Posted on 12/05/2011 8:27:27 AM PST by Free Vulcan
Sergeant Winkowski says they didn’t have an ammo carrier to lug the extra bullets and there was a lull when they had to reload. He says they’d seen ammo carriers in movies and decided to gather up some spare parts to build their own. They took an old rucksack frame and stripped it down, welded together a couple of ammo cans and added a speed loading shoot.
“We took it out to the range and gave it some testing and it worked out pretty good for us,” Winkowski says, “And so we took it into combat, and we got into a big huge fight where we again were outnumbered, surrounded, and it worked out great for us. So right then we new we had something pretty special.”
Winkowski grew up in Bell Plaine and McNew in Reinbeck where both did some work on farms. The sergeant says that background led them to build something they could use in their jobs as soldiers. “You know, call it Iowa problem solving or whatever you want to call it, but absolutely that was kind of the drive behind this, we were constantly trying to make things better,” Winkowski said.
Love it. This is the kind of ingenuity and “can do” spirit that made the USA great.
I bet Obama is pissed.
The carrier system allows a machine gunner to fire up to 500 rounds of linked ammunition.
A story to warm the hearts of gun enthusiasts everywhere.
What is a speed loading shoot?
I have not seen it but what comes to mind is the cans they used in the Matrix movies for the walking gun carriages.
Like a flexible ammo feed chute, only different....
Might have meant "chute" instead of "shoot."
Yes, Iowa ingenuity. Can’t tell you the number of times I watched my Dad and my Uncles make a piece of dead equipment work again. But, at that time, I thought all men had this talent.
probably meant a speed loading “chute”
Necessity is the Mother of invention!
Army is going to need a lot more than that to beat Navy this weekend.
Uses new instead of knew. I think whoever wrote this story is illiterate.
I think we can safely assume it wasn't one of the Iowa boys writing it.
“...where both did some work on farms.”
When give a choice, ‘farm-kid’ gets the nod everytime. I’ve worked with a wide swath of humanity and farm-kids are the hardest working and creative workers who generally have no use for emotional drama.
“It’s a cluster ...k. Marines shouldn’t be sitting around filling out forms for equipment they should already have.”
Gunny Hiway.
There’s a little monthly magazine just for this stuff, Farm Show. Its just stuffed full of this kind of things, some not so good and some great, but all interesting.
This thought process must come from all day row crop farming and all winter with not much to do.
Whatever its called or caused by, its great!
...and MacGyver is the father!
See my next post for another invention that done on the field of Afghanistan.
http://militarytimes.com/blogs/outside-the-wire/2011/10/20/iowa-guard-makes-predator-like-ammo-pack/
Good hi-res picture here: http://www.ng.mil/news/archives/2011/12/images/120211-Iowa-full.jpg
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