Mail Call (2002–…): Season 4, Episode 12 - Fast Attack Submarine - full transcript
- Knock off the jaw jacking.
It's time for Mail Call.
Welcome to Mail Call.
You know, a couple of days ago, I
traded in the old Jeep for something
with a little more horsepower--
the Navy's Mark 5 special operations craft.
I took a joy ride on this battle boat
to answer an email from Nick in Coronado, California.
Nick wants to know how fast this little dingy can go
and what kind of lead it delivers.
Speed is life during combat, and the Mark 5 special operations
craft has it in spades.
It looks like a gunmetal gray version
of racers that blast around every shoreline in America.
But the Mark 5 isn't built for fun.
It is the Navy's fastest water craft
and it is armed to the teeth.
To get a closer look, I signed on for the day with Special
Boat Team 12 at Naval Special Warfare Command in San Diego.
Petty Officer Mike Thompson is the head honcho,
and he gave me the scuttlebutt on the Mark 5.
All right, basically what we have here is an 82-foot Naval
Special Warfare Craft, which is called the Mark 5.
We're capable of doing in excess of 45 knots.
For a craft of this size and for the weight,
the craft weighs 54 and 1/2 long tons.
For something like that to go 50 knots, it's just incredible.
LEE ERMEY: The Mark 5 and the special boat teams
that use this baby are on the cutting edge of 21st century
battle tech.
But the tactical need for a high-speed craft like this one
goes back to the brown-water Navy in Vietnam.
To provide cover during close-in shore operations,
the Navy created Special Boat Unit 1 in 1964.
These days, our boats have gotten beefier and a hell
of a lot more lethal.
But the mission remains the same.
We do direct action missions.
And what that involves is we do maritime interdiction ops.
When craft are smuggling oil, we may board them or have
other agencies board them.
LEE ERMEY: And with this kind of speed, the bad guys can run,
but they can't hide.
When we're looking for a high value target, maybe someone
that's trying to get away from somebody,
they may be on a craft somewhere.
And again, we'll have to board that craft.
LEE ERMEY: Speed is only half the story here.
The Mark 5 is a cool little brother
to get special ops where they need to go,
when they need to get there.
We're this close to the boat.
Let's talk about it, touch it, feel it, and see what it does.
What we got here is a Zodiac with a 55 horsepower outboard
on there, capable of carrying up to eight personnel
to and from the beach.
And it gets on the boat safely.
LEE ERMEY: As cool as this machine is,
it's just a boat until you put guns on it.
Then it becomes a weapon.
And I just had to get a closer look.
What about these weapons?
My god, they're awesome.
We got a twin .50 caliber.
That's right.
Max range on this is about five nautical miles.
That's a long range for it to be shooting things.
Effectively like to shoot things within a mile or less
is what we'll be shooting at, about 2,000 yards.
It's a pretty good weapon.
There's a lot of capabilities of it.
We also have a lot of attachments
that we've put on here.
LEE ERMEY: Damn right the .50 caliber is a good weapon.
And by adding a thermal imaging or a night vision scope,
the good old .50 is even more of a heartbreaker.
And that's not all they've got going.
So Mike, tell me about this little baby.
What we got here, Gunny, is a 40 mike-mike grenade launcher.
This thing is capable of shooting up to 2,200 meters.
It has a kill radius of 5 meters and a frag of 15.
LEE ERMEY: If you ain't a friendly,
you're not even going to know what hit you.
I always heard that this boat generally
operates at nighttime.
Our best op is in the middle of darkness.
We don't run with nav lights.
We have a very strict policy on light discipline
inside the craft.
If someone can see a light on board,
then that means the enemy is going to be able to see us.
All right, Gunny, now that I showed you
a little bit of the stuff that's on the back deck, how about
we take inside and look at all the good stuff
inside the cockpit?
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
The boat captain, the navigator, the engineer, and the gunners
are all that's needed to take SEALs into and out of the worst
kind of hell.
And talk about sparse accommodations.
There's no bunks, not even a head.
Maybe that's why they're in such a hurry.
All right, we've seen the Mark 5 from stem to stern.
We've seen the entire package.
Now let's rock and roll.
Let's get underway.
Yes.
The Mark 5s always work in pairs.
That way one boat can provide cover
while the other one sweeps in to complete the mission.
