Minigun - M134 7.62×51mm Six-barrels of Pure Destruction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2022
- The Bell UH1 Huey helicopters proved that the concept of air cavalry was feasible during the first days of the Vietnam War. However, their M60 machine guns were not powerful enough to defend the aircraft from the concentration of enemy fire when approaching a landing area or taking off from a hot evacuation zone. And what’s worse, they quickly overheated and were prone to failure.
General Electric then came in and introduced its M134 rotary machine gun, which quickly earned the nickname of ‘The Minigun.’
The gun proved so successful at its role that the Army and Air Force began to fit it into other aircraft, such as the Cobra, which had two Miniguns, and the AC130, which was armed with four and had an astonishing rate of fire of over 14,000 rounds per minute.
Chambered in a 7.62-millimeter cartridge and with no risk of overheating, the Minigun quickly became the ultimate weapon used to clear the Vietnamese jungles.
- As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Docs sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. I do my best to keep it as visually accurate as possible. All content on Dark Docs is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas. -
General Electric -" We bring good things to life."
".....And bad things to death"
There is a GE tee shirt showing a mini gun and that slogan, We bring good things to life.
@@jockellis Yep. It's in my rotation
@@jockellis where can I get that shirt? And how much does it cost?
I was a Vulcan gunner in the Army back in the 80's, me and my buddies used to get a pretty big kick out of those commercials.
My dad was a Veteran of Vietnam and flew his Huey with pride and was proud that he had the amazing minigun aboard, nick named "Ghoshty" he came back to SoCal and became a LACf for 40 years.. I appreciate my dad till this day who's retired. Also all veterans and those today and those we have lost :(
sounds like invasion
These are two of my all time favorite military weapons. The Mini Gun M-134 and the Huey UH1. January 1968 the both saved our butts when we were almost over run be the VC. The C130 was also there. Without these three I wouldn't be here telling this story. Thanks for the memories some good some bad....
Thanks for your service. 👍
@@jamescampbell4334 You are welcome.. Thank you.
My goodness. Sounds like you were about ready to be in some even worse shit, just to be saved. I can’t imagine the adrenaline and dread, and then some glorious American firepower comes into view and saves your ass. The relief must’ve been the greatest feeling of all time.
Welcome home big brother 😀. I was a NAT baseband flew a variety of junk hauling stuff out (1970-1972) to all over goin home. Anyway interesting weapon our gun squad was all marine and their gunships had those pups on them as they saved our butts stuck on the ground getting shit and here comes a pink team huuuuraw
I hear you. Glad you survived ! Yep, the Nam action I saw and did are memories that will stay with me for my lifetime. I'm still glad I served as a Marine 0311 (L/Cpl.), that was the most signifigant event of my life, still haunts me today ! But the Marines I served with were some of best people on earth. I have both good and bad memories of it all. It also led to R & R in Bangkok, where I met my long-time "pen Friend" Langchue Lau, a Chinese girl born in Bangkok, I staid with her at her parents home on R & R, only round-eye for blocks and blocks. Fell in love with her. She had to change her Chinese name as Thai government declared ALL off-spring of Chinese in Thailand had to have Thai names, so she became Vipada Lapniramai. Worst memory was when we spotted a NVA Cpl. in a cave on Charlie Ridge, My Plt.Leader, 1st Lieut. Callin (Callen ?) was slightly wounded in leg, but saved by our Plt. Radioman L/Cpl. Billy Wayne Glass from Memphis,(most popular guy in Charlie Co.- 1st Sqd.,3rd Plt. 1-1-1st MARDIV.) Billy grabed the NVAs ankle and got AK fire point blank in face, also my Sqd Ldr was WIA by same NVA, and Billy posthumously received a SILVER STAR
My dad was a door gunner on a huey gunship. I've been to his reunions and have conversed with pilots and door gunners alike. You have a few points wrong.
1. The m60 did not overheat. The helicopter propwash allowed sustained fire while keeping the barrel relatively cool.
2. Most gunship door gunners modified their guns with recoil and feed pawl spring modifications to allow their guns to fire at insane rates. Again, the prop wash still kept the barrels cool and reliability was still better than ground units. My dad said he had periodic malfunctions while serving with the 11acr scout platoon on his first tour. He said he could count all his airborne malfunctions on one hand (during his second tour).
I agree. Several of my buddies that flew Huey gunships never complained of m 60's overheating on their Hueys. poor intel and research
Yea, there was a South Vietnamese coin that the door gunners would put at the end of the buffer spring of the M60 to give it more tension to increase the firing rate.
In another video about helicopter door gunners in Vietnam an ex door gunner chimed in with a comment talking about how they used to do that, he said he still had the coin he'd stuck in his and removed it the day he rotated out of his unit.
+1 this video completely missed the point of mini-guns. It was not because they were more reliable than m60s it was because they had a higher rate of fire which was in certain circumstances more important than high caliber.
