Bored - Part Two

[Mike Venturino]

Continuing with my boredom I'm posting a photo of the Ohio Ordnance Works M1918A3 semi-auto BAR. After buying six subguns last year I didn't have enough money or enough guns I was willing to sell to raise more money, to buy a "real" BAR. So I settled for this. Its a hoot to shoot. At 22 pounds it kicks about like a .222 but you got to be a heck of a man just to lift it up on the shooting bench.

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr169/MLV1/KirkBAR008LargeWebview.jpg

[Dale53]

I lugged one of those all day on a Division strength parade at 100 degrees at Camp Breckenridge, KY. We must have marched ten miles that day getting those thousands of troups lined up to enter the parade grounds in order. I thought it would pull my shoulder off. I was never in combat but used it in "war games" a good bit. Also did a bit of qualifying with it. That is one FINE combat rifle (the original BAR, of course). They cycled slowly and you could HIT with them.

Hang one of them over your shoulder, strap on a loaded magazine belt and with a full field pack, you had a LOAD!

Thanks for sharing with us, Mike.

Dale53

[Lead Fred]

My Father carried one from 1942 to 1946

He said it wasnt much fun

[OutHuntn84]

oh baby oh baby! I always wanted one of those. my granpa used to talk about how great they were but always pointed out that pound for pound he prefered his 30 cal water cool machinegun. if ya don't mind me asking how much did that thing set ya back?

[Piedmont]

I talked to a WW II vet about 15 years ago who went in at Normandy. He said they were in a small group that went through an area before an Allied push the next day. They shot up the command post to get the enemy in disaray. When he mentioned he carried a BAR my ears perked up.

When asked how he liked it he responded that he hated it. They had no machine guns in his small group so when he opened up with the BAR he was the king of the battlefield and he said everyone was trying to take him out!!

[StarMetal]

My best friend's dad, also a best friend, bless him as he's gone now, was a Marine through the South Pacific. He was a BAR man also. He put an end to the myth, at least in his squad, that the smallest man was the BAR man do to the king of the battlefield just mentioned. Not so, as my friend's dad was a very tall huge man. He said he felt sorry for the fellows that had to carry ammo, ammo cans, tripods, stuff for the BAR and machineguns. Yes he said the BAR was heavy, but said it was a very good rifle. Said it was plently accurate too. Really about the only thing he didn't care much for was the M1 Carbine.

Joe

[KCSO]

If yours is anywhere near as accurate as the one I shot you should be tickeled pink with it. I used Doc's to cut off a fence post at right on 200 yards. Suprisingly cheap PMC ammo shot as well as anything in the BAR. I did burn through 1 mag full auto John Wayneing it from the hip and from my expirience the japs would have won, spraying back and forth over 5 targets i put maybe 3 rounds in the kill zone.

[BarryinIN]

Those are way cool. I've looked at the semi-auto M1919 Brownings but couldn't do it. The BARs may get me yet.
I have a part of my mind saying "why get a semi when autos are out there" but the logical part saying "a semi-auto now beats an auto you will never afford".

I know they are pretty impractical, but so are a lot of things. At least they give us a better understanding of what those men lugged around, and a little taste of what they could do.

Jeff Cooper's book "C Stories" has a short chapter on the BAR. He tells about how he was first exposed to the BAR in high school ROTC, where it was expected they learn the nomenclature, operation, and field stripping on the BAR. Imagine that today. Anyway, a quote:
"Sure, it is heavy, and it is by no means a precision weapon...but it conveys an enormous sense of power. Slinging out those 5-shot bursts of full-house 30-06 is one of the most exhilarating shoots known to man- and it works. In the hands of a qualified man, it crumples up opposition like paper."
He closes with:
"That BAR was a man's gun."

[Mike Venturino]

I've only shot my BAR on paper enough to get sight settings. Everything else has been fired at steel. At the Missoula silhouette range back in the summer with a fellow spotting for me I got "on" the 500 meter rams and was able to mow a bank of five down as quick as I could realign the sights and pull the trigger. That was from the bipod of course. I don't expect to do much offhand with that beast. It sure is fun, though.