Now that we're moving, I can't wait to put this baby
through its paces.
It's time to really wind her up and see what kind of maneuvers
go into a beach assault.
[radio]:: You ready to drop the hammer?
Roger, [inaudible].
OK, we're talking about dropping the hammer.
I imagine that probably means that they
want to go a little faster.
Yeah, that's exactly what they mean.
The Mark 5 is a well-built machine.
It has to be when you're taking turns like this
and coming to a dead stop from 50 miles an hour.
But this is just business as usual when the heat's on.
Now, I'm not just a speed freak.
I also wanted to hitch a ride in the Mark 5's Zodiac boat,
so the boys showed me how they launch and recover
the little boat that delivers a big ride.
Pretty neat little vessel.
Got a 55 horsepower motor, and as you see,
this little baby could really click right along,
really move out.
The Mark 5 is specifically designed to let the Zodiac ride
right up into the stern.
The Mark 5 also has a global reach.
Mike and his crew can tear down the boat,
load it up into an aircraft, and deliver a world
of hurt anywhere on the globe.
Now, that's what I call a lot of bang for your buck.
Hoo yah!
Special Boat Team Number 12, getting our boys
on and off the beach in a hurry.
Mark 5 rules.
Oorah!
The Mark 5 is the fastest boat in the Navy's fleet.
But Joyce in Birmingham, Alabama,
wants to know, what was America's very first gunboat?
Well, for that answer, we're going
to have to turn back the Mail Call calendar more than 200
years.
In 1776, big honking ships with giant cannons
pretty much put the kibosh on any kind of sneaky fast attack.
So figuring out how to launch a quick, deadly gunboat
was something our founding fathers were scratching
their heads about.
And here's what they came up with.
The gunboat Philadelphia isn't exactly a Mark 5.
But it's based on the same idea--
a small craft with a small crew and a big gun.
The Philadelphia was one of a fleet of 15 identical boats
that saw service as the end of the Revolutionary War.
And they all sank.
But the Philadelphia was salvaged from the bottom
of Lake Champlain in 1935.
And the cold water preserved her pretty darn good.
So because she's still around at the Smithsonian,
we'll give the gunboat Philadelphia the title
America's first gunboat.
The Philadelphia sank into Lake Champlain
during the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776,
after the tiny gunboat fleet was overrun by bigger ready ships.
But her commander survived to fight another day,
and to become America's most famous traitor.
His name was Benedict Arnold.
Colin in Provo, Utah shot me an email
asking me to tell him all about German Fallschirmjaeger.
Guess how many takes it took me to get that right?
We're talking about German paratroopers here
and what kind of gear earned them
the title "first in combat."
As the German blitzkrieg went rolling over Europe,
it was the German paratroopers known as the Fallschirmjaeger
who really stole the show.
From May of 1940 to May of 1941, there was no stopping them.
The good guys didn't even know what
hit them until it was too late.
The Germans were the first country to use paratroops
as a weapon successfully.
LEE ERMEY: Their combat gear was as high-speed as it got.
Every piece of clothing and equipment
was custom-made for the airborne storm trooper,
starting with the jump helmet.
HARLAN GLENN: It was specially designed
and conducive for jumping out of an airplane.
They basically cut down the sides
and redesigned a special chin strap to give the paratrooper
more support, especially on the opening shock of the parachute.
The German paratrooper helmet had a special liner
that was specially reinforced, again,
to protect the paratrooper on landing should he hit his head
on the ground or on a tree.
LEE ERMEY: Next on the gear list is what they called the bone
sack, because it held everything and the man inside of it.
HARLAN GLENN: What was called the bone sack or the jump
smock, it was designed to be worn over the uniform.
They had three different types of smocks--
the green, the splinter, and the tan and water.
The smock served as a practical garment with its many pockets.
It was a holdall that the paratrooper
could throw extra ammunition, rations, whatever he needed.
So he was like a moving rucksack.
LEE ERMEY: Underneath the bone sack was the Fliegerbluse,
or the fly blouse.
On the blouse was their jump badge and collar tabs.
Each branch had their own color.
Yellow was for infantry and black was for pioneers, which
are like airborne engineers who like to blow stuff up.
The Fallschirm had some pretty fancy pants, too.
