While my sample group is small, every fucking tunnel rat I ever met was crazy. Like, off the wall, bugshit bonkers lol. Zero fucks given about anything.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
79 points (96.5% liked)
Forgotten Weapons
1637 readers
5 users here now
This is a community dedicated to discussion around historical arms, mechanically unique arms, and Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons content. Posts requesting an identification of a particular gun (or other arm) are welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/@ForgottenWeapons
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/
Rules:
1) Treat Others in a Civil Manner. This is not the place to deride others for their race, sexuality, or etc. Personal insults of other members are not welcome here. Neither are calls for violence.
2) No Contemporary Politics Historical politics that influenced designs or adoption of designs are excluded from this rule. Acknowledgement of existing laws to explain designs is also permissable, so long as comments aren't in made to advocate or oppose a policy. Let's not make this a place where we battle over which color ties our politicians should have, or the issues of today.
3) No Advertising This rule doesn't apply to posting historical advertisements or showing more contemporary ads as a means of displaying information on an appropriate topic. The aim of this rule is to combat spam/irrelevant advertising campaigns.
4) Keep Post on Topic This rule will be enforced with leeway. Just keep it related to arms or Forgotten Weapons or closely adjacent content. If you feel you have something that's worth posting here that isn't about either of those (and doesn't violate other rules) feel free to reach out to a mod.
5) No NSFW Content Please refrain from posting uncensored extreme gore or sexualized content. If censored these posts may be fine.
Post Guide Lines
These are suggestions not rules.
-Provide a duration for videos. eg. [12:34]
-Provide a year to either indicate when a specific design was produced, patented, or released. If you have an older design being used in a recent conflict provide the year the picture was taken. Dates should be included to help contextualize, not necessarily give exact periods.
-Post a full URL, on mobile devices it can be hard to tell what you're clicking on if you only see "(Link)".
-Posts do not have to be just firearms. Blades, bows, etc. are also welcome.
Adjacent Communities
If you run a community that you feel might fit in dm a mod and we might add your's.
Want to Find a Museum Near You? Check out the mega thread: https://lemmy.world/post/9699481
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Considering what their job was, I would be more worried about the ones that aren't completely whacko.
One of them said, "man, if I hadn't been a little fucked up, I never would have done it. But if I hadn't been fucked top when I started, I sure as fuck would have after the first one."
I was born in the 70’s. I’ve met a lot of vets but never met a tunnel rat. I only met one helicopter door gunner.
I found out later, they didn’t last long. That’s why i only met one.
Nice guy but he never left the war. He lived in his car but had plenty of money. He threw newspapers for a living back when you could make a living doing it.
Tunnel rats typically were mostly if not all volunteers. So that makes sense.
Exactly!
Near Ho Chi Minh city there are some tunnels like this which they let tourists go into and crawl along for a few hundred meters before coming up somewhere else. They were very very skinny, some of the tourists could not fit. Utterly terrifying places, when you think about the context they were used in.
Afterwards I paid $50 to fire a few shots from an AK-47. Surprisingly loud. Hard to imagine coping with several of them going off all around.
Is that a silencer? On a revolver. As I understand it, it can work but generally won't.
I couldn't find a source with enough details on this picture to confidently say. It might just be a blast can.
1911A semi-automatics like the one the Rat below is carrying were disliked because of the muzzle blast that temporarily blinded and deafened them in a tight tunnel. That’s why many Rats preferred silencer-equipped .38 Specials.
It makes sense that they'd favor the .38s if they wanted to suppress them as a gunsmith can convert a non threaded revolver into one easier than they could with a 1911 (assuming they didn't have threaded 1911 barrels at hand).
I can't imagine the horror of being in a tunnel that's effectively a trapped enemy base blinded, deafened, and having alerted everyone to your presence.
Also for anyone unfamiliar with what I meant above by blast can here's a picture. I realized that outside of the US commercial market they may be fairly unknown. They have no baffles and only direct the blast forward. Which could be handy in a tunnel.
I just now linked a report in another comment, the silencer is part of the 1966 experimental kit, and it was found to be largely ineffective.
If there is any reason for bias towards a revolver over a 1911, I suspect a more plausible explanation either in absolute fact or in perception is that a Brown style action like in a 1911 can be pushed out of battery and made inoperable if the barrel is pushed on. It isn't normally a concern, but you can imagine why a tunnel rat might worry about it. That is just speculation.
Is that a silencer?
Yes.
On a revolver.
Yes!
As I understand it, it can work but generally won’t.
You are three for three.
This revolver is from the 1966 Tunnel Exploration Kit. It is a .38 Smith & Wesson, with a supposed reduced cylinder gap and a silencer.
The final report on the kit was that 3 of the 4 units using it found that the silencer gave no appreciable advantage. Report here.
What a terrifying job that must have been.
We're the Tunnel Rats, that's us, and we rule!