MLV

[StarMetal]

If yours is anywhere near as accurate as the one I shot you should be tickeled pink with it. I used Doc's to cut off a fence post at right on 200 yards. Suprisingly cheap PMC ammo shot as well as anything in the BAR. I did burn through 1 mag full auto John Wayneing it from the hip and from my expirience the japs would have won, spraying back and forth over 5 targets i put maybe 3 rounds in the kill zone.


Jim, look at Clyde's, of Bonnie & Clyde fame, cut down BAR. They said he done pretty well with it. Wow, what would that be like to control?

Joe

[Dale53]

>>>"That BAR was a man's gun." <<<

That is absolutely TRUE. However, every Infantry Company I was in, the smallest man in the Company was the BAR man (and wouldn't give it up). THAT was the great "Equalizer".

The BAR was heavy but as a result of it's weight and design was CONTROLLABLE. I can still hear the "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP" of it's report. One of the most effective and truly useful weapons of it's times.

Dale53

[StarMetal]

>>>"That BAR was a man's gun." <<<

That is absolutely TRUE. However, every Infantry Company I was in, the smallest man in the Company was the BAR man (and wouldn't give it up). THAT was the great "Equalizer".

The BAR was heavy but as a result of it's weight and design was CONTROLLABLE. I can still hear the "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP" of it's report. One of the most effective and truly useful weapons of it's times.

Dale53

Dale53,

Must be different per squad or whatever, if you read my post my friends dad was like 6'1" and 200 some pounds.

Joe

[Crash_Corrigan]

In '57, whe I was 14, our family {all 20 of us} were spending the Thanksgiving Weekend at the Big Farm that was owned by my Grandad in upstate NY.

The Friday after we were having breakfast in the kitchen when we heard the rattle of rapid shooting about 100 yds away.

We ran down to the Duck House and found Grandpa sitting on the floor with his glasses askew and looking a bit stunned.

He had decided to go deer hunting. He had no license. He felt it was his land and his deer were his for the taking. Unbeknownst to anybody he had laid his hands on a BAR and he decided that would make a good deer gun.

He had set up the BAR on bipod on a table in the Duck House {small outbuilding} and when we arrived we found it still on the table with a magazine of empties on the floor. He had opend up on a small herd of deer about 50 yards away and had taken down 8 deer with it.

We were some upset as he had committed about 9 felonies and he had no remorse whatsoever. His daughters, my Mom and two aunts lit into him and confiscated the BAR.

The rest of the family retrieved the deer and dressed them out and hung them in a large barn to cool down. One of my uncles was a butcher and we spent the next couple of days butchering and wrapping the poor deer.

About 5 different branches of the family had a large portion of venison for the remainder of the winter and we also made a large donation of venison to the local Salvation Army shelter for the poor.

Further questioning and investigation by my Mom and two aunts revealed that Grandpa had liberated some other goodies from his wartime employment with the US Army and nothing further was disussed about the incident.

However the next spring a new well was drilled and a swimming pool was dug and a new Ford tractor was purchased. None of my family was rich and I imagine that the funds for all this spending was a result of the sales of some highly illegal munitions and arms courtesy of my Grandpa.

Before all the goodies disappeared I managed to get my hands on a couple of wooden crates of Grenades which I disposed of in the water. One at a time, over several years. I found that worked great in areas that had good fish.

Nobody could ever understand how I could catch some many fish in one day.
One grenade would stun a mess of fish and all I had to do was to swim out and gather the ones I wanted. I made it a practice to fish alone and in the 90% of the stream that no one else fished.

I figured that the statute of limitations has expired by this time.

[6.5 mike]

Crash- thats got to be one of the best stories i've heard in awhile. Sounds like something both of my grand dads would have done.
One of my very best friends, no longer with us, was a BAR man in korea. Curt kinda blew the smallest man theory, 6ft 7in & about #240. Best quail hunter I ever meet, & a good man. I miss him.

[georgewxxx]

Here's my Uncle Ole Rudebusch who was traned in a morter group. Just before shipping out to Noth Africa, he sent the post card of the group firing in the air while at Fort Dix to his mother in Minnesota. Ole was a extremely quit farm kid and never bragged about the several campaigns he was on. Italy, France, North Africa of course, and he spent some time in Germany also at the end of WW2....Geo

[Jack Stanley]

Great one Crash !!! Loved to read that one !

