We did a similar exercise in Army basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood 53 years ago. Though not anywhere near the show you guys put on, we were firing .30 cal tracers from M1 Garand semi-auto rifles on a firing line of about 100 trainees to demonstrate the firepower of an infantry company at night. We were set up with each guy having a field of fire staked out and we were each issued several clips of ammo. NCOs were also setup at both ends of the line with .50 cal water cooled machine guns raking the target area with tracers. We thought it was pretty awesome back then. It looked like nothing would survive that wall of lead. Little did we know.
Nice story, and I love seeing the word “clip” properly used, since it so rarely is.