Unlike the standard infantry wool trousers,
the jump pants, for one, had a special pocket on their thigh
for what they call the gravity knife, much
like the American paratroopers had,
was that they'd cut themselves out of their rigging
if they were caught in a tree.
LEE ERMEY: They wore knee pads for extra support and jump
boots to better absorb the initial shock of landing.
The first pattern laced up the side and the later pattern
laced up the front.
Topping off the whole deal were leather jump gloves,
which kept the air from going up into their smock
and blowing it up like a kid's pool toy.
Once they landed, the gloves were discarded.
The weapons they carried were all pretty basic,
from the K-98 rifle to the MP 38.
The MP stands for Machine Pistol,
and 38 is the model and year that it was made.
The support weapon of choice was the MG 34, or Machine Gun model
1934.
But the neatest weapon that they had
was the FG 42, which stands for Fallschirmjaegergewehr 1942.
Easy for you to say.
The guns only weighed 9.9 pounds,
which made them ideal for the airborne warrior.
Lean and mean, but they only made so many.
And not everybody got one.
One piece of hardware that every Fallschirmjaeger did have was
a side arm, like the Walthers P38 or 08 Luger.
But not everything they had worked like a charm.
Their chute steering designs sucked.
HARLAN GLENN: In no way can the German paratrooper reach back
like an American or a British paratrooper
could and control his risers.
These German paratroopers are basically
like toys floating to Earth.
They cannot steer themselves.
LEE ERMEY: But once they got on the ground,
they knew what they were doing, and racked up
an impressive string of victories.
But in May of 1941, great gear wasn't going to be enough.
They launched what was to become their last offensive
on a little Greek island called Crete.
HARLAN GLENN: Crete was known as the graveyard of the German
airborne.
Even though the German airborne did achieve their objective,
there were so many casualties that Hitler was horrified
with their losses.
And from then on, the German airborne will never again
employ as an airborne weapon.
What's interesting about the German paratroopers is
as the war started, they were known
for their offensive measures, whereas the war progressed,
at about the midpoint, 1943 and on,
they were known for their defensive abilities.
They were masters of defense and they proved this
at Monte Cassino and in the hedgerows of Normandy.
LEE ERMEY: They were tenacious on the attack and defiant
on the defense.
The German Fallschirmjaeger was one tough customer.
Oorah.
The other critical piece of gear the German paratroopers needed
to get into combat was the Junkers 52 to transport plane.
And Christopher in Staten Island, New York,
is looking for a little flight time with the workhorse
of the German Luftwaffe.
Back in WW2, the Junkers Ju 52 had everything the German
Luftwaffe needed and then some.
This little transport plane with the big wings
was light and reliable.
But it could still carry a platoon of paratroopers
or a ton of bombs.
The secret was in those crazy cantilevered wings.
They had special patented double wing flaps and ailerons.
That meant you could still get great lift
with a heavy payload, even at very low airspeeds.
More than 3,500 Ju 52s served with the Luftwaffe,
and most of them were still around when the war was over.
Junkers is spelled J-U-N-K-E-R-S, but believe me,
these SOBs were not junkers.
After the war, other European countries
snatched them up like allied Hershey bars
and flew them into the ground.
The last Ju 52 in active service flew for three decades
after World War II, until the Swiss Air Force retired her
in 1979.
Got an email here from Michael in Honolulu, Hawaii,
asking about a subject that is near
and dear to the old Gunny's heart.
Michael writes, please tell this old soldier
about my beloved M113.
No problem, Michael, because I know from my experience,
if you wanted to get anything done in Vietnam,
you had to have two things--
a Huey helicopter and an M113.
This is the M113 APC.
APC stands for Armored Personnel Carrier, which means
the M113 is a battle taxi.
Its job is making sure the troops get to the front lines
in one piece.
It looks like an aluminum box with tracks.
And guess what?
That's exactly what it is.
But it's that simplicity that makes the M113 one of the most
versatile infantry vehicles in history.
It has served as a model for so many other vehicles
that the M113 is said to be the head of its own family
of vehicles-- the M113 FOV.
The M113 was designed in the late '50s
and the first production models hit the dirt in 1960.
From the get-go, it was clear this little APC was going
to revolutionize infantry ops.
And it did just that in Vietnam.
