There are problems with anything in widespread issue to troops, and small arms are certainly no exception. I've also seen the problems the Germans had with their G1 [FAL] and G3 [H&K] rifles, the Brits breaking thev folding charging handles on their L1A1 SLRs and eventually cutting off their rifles' carry handles, and Saudi NG troops *kickstarting* their G3s when clogged with sand. Nothing is immune from in-service problems, and then along came the M16 family of weapons to solidify my opinions in that regard and keep me busy, hard at work.
I wish I could have gotten away with one of the short Garands we had in our tanks when I first got to Germany. You were lucky to have the M1919 and M37 series Brownings for co-ax guns. We trained with them, then went to M60 tanks with the M73 on board. Which I could keep running, if I had two extra guns to strip for parts. They broke, bent and generally self-disintegrated during use.
BTW, I was stationed at Ayers Kaserne, 13th medium tank battalion, later the name was changed to the 32nd Armor.
We knew Ayers as *The Rock* by the mid-'60s, you sometimes heard it called *Rock Kaserne* by those from Oggsburg and Moonchen.
Kirchgoens is a lot different now., as is my old first home at Sheridan Kaserne in Augsburg. Even the German intel HQ at Pullach in Munich has moved now.
Thanks for the high standards and records you guys set when you were there. It gave us a goal to aim at, something to try to equal, that helped us get the job done. Between you, and us, amd those who came after us, Ivan decided it would have been just a little too costly for the Eighth Guards Army to have come a-visiting in the Federal Republic. These decades later, the Red Flag is down, but the German gold/red/black and chicken still flies. Whatever didn;t get done in SE Asia, we held the line in Europe. You got your Cold War appreciation cert and medal?
At the time we received our M14s I was told that they were the first in Germany. Goes to show that the brass doesn't always tell the truth, doesn't it.
You may or may not have been the very first- I bet the embassy Marines in Bonn got theirs pretty early, too- but you were certainly among the first- and for good reason. Funny to think of those same old sticks being rebuilt and put to good use in the samdbox in the hands of another batch of youngsters wholl put them to that good use.
Thanks, pardner.
I also helped take delivery of some of the first M60s, in the summer of 1961. I hated that stupid machine gun and the mount. I loved the old brownings but that new 7.62 just was a pile of junk.
PS, you must be a member of the Graf and Hoenfels fraternity. Those places are high in my memories of Germany!