Jack:Fire:

[stephen perry]

Mike
Same design except a Winchester Model 12 slug gun. Might not mow down all the Rams at 500 but sure would mow down everything around it including the score board.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR :brokenima

[Farmall 1066]

A personal favorite of mine, ever since I was a kid. The deputy we rented a farmhouse to, brought one home from work once, and several other deputies and a few neighbors, mostly WW2 vets, gathered to try it out in our pasture. We tore through the better part of 500 rounds of ammo that afternoon, and I'll never forget how one of our neighbors, also a big, hulking man, could run that BAR, and tear it apart so easily. He'd carried one in Korea, and handled that weapon with a skill borne not of training, but experience!!!

I was about 15-16 at the time, and about 6"2" and 200#. (yes, really) and thought, at the time, "I'm in damned good shape,and this thing is heavier than a dead priest"!

I always notice that WW2 and Korean vets always hold the BAR in sort of reverence!

Ever read of Ad Topperwein snap shooting thrown canned tomatoes with one before the Army Ordnance Board? The wind wasn't right and he supposedly covered the Ordnance men with tomato sauce!

[Dale53]

That was the Secretary of the Army and he had on a white suit. My old "Field First" was present when it occurred.

FWIW
Dale53

[Farmall 1066]

Thanks for the backup, Dale! At least I wasn't too far off!

Andy

[Dale53]

Farmall 1066;
Glad to help a buddy out!:mrgreen:

My Field First told me that at first everyone thought the Sec'y of the Army was hit! You can imagine the fuss!

After he told me that, (when I was a buck private), I looked it up and sure enough it happened just as he told me.

Dale53

[Ricochet]

Somebody, whether on this board or another I can't recall, told a story about the Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston Diesels that the Navy widely used for running shipboard generators. He and his crew fired one up for a test run just as a formation was lined up for inspection on deck in their dress whites! They of course got covered with black oily blotches, and weren't happy.

[Potsy]

Crash, that is a way cool story.
Mike, you have got to do an article on that beast. I'm sure you planned on it.

[Buckshot]

............On the Military History channel it seems you generally see the BAR's fired either off the shoulder like a regular rifle or a modified 'from the hip' type thing. Two particular short 'cuts' were typical. One was just after Normany while in the Bocage area. A couple short clips shows different soldiers with the BARS to their shoulders popping up, loseing close to half a magazine at an apparent single target (MG nest?), then dropping back down.

The other is a Marine in the Pacific with one foot up on a knocked down palm tree, the BAR suspended by it's sling from his shoulder as he fires continuously swinging the muzzle back and forth.

BTW, some VERY cool reading on "Busting The Bocage" can be found at: http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/doubler/doubler.asp#f2

An article at the Command and General Staff College

Busting the Bocage:
American Combined
Arms Operations
in France
6 June--31 July 1944
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by
Captain Michael D. Doubler

There's also a bazillion obsolete military manuals like:
Aerial Observation in
Liaison With the Artillery

JANUARY 19, 1917

At: http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/p4013coll9&CISOPTR=197&CISOBOX=1&REC=1

Or how about WW2 Operational Documents? Maybe the complete action report of:

3d Marine Division reinforced, Iwo Jima action report,
31 October 1944 - 16 March 1945.

It's at: http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/p4013coll8&CISOPTR=1111&REC=5

Give it a chance to load. It's in 18 parts :-)

...............Buckshot

[Farmall 1066]

Read in several places that the bipod was often "lost" as it added weight to an already heavy gun. Myself, I'd think it'd be handy on the battlefield, but what do I know?

Andy

[greg gremlin]

Ohio sells the bar for @ 3600 with bakelite stock, more for wood. I drooled on a Colt bar model 1918 at a gun show. They wanted 18K... had to pass. greg

[Mike Venturino]

Greg: That's the list price but try to find one. OOW says there's a 17 month wait, so they're going for 4K and up when you actually see them for sale.