The M113 brought mobility to the battle.
You could bring your troops in.
They were fairly rested.
They hadn't had to walk.
They came in at a much faster speed.
And you could get them there with their equipment.
They didn't have to carry at all,
so the troops were a lot fresher at the point of battle.
LEE ERMEY: The M113 was made out of aircraft-grade aluminum,
which protected the troops but kept it a lean, mean fighting
machine.
At just under 12 tons, you could drop it from a plane
or have it swim across the river.
The M113 was simple to operate and could
be served by two crewmen--
a driver and a vehicle commander who helped direct the thing.
Each M113 could haul 11 men in the back, as well
as their weapons and support equipment.
And for that little bit of extra protection,
a trusty .50 caliber machine gun came stock on every model.
The first M113s were powered by a 209 horsepower gasoline
engine.
They had a top speed of only around 37 miles an hour,
so they weren't going to be winning any races.
But they'd get you to the fight a hell of a lot
faster than straight-legging it.
But there was a little problem with the first models.
Can you say combustion engine?
Having gas tanks aboard, if you took a round in the side
and punctured a tank, it was it was fire.
So it wasn't real practical.
LEE ERMEY: As a result, the M113 A1 was introduced in 1964.
This one had a diesel engine, which
cut down on the fire hazard and also increased the vehicle's
range.
This baby saw a lot of action over in Vietnam.
They performed extremely well, increasing the speed
and mobility of the infantry and serving as medical transports
to get wounded off the battlefield.
But its high center of gravity meant that a simple malfunction
could mean serious trouble.
If you were to have a track failure, where the track would
sever, come apart, whether it was from mechanical failure
or driving over an explosive of some kind,
you pretty much lost control of the vehicle.
And it was at that point they could tip over.
LEE ERMEY: And the new M113 still only
had about an inch and a half of aluminum
as its protective shell.
If you were unlucky enough to roll over a mine
or if Charlie got a direct hit with an RPG,
you were going to have a real bad day.
It wasn't perfect, but most G.I.s would tell you
they'd take a ride in a A1 over humping out in the open any day
of the week.
And the military seemed to think enough of the M113 A1
to make it the basis of the M113 family of vehicles,
still in use to this day throughout the world.
Add some radio equipment in the back
and you get the M577 command post carrier.
Throw a Vulcan air defense system on the top
and you get the M163 air defense vehicle.
Other variants can be adapted to fire mortars or tow a missile.
And hell, that's just the beginning.
With its simple, versatile design and its battle
proven toughness, there's no doubt
we'll be seeing new variants of the M113 for a long time
to come.
Now, I ain't bragging or nothin', but that APC is just
something that I happen to know a lot about.
But there's another subject that's been bugging me
for a long time, and finally somebody
sent in an email asking about it.
So thanks to Bob in Lombard, Illinois,
for asking, why do rations have that crescent on them?
Now, that's this little thing right here.
And you see it on everything from the oldest K rations
to the newest MREs.
The reason why is kind of a long story,
so I'm just going to cut right to the chase.
Blame it on the French.
To figure out how we got the crescent on the rations,
like these classics from World War II,
we got to start in 1683.
That's when Emperor Leopold's army beat back the Turks
in the Siege of Vienna.
To celebrate the victory, the emperor's
chef baked bread in the shape of a crescent--
the Turkish holy symbol.
It was kind of a culinary up yours.
And old Napoleon blows into town and likes
the crescent-shaped bread.
He takes it back to France, where it becomes the croissant,
which is French for crescent.
Then the story gets a little fuzzy,
but somehow some American somewhere around the mid-1800s
is looking for a symbol for the Army's commissary department.
Maybe he thinks, huh, war, food, croissant, crescent, great.
And of course, once the guys who hauled the food and cooked food
started wearing the crescent, it only
made sense to put it on the ration boxes, too.
And we still do.
That's what I love about this show.
You ask a simple question and you
get a long, complicated answer that's pretty damn interesting,
if I do say so myself.
So keep e-mailing me, folks, because this is information
central.
Semper Fi.
Carry on.
Please tell this old soldier about my beloved M113.
Well, we'll do it in the next take, Michael.
Just hang loose.
[grunting]
Got to watch that, Gunny.
That's a big step there.
Asking me to tell him all about German [inaudible]..
