds preloaded. If they found a cache or had a contact that resulted in dead NVA/VC, they would drop a couple of mags near the body and sooner or later, some luckless NVA would find a fully loaded clip and thank his lucky stars!

This was part of project Eldest Son, a SOG program to inject sabotaged ammo into NVA weapon's caches. This program was effective enough that SOG had to have its own AK ammo manufactured in Taiwan because there was concern that using captured NVA mags could result in one of the doctored rounds killing SOG people. (A lot of SOG teams carried AKs or at least equipped their Vietnamese pointmen with them.)

They did it with 82mm mortar ammo as well.

[bobcat]

This was part of project Eldest Son, a SOG program to inject sabotaged ammo into NVA weapon's caches. This program was effective enough that SOG had to have its own AK ammo manufactured in Taiwan because there was concern that using captured NVA mags could result in one of the doctored rounds killing SOG people. (A lot of SOG teams carried AKs or at least equipped their Vietnamese pointmen with them.)

They did it with 82mm mortar ammo as well.

that gives me a great idea...
time to type up a few charts(ammo types and such.)

[Abbott Shaull]

AH. Okay, gotcha. I heard these war stories ages ago so it may have been explained properly to me, I just remember wrong.

Either way it interesting way to deal one personnel issue...

[Abbott Shaull]

This was part of project Eldest Son, a SOG program to inject sabotaged ammo into NVA weapon's caches. This program was effective enough that SOG had to have its own AK ammo manufactured in Taiwan because there was concern that using captured NVA mags could result in one of the doctored rounds killing SOG people. (A lot of SOG teams carried AKs or at least equipped their Vietnamese pointmen with them.)

They did it with 82mm mortar ammo as well.

Yeah that would be the major downside of doing this. You wouldn't be able to trust anything captured. All the more reason to keep your weapon you were issued when times were desperate....

[Abbott Shaull]

You may have actually remember it the way it was told to you. I'd say its safe to say half of all war/army stories are either total fiction or have a large degree of inaccuracies or exaggerations.

Call it the fishing story effect...lol