“We had an Army pair of
Dusters at A-3, a company sized position between Con Tien and Gio Linh. We got
hit one night with the NVA coming from a tree line about 200 meters from our
lines. We turned the Dusters, 106's and Artillery lose on the tree line. They
never made it out. The Dusters worked the tree line like we would work a weed
whacker in the garden. The firepower they unleashed was unbelievable. You
should read the description of the effects of the quad 50's in "Hell in a
Very Small Place." They were the last French position to fall at Dien Ben
Phu.” – Joseph Fulginiti
I had to look up "Duster".
ReplyDeleteThe event you were describing had a lot of firepower.
It did. I saw a Duster fire at a support base in Tay Ninh Province in early 1967, targeting a possible Viet Cong perimeter probe. The 40mm guns were loud and sent big tracers downrange. The resulting detonations at least damaged a bunch of trees. At Lai Khe later that year the remains of a Duster destroyed by a land mine sat near the PSP runway. The mine apparently set off stored ammunition and the Duster gasoline tanks. A big piece of metal with a large hole.
ReplyDelete