Say it again?
Fallschirmjaeger.
It's time for Mail Call.
Welcome to Mail Call.
You know, a couple of days ago, I
traded in the old Jeep for something
with a little more horsepower--
the Navy's Mark 5 special operations craft.
I took a joy ride on this battle boat
to answer an email from Nick in Coronado, California.
Nick wants to know how fast this little dingy can go
and what kind of lead it delivers.
Speed is life during combat, and the Mark 5 special operations
craft has it in spades.
It looks like a gunmetal gray version
of racers that blast around every shoreline in America.
But the Mark 5 isn't built for fun.
It is the Navy's fastest water craft
and it is armed to the teeth.
To get a closer look, I signed on for the day with Special
Boat Team 12 at Naval Special Warfare Command in San Diego.
Petty Officer Mike Thompson is the head honcho,
and he gave me the scuttlebutt on the Mark 5.
All right, basically what we have here is an 82-foot Naval
Special Warfare Craft, which is called the Mark 5.
We're capable of doing in excess of 45 knots.
For a craft of this size and for the weight,
the craft weighs 54 and 1/2 long tons.
For something like that to go 50 knots, it's just incredible.
LEE ERMEY: The Mark 5 and the special boat teams
that use this baby are on the cutting edge of 21st century
battle tech.
But the tactical need for a high-speed craft like this one
goes back to the brown-water Navy in Vietnam.
To provide cover during close-in shore operations,
the Navy created Special Boat Unit 1 in 1964.
These days, our boats have gotten beefier and a hell
of a lot more lethal.
But the mission remains the same.
We do direct action missions.
And what that involves is we do maritime interdiction ops.
When craft are smuggling oil, we may board them or have
other agencies board them.
LEE ERMEY: And with this kind of speed, the bad guys can run,
but they can't hide.
When we're looking for a high value target, maybe someone
that's trying to get away from somebody,
they may be on a craft somewhere.
And again, we'll have to board that craft.
LEE ERMEY: Speed is only half the story here.
The Mark 5 is a cool little brother
to get special ops where they need to go,
when they need to get there.
We're this close to the boat.
Let's talk about it, touch it, feel it, and see what it does.
What we got here is a Zodiac with a 55 horsepower outboard
on there, capable of carrying up to eight personnel
to and from the beach.
And it gets on the boat safely.
LEE ERMEY: As cool as this machine is,
it's just a boat until you put guns on it.
Then it becomes a weapon.
And I just had to get a closer look.
What about these weapons?
My god, they're awesome.
We got a twin .50 caliber.
That's right.
Max range on this is about five nautical miles.
That's a long range for it to be shooting things.
Effectively like to shoot things within a mile or less
is what we'll be shooting at, about 2,000 yards.
It's a pretty good weapon.
There's a lot of capabilities of it.
We also have a lot of attachments
that we've put on here.
LEE ERMEY: Damn right the .50 caliber is a good weapon.
And by adding a thermal imaging or a night vision scope,
the good old .50 is even more of a heartbreaker.
And that's not all they've got going.
So Mike, tell me about this little baby.
What we got here, Gunny, is a 40 mike-mike grenade launcher.
This thing is capable of shooting up to 2,200 meters.
It has a kill radius of 5 meters and a frag of 15.
LEE ERMEY: If you ain't a friendly,
you're not even going to know what hit you.
I always heard that this boat generally
operates at nighttime.
Our best op is in the middle of darkness.
We don't run with nav lights.
We have a very strict policy on light discipline
inside the craft.
If someone can see a light on board,
then that means the enemy is going to be able to see us.
All right, Gunny, now that I showed you
a little bit of the stuff that's on the back deck, how about
we take inside and look at all the good stuff
inside the cockpit?
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
The boat captain, the navigator, the engineer, and the gunners
are all that's needed to take SEALs into and out of the worst
kind of hell.
And talk about sparse accommodations.
There's no bunks, not even a head.
Maybe that's why they're in such a hurry.
All right, we've seen the Mark 5 from stem to stern.
We've seen the entire package.
Now let's rock and roll.
Let's get underway.
Yes.
The Mark 5s always work in pairs.
That way one boat can provide cover
while the other one sweeps in to complete the mission.
Now that we're moving, I can't wait to put this baby
through its paces.