This is for all you commenters.. theses documentaries are great . But the stories told by you service men are equally as enjoyable .I was born in 72 so I didn't experience this time but I want to thank every one of you from the bottom of my heart for your sacrifices and others who lost their lives that makes today possible 🙏🇺🇲
I was too young to serve in the conflict but had 3 older cousins who did. Two of them were door gunners and the stories they told were amazing as well as the pictures they sent home. They came back without a scratch but the third cousin lost his left arm below the elbow due to a booby trap. Props and respect for all of you who served.
Ummm.....order followers are the lowest form of life on earth...order followers are evil and disgusting repulsive worms...
GOD BLESS ALL WHO SERVED .
I also was to young but I had 2 uncles one in the marines and the other was a gunner on the chopper and he was cavalry!!! He said them mini guns were a game changer!!!
My step dad and 2 of my uncles are Vietnam veterans. My dad and uncle were door gunners. They both used the M-60. My other uncle was green beret. My family was scared of him so we lost contact with him when I was younger.
yeah i'm sure they killed a lot of farmers, women and children, defending their own land which they stepped on, thousands of miles away from the US for a conflict that they had no business in and didn't change anything. props and respect for that.
This is one of my favorites for CAS. When a chopper comes low and fast lighting positions up; nothing really gets away. The small spread from distance hits everywhere in area. And it’s one hell of a sight when pinned down.
We installed them on HUMVEE’s at one point in Iraq. Two trucks on line can seriously bog down entire enemy platoons
Thank you for finally slowing down your speech pacing. Overall you did a pretty good presentation.
I was a gunner on AC-119G Shadows in 1969.
In the aircraft suspended gunpods, the ammunition drum looks similar to a post hole digger. The inner surface of the drum housing has extruded grooves that run front to back.
SUU-11 pods were self-contained and battery powered, only connection to aircraft was for firing and rate selection. SUU-11 A/A Pods were 6000 rds/min only B/A pods were selectable at 3000/6000 rds min.
The rounds are forced to travel towards the guns rotor along these grooves by the spinning "screw". As the rounds exit the spinning drum, there is a feed unit that carries the rounds to the breeches. As the rounds travel through the feeder, they are guided through a 90 degree arc guiding them into the breeches.
As in the sequence of reloading the SUU-11 inside the AC-47, we hand cranked the rounds into the drum via the delinker/loader (7 rds per rotation) and links were stripped and dumped into an empty ammo can. We usually carried 33,000 rds as nominal load. Expended brass was captured in another empty ammo can.
Hope this is of interest to someone.
Cheers!
Same basic ammo drum and feed setup as on the M163A1 self propelled Vulcan gun I was on which from what I understand was just a slightly larger drum then what was on fighter jets that had the Vulcan gun.
The "screw" you refer to was called a helix on our systems, even our 24M gun maintenance people weren't qualified to take one of the drums apart and mess with the helix, anytime we had an issue and one needed replacing civilian technicians came in and did it.
When we loaded our ammo drums the system had an electric motor that sucked in the linked ammo and spit the links out the side of the chassis' hull through a temporary chute we hooked up for loading, for getting everything set up and started there was a knurled knob with a place to put a ½" drive speed wrench into the end of it to act as a crank, we'd get the first few rounds into the drum that way then hit a spring loaded toggle switch to run the electric motor, thank God we didn't have to hand crank 1,200 rounds of 20mm into those things, it was a real bitch just getting those first few de-linked and into the drum, you practically had to hang on the speed wrench using it as a crank when doing it.
Oddly enough and I've never known why the M167 towed version of the Vulcan used the 20mm ammo linked, each link had those 2 little ears that stuck out on them and the ammo would hang in loops in a big ammo can right next to the gunners seat, at the top inside the ammo box was 2 rails that ran length wise that the ears from whichever link you'd select to make a hanging loop would slide down, I was only around those in training since only airborne units used the towed version but I never did get an explanation from anyone about why it used the linked ammo and our self propelled guns stripped the links off for it's storage/feed system, you'd think they'd have made them both the same for compatability reasons.
I don't know why you are praising the video. The presentation of the video is improved but its also a very inaccurate video. And at least to me that is a more important problem than it being presented well.
@@peterisawesomeplease
What's so inaccurate about it? There may be a few finer points that are wrong but otherwise the history of the Gatling gun and the history and development of the 20mm M61 gun is correct and as far as I know so is the history of the mini gun.
So what's so inaccurate about it?
@@dukecraig2402 It misses the entire point of mini guns. The only explanation it seems to give is that the m60 over heats and jams. But this is actually incorrect. As a helicopter mount it rarely overheated or malfunctioned generally. In fact the minigun tended to have more problems on average. The miniguns were used because of their higher fire rates and lower caliber. Which normally would not make sense given the weight of the gun. On a ground vehicle you would choose and m60. But because helicopters on average move faster and shoot from higher angles you need a higher rate of fire to ensure some hits and those hits are less likely to need to go through as much stuff. Prior to the mini gun helecopter crews would go so far as to modify m60s themselves to try to increase the rate of fire even at the expense of reliability.
This is a video about the development of miniguns which gives a false reason for the development of miniguns and does say the actual reason. That is pretty bad.
