I was watching Vietnam in HD and it left me with some more questions and I am hoping our very own story guy Snake Driver will respond to this as I love hearing his stories.

No idea on the blue O on the Huey, it could mean almost anything and be almost anybody.  Sometimes those things like that even identified which platoon within a certain unit the aircraft belonged to.

While we used mostly unguided 2.75" rockets with 6 & 11 lb HEAT warheads (High Explosive Anti Tank), there were also some Hueys around with wire guided system called the SS-11.  The problem with the wire-guided rockets was that the Huey had to fly low & slow and stay straight & level during the whole time the missile was being guided to the target.  In the intense anti-aircraft weapon environment we were in, that made the Huey extremely vulnerable to being shot down by the enemy, and I sure wouldn't have wanted to do it!  That said though, they did have some limited success at knocking out some tanks and armored vehicles.

Here's a picture of what the SS-11 looked like:

Not relevent the thread, but remotely related.


RIP CWO3 Bobby Gene Frost

I read somewhere that the explosive power of the 2.75 inch rocket was the equivalent to a 105mm howitzer round.  Is there any truth to that?  I could see a salvo of them being fired, but not a single one.  Anyone shed some light on this for me?

Each press of the button on the control stick would normally shoot 1-pair of 2.75" rockets, one from each side, but we also had a selector switch on the fire-control panel that would allow the quantity per button push to be increased by two's all the way up to a full salvo.  Salvo, while possible, was generally thought to be a dangerous procedure because of a possible multi-hangfire in the tubes, which could be fatal.  That said though, firing of 8 at a time was fairly common.  A couple of quick presses of the button would yield a ripple fire of 16 rockets and that is plenty to do the job.

How accurate were those 2.75" rockets?  Meaning, how far from your aiming point would you reasonably expect the rocket to impact at typical firing ranges?

If everything is perfect, they are fairly accurate.  They have pop-up fins and the motors have angled exhaust ports that give them spin, so accuracy was pretty good.  We often fired our rockets for troops in contact at what was called "Danger Close" and that is within 50 meters.  If the pilot is in trim and the power setting is correct we would expect impact to be within 10 meters of the point of aim.  Angle of attack also affects the impact zone and accuracy of the unguided rockets.  Ideally, we'd like to be at a dive angle of at least 60 degrees or more to have a more narrowly defined impact zone.  Obviously at low angles the spread could be quite large as rockets overshoot and undershoot the intended impact point.

Just like with everything, practice makes perfect.  During my tour we typically fired hundreds of rockets a day.  My personal record was over 600 on a single day's mission.  After firing thousands of rockets, it becomes second nature and you could even do hook & slide shots if you wanted to be fancy.  I knew many guys who would call their shot like "through the window on the left side of the door on the brown building with the machine gun firing at us".............and they'd make the shots just as called from hundreds of meters out.  Once you became accustomed to it, you didn't really even have to look at the sight reticle provided for aiming, you knew from instinct where it was going to based on the position speed & angle of your aircraft.

Wow, that's better than I expected.  Thanks for the info!

Thank you answering that part of the question.  Perhaps I wasn't clear enough though.  Is one 2.75 rocket the equivalent in explosive power to a 105mm howitzer round?  The reason I ask is, I read a book about the Australian SAS in Vietnam and one of the troops was quoted as saying they had to be careful being near those rockets impacting because their explosive power was the same as a 105mm round.  That sounds kind of fishy to me because I've seen modern day 2.75's and 105 rounds go in and there did seem to be a bit of a disparity in the explosions to me.  Thank you for your time sir.

That statement about the 2.75" rockets being equal to a 105mm howitzer round was frequently quoted even in my time,but as you say, it is hard to buy into to it.  Our heaviest rocket HE warhead was 17 lbs.  The standard 105 HE round is roughly 33 lbs., so it doesn't make sense that the smaller rocket warhead of half the weight would have an equal destructive power.  Our 17 pounders were very effective for what they were, but I really could never see the comparison myself.

Cool, thanks.  That stuff sounded off to me.  Also, more stories and pics to please!

Hope you don't mind, I cleaned up the pic a little...


ByteTheBullet  (-:

original looked better

I'm currently flying cobras, here is what we are told: a 2.75" is equivalent to an 81mm mortar (although there are two warheads we use now, one warhead is twice as big, which may very well be that size).  We also have 5" rockets, and they are equivalent to a 155mm shell.

Here's a good wikipedia entry on the history of helicopter armament

did you ever fly as a pink team? or was that only for loach and cobra's

They "Heavy Hog" Cobras that we flew in my aerial artillery unit wore 4-19 shot rocket pods.  Typically we would fill the two inside pods with 17 lb. HE rockets and the two outside pods with flechette rockets.  We could control whether the rockets came from the inside or outside pair of pods.

The Army had the big Chinook helicopters pre-position supplies of rockets, turret ammo and fuel bladders around the country for us to use as field expedient re-arm points.  They were often at at remote artillery bases or small air strips in the middle of no place.  Security was always a problem, but it didn't stop us from using them.  The day I shot the 600+ rockets the re-arm point was only a few miles from the battle, so turn-around time between firings was minimum.  I should add that we were there fighting the enemy from about 4:30a until almost dark that evening.  It was a long day for sure!  All the ammo reloaded was humped by the pilots flying the aircraft.  Usually there wasn't anyone around to help us.  Luckily, we were young and strong.

The Cobras I flew had a chin turret with a 7.62 cal. minigun and a 40mm grenade launcher.  The Aircraft Commander in the backseat fired the wing stores and the co-pilot in the front seat fired the turret guns.

Yes, when my aerial artillery unit (all Cobras) and the rest of the 1st Cav. stood down and went home to Ft. Hood I was reassigned to the 17th Cav. at Camp Holloway in Pleiku.  There we had OH-6 (Loaches) and flew the hunter-killer (pink team) missions.  I did that for the about 5 months or so until late January '73 when the war was over.  It was very exciting work!  We were typically down low and very close to the enemy when we engaged them.

Here's a pic of me when I was in the Cav..  Note the smaller 7-shot pods on the Cobra's outside hard-points.  We flew this configuration in the Cav. Units to lighten the load and give us better maneuverability.

Aerial Gunslingers

You are awesome

S_D, you gonna write a book or something? I'd buy that shit in a heartbeat. Hell, tell me you're gonna write it and I'll paypal you a preorder.

"My personal record was over 600 on a single day's mission.  After firing thousands of rockets, it becomes second nature and you could even do hook & slide shots if you wanted to be fancy.  I knew many guys who would call their shot like "through the window on the left side of the door on the brown building with the machine gun firing at us".............and they'd make the shots just as called from hundreds of meters out."

Awesome!!!  

Thank you S_d for your service and for sharing your experiences with us.  Not just for this thread, but all of them.

Thanks for sharing your stories Snake Driver.

How useful were the minigun and 40mm turret compared with the 2.75 rockets?

I have read that some Cobra pilots had extracted troops by folding out the ammo bay doors and letting them ride on those? Ever see or do that yourself?

Hmmm is it just me or does the Russkie's Sagger look an AWFUL Lot like that?????