It's time to really wind her up and see what kind of maneuvers
go into a beach assault.
[radio]:: You ready to drop the hammer?
Roger, [inaudible].
OK, we're talking about dropping the hammer.
I imagine that probably means that they
want to go a little faster.
Yeah, that's exactly what they mean.
The Mark 5 is a well-built machine.
It has to be when you're taking turns like this
and coming to a dead stop from 50 miles an hour.
But this is just business as usual when the heat's on.
Now, I'm not just a speed freak.
I also wanted to hitch a ride in the Mark 5's Zodiac boat,
so the boys showed me how they launch and recover
the little boat that delivers a big ride.
Pretty neat little vessel.
Got a 55 horsepower motor, and as you see,
this little baby could really click right along,
really move out.
The Mark 5 is specifically designed to let the Zodiac ride
right up into the stern.
The Mark 5 also has a global reach.
Mike and his crew can tear down the boat,
load it up into an aircraft, and deliver a world
of hurt anywhere on the globe.
Now, that's what I call a lot of bang for your buck.
Hoo yah!
Special Boat Team Number 12, getting our boys
on and off the beach in a hurry.
Mark 5 rules.
Oorah!
The Mark 5 is the fastest boat in the Navy's fleet.
But Joyce in Birmingham, Alabama,
wants to know, what was America's very first gunboat?
Well, for that answer, we're going
to have to turn back the Mail Call calendar more than 200
years.
In 1776, big honking ships with giant cannons
pretty much put the kibosh on any kind of sneaky fast attack.
So figuring out how to launch a quick, deadly gunboat
was something our founding fathers were scratching
their heads about.
And here's what they came up with.
The gunboat Philadelphia isn't exactly a Mark 5.
But it's based on the same idea--
a small craft with a small crew and a big gun.
The Philadelphia was one of a fleet of 15 identical boats
that saw service as the end of the Revolutionary War.
And they all sank.
But the Philadelphia was salvaged from the bottom
of Lake Champlain in 1935.
And the cold water preserved her pretty darn good.
So because she's still around at the Smithsonian,
we'll give the gunboat Philadelphia the title
America's first gunboat.
The Philadelphia sank into Lake Champlain
during the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776,
after the tiny gunboat fleet was overrun by bigger ready ships.
But her commander survived to fight another day,
and to become America's most famous traitor.
His name was Benedict Arnold.
Colin in Provo, Utah shot me an email
asking me to tell him all about German Fallschirmjaeger.
Guess how many takes it took me to get that right?
We're talking about German paratroopers here
and what kind of gear earned them
the title "first in combat."
As the German blitzkrieg went rolling over Europe,
it was the German paratroopers known as the Fallschirmjaeger
who really stole the show.
From May of 1940 to May of 1941, there was no stopping them.
The good guys didn't even know what
hit them until it was too late.
The Germans were the first country to use paratroops
as a weapon successfully.
LEE ERMEY: Their combat gear was as high-speed as it got.
Every piece of clothing and equipment
was custom-made for the airborne storm trooper,
starting with the jump helmet.
HARLAN GLENN: It was specially designed
and conducive for jumping out of an airplane.
They basically cut down the sides
and redesigned a special chin strap to give the paratrooper
more support, especially on the opening shock of the parachute.
The German paratrooper helmet had a special liner
that was specially reinforced, again,
to protect the paratrooper on landing should he hit his head
on the ground or on a tree.
LEE ERMEY: Next on the gear list is what they called the bone
sack, because it held everything and the man inside of it.
HARLAN GLENN: What was called the bone sack or the jump
smock, it was designed to be worn over the uniform.
They had three different types of smocks--
the green, the splinter, and the tan and water.
The smock served as a practical garment with its many pockets.
It was a holdall that the paratrooper
could throw extra ammunition, rations, whatever he needed.
So he was like a moving rucksack.
LEE ERMEY: Underneath the bone sack was the Fliegerbluse,
or the fly blouse.
On the blouse was their jump badge and collar tabs.
Each branch had their own color.
Yellow was for infantry and black was for pioneers, which
are like airborne engineers who like to blow stuff up.
The Fallschirm had some pretty fancy pants, too.
Unlike the standard infantry wool trousers,
the jump pants, for one, had a special pocket on their thigh
for what they call the gravity knife, much
like the American paratroopers had,
was that they'd cut themselves out of their rigging
if they were caught in a tree.
LEE ERMEY: They wore knee pads for extra support and jump
boots to better absorb the initial shock of landing.
The first pattern laced up the side and the later pattern
laced up the front.
Topping off the whole deal were leather jump gloves,
which kept the air from going up into their smock
and blowing it up like a kid's pool toy.
Once they landed, the gloves were discarded.
The weapons they carried were all pretty basic,
from the K-98 rifle to the MP 38.
The MP stands for Machine Pistol,
and 38 is the model and year that it was made.
The support weapon of choice was the MG 34, or Machine Gun model
1934.
But the neatest weapon that they had
was the FG 42, which stands for Fallschirmjaegergewehr 1942.
Easy for you to say.
The guns only weighed 9.9 pounds,
which made them ideal for the airborne warrior.
Lean and mean, but they only made so many.
And not everybody got one.
One piece of hardware that every Fallschirmjaeger did have was
a side arm, like the Walthers P38 or 08 Luger.
But not everything they had worked like a charm.
Their chute steering designs sucked.
HARLAN GLENN: In no way can the German paratrooper reach back
like an American or a British paratrooper
could and control his risers.
These German paratroopers are basically
like toys floating to Earth.
They cannot steer themselves.
LEE ERMEY: But once they got on the ground,
they knew what they were doing, and racked up
an impressive string of victories.
But in May of 1941, great gear wasn't going to be enough.
They launched what was to become their last offensive
on a little Greek island called Crete.
HARLAN GLENN: Crete was known as the graveyard of the German
airborne.
Even though the German airborne did achieve their objective,
there were so many casualties that Hitler was horrified
with their losses.
And from then on, the German airborne will never again
employ as an airborne weapon.
What's interesting about the German paratroopers is
as the war started, they were known
for their offensive measures, whereas the war progressed,
at about the midpoint, 1943 and on,
they were known for their defensive abilities.
They were masters of defense and they proved this
at Monte Cassino and in the hedgerows of Normandy.
LEE ERMEY: They were tenacious on the attack and defiant
on the defense.
The German Fallschirmjaeger was one tough customer.
Oorah.
The other critical piece of gear the German paratroopers needed
to get into combat was the Junkers 52 to transport plane.
And Christopher in Staten Island, New York,
is looking for a little flight time with the workhorse
of the German Luftwaffe.
Back in WW2, the Junkers Ju 52 had everything the German
Luftwaffe needed and then some.
This little transport plane with the big wings
was light and reliable.
But it could still carry a platoon of paratroopers
or a ton of bombs.
The secret was in those crazy cantilevered wings.
They had special patented double wing flaps and ailerons.
That meant you could still get great lift
with a heavy payload, even at very low airspeeds.
More than 3,500 Ju 52s served with the Luftwaffe,
and most of them were still around when the war was over.
Junkers is spelled J-U-N-K-E-R-S, but believe me,
these SOBs were not junkers.
After the war, other European countries
snatched them up like allied Hershey bars
and flew them into the ground.
The last Ju 52 in active service flew for three decades
after World War II, until the Swiss Air Force retired her
in 1979.
Got an email here from Michael in Honolulu, Hawaii,
asking about a subject that is near
and dear to the old Gunny's heart.
Michael writes, please tell this old soldier
about my beloved M113.
No problem, Michael, because I know from my experience,
if you wanted to get anything done in Vietnam,
you had to have two things--
a Huey helicopter and an M113.
This is the M113 APC.
APC stands for Armored Personnel Carrier, which means
the M113 is a battle taxi.
Its job is making sure the troops get to the front lines
in one piece.
It looks like an aluminum box with tracks.
And guess what?
That's exactly what it is.
But it's that simplicity that makes the M113 one of the most
versatile infantry vehicles in history.
It has served as a model for so many other vehicles
that the M113 is said to be the head of its own family
of vehicles-- the M113 FOV.
The M113 was designed in the late '50s
and the first production models hit the dirt in 1960.
From the get-go, it was clear this little APC was going
to revolutionize infantry ops.
And it did just that in Vietnam.
The M113 brought mobility to the battle.
You could bring your troops in.
They were fairly rested.
They hadn't had to walk.
They came in at a much faster speed.
And you could get them there with their equipment.
They didn't have to carry at all,
so the troops were a lot fresher at the point of battle.
LEE ERMEY: The M113 was made out of aircraft-grade aluminum,
which protected the troops but kept it a lean, mean fighting
machine.
At just under 12 tons, you could drop it from a plane
or have it swim across the river.
The M113 was simple to operate and could
be served by two crewmen--
a driver and a vehicle commander who helped direct the thing.
Each M113 could haul 11 men in the back, as well
as their weapons and support equipment.
And for that little bit of extra protection,
a trusty .50 caliber machine gun came stock on every model.
The first M113s were powered by a 209 horsepower gasoline
engine.
They had a top speed of only around 37 miles an hour,
so they weren't going to be winning any races.
But they'd get you to the fight a hell of a lot
faster than straight-legging it.
But there was a little problem with the first models.
Can you say combustion engine?
Having gas tanks aboard, if you took a round in the side
and punctured a tank, it was it was fire.
So it wasn't real practical.
LEE ERMEY: As a result, the M113 A1 was introduced in 1964.
This one had a diesel engine, which
cut down on the fire hazard and also increased the vehicle's
range.
This baby saw a lot of action over in Vietnam.
They performed extremely well, increasing the speed
and mobility of the infantry and serving as medical transports
to get wounded off the battlefield.
But its high center of gravity meant that a simple malfunction
could mean serious trouble.
If you were to have a track failure, where the track would
sever, come apart, whether it was from mechanical failure
or driving over an explosive of some kind,
you pretty much lost control of the vehicle.
And it was at that point they could tip over.
LEE ERMEY: And the new M113 still only
had about an inch and a half of aluminum
as its protective shell.
If you were unlucky enough to roll over a mine
or if Charlie got a direct hit with an RPG,
you were going to have a real bad day.
It wasn't perfect, but most G.I.s would tell you
they'd take a ride in a A1 over humping out in the open any day
of the week.
And the military seemed to think enough of the M113 A1
to make it the basis of the M113 family of vehicles,
still in use to this day throughout the world.
Add some radio equipment in the back
and you get the M577 command post carrier.
Throw a Vulcan air defense system on the top
and you get the M163 air defense vehicle.
Other variants can be adapted to fire mortars or tow a missile.
And hell, that's just the beginning.
With its simple, versatile design and its battle
proven toughness, there's no doubt
we'll be seeing new variants of the M113 for a long time
to come.
Now, I ain't bragging or nothin', but that APC is just
something that I happen to know a lot about.
But there's another subject that's been bugging me
for a long time, and finally somebody
sent in an email asking about it.
So thanks to Bob in Lombard, Illinois,
for asking, why do rations have that crescent on them?
Now, that's this little thing right here.
And you see it on everything from the oldest K rations
to the newest MREs.
The reason why is kind of a long story,
so I'm just going to cut right to the chase.
Blame it on the French.
To figure out how we got the crescent on the rations,
like these classics from World War II,
we got to start in 1683.
That's when Emperor Leopold's army beat back the Turks
in the Siege of Vienna.
To celebrate the victory, the emperor's
chef baked bread in the shape of a crescent--
the Turkish holy symbol.
It was kind of a culinary up yours.
And old Napoleon blows into town and likes
the crescent-shaped bread.
He takes it back to France, where it becomes the croissant,
which is French for crescent.
Then the story gets a little fuzzy,
but somehow some American somewhere around the mid-1800s
is looking for a symbol for the Army's commissary department.
Maybe he thinks, huh, war, food, croissant, crescent, great.
And of course, once the guys who hauled the food and cooked food
started wearing the crescent, it only
made sense to put it on the ration boxes, too.
And we still do.
That's what I love about this show.
You ask a simple question and you
get a long, complicated answer that's pretty damn interesting,
if I do say so myself.
So keep e-mailing me, folks, because this is information
central.
Semper Fi.
Carry on.
Please tell this old soldier about my beloved M113.
Well, we'll do it in the next take, Michael.
Just hang loose.
[grunting]
Got to watch that, Gunny.
That's a big step there.
Asking me to tell him all about German [inaudible]..
Say it again?
Fallschirmjaeger.