But ehh I guess this is dark docs, which at this point is basically a pure war porn channel rather than having any interest in history.
@@peterisawesomeplease
Well I don't know how you draw that conclusion, yea they were incorrect about M60's overheating when used as helicopter door guns but as far as the rate of fire about the mini gun it's pretty much made clear that it's high rate of fire is the whole idea behind it, I don't see how anyone who watches this video wouldn't get that point.
So yea, the thing about the M60's overheating is an inaccuracy but where are all these other inaccuracies you say the video is full of that make it not worth watching?
I was a Vulcan gunner in the Army and their history behind it's development is pretty much spot on, the fact that it was developed to get more rounds on target was made clear, then from there they go into the mini gun being basically just a smaller version of it.
So aside from the M60 overheating thing I'd say it's pretty much an accurate account of the mini guns development and history, and as far as the door gunners in Vietnam modifying their M60's to get a higher rate of fire I just don't get why you'd claim that's some sort of "inaccuracy", this video is about the mini gun not the M60, and just so you know the mini gun wasn't specifically designed because of the need for a better door gun for helicopters, it just found a role there, the way you're wording things you make it sound like it was specifically developed for that and by leaving that out the video is inaccurate, it isn't because the mini gun was not specifically developed for a better door gun, if it was you wouldn't have seen a single M60 in that role by the end of the war, the fact is the mini gun doesn't work as a door gun on a UH1 that's being used as a troop transport, the weight of the gun and the ammo would mean that a UH1 could only carry a few troops, that why M60's were continually used on troop transport UH1's until the end of the war, a troop transport that can only carry a few troops is pretty much worthless wouldn't you think?
As a former UH1N Crewchief I can tell you this gun is even more fun to shoot than you can imagine! You do have to be careful when setting it up though. It is no fun to clear a jam in flight!
Does the ammo have to be loaded into the belt by hand? I imagine it would take all day for 10s of thousands of rounds to be loaded.
It was those garbage feeder sprockets bending. But when they worked, boy did they work. Best weapon to shoot from the back, but I agree with you on clearing jams. Manually spinning barrels with pins in your mouth at 100kts was never fun. But it did make you know the weapon system a lot better. Good times. Lol
@@dannydaw59 the ammo was already belted in 1500 round cans. It just had to be loaded a particular way to be fed through the chute and into the weapon system.
@@mattmarkowski909
You should try shooting the 20mm version I used to shoot.
About 15 years ago I was at the Knob Creek machine gun shoot with some friends who are class 3 buffs when I walked past where they have a mini gun you can pay to shoot, someone ask me if I was interested in shooting it and I said "That's OK, I've shot badder", a friend walking behind me told the guy I was a Vulcan gunner and I heard him say "Yea, I guess we couldn't top that."
@@mattmarkowski909 it’s the pins in your mouth comment that tells me you truly have been there!
We had a gentleman who was in my VFW post. He was in the Air Force during Vietnam, and he was in a AC 47 squadron while he was there. Those aircraft were essential to the troops on the ground then and now. Even though they have moved on from the 47 , still they've provided much protection.
The last gunship Aircraft I got the see was the AC-130U version even though I did not get any closer than 45 ft from it it was still an impressive sight with all that firepower sticking out. Especially the 105mm at the back.
Spooky 👻
Semper Fi from a '69-'70 Nam vet.(0311 -USMC).
I had a opportunity to both see a AC130 in operation and get to take a ride on one during a training op. In somalia they had 4 of them circling one night blowing the shit out of Aideeds compounds. The only real issue is that you have to have both air dominance and no anti aircraft fire and also you have to use them on moonless and hopefully cloudy nights because even heavy small arms can be fatal to them.
The first time I ever laid eyes on this gun I absolutely loved it. Thank you Jesse Ventura and the predator movie.
"Old painless is waiting"
don't believe what Hollywood showed you about a hand firing mini gun. even a 5.56 mini generates a lot of recoil and heat so even Jesse Ventura wouldn't hold on to it. I used to work on the M61 Vulcan. They would push a 13 ton APC about two to four feet backwards after firing it for a little while. of course the Vulcan was a 20mm but you get the idea?
A human being carrying a mini with the necessary accoutrements walking on a sidewalk much less slogging through a jungle is absolutely ridiculous Hollywood fiction.
A 1500 rd can of 7.62 weighs about 60 lbs IIRC. The gun itself weighs 85lbs, than there's the motor, feeder/de-linker and finally the coup de grace the battery. Every imaginable twig, bug, leaf would find it's way into the chute and the sheer bulk of this getup, nuts.
One day us crewchiefs tried to crank the gun system sitting in the revetment, empty of ammo of course, for I can't remember why we needed to do this but the roughly 2ftX2ft 24v nicad battery in a 68 era cobra was not enough to turn all that machinery, it was necessary to fire up the engine for the extra juice.
These guns rarely came back without having a jam and live rounds stuck in the receivers. One day one the crewchiefs triggered a jam just by walking on the PSP of the revetment.
I used to live 15 minutes from Dillon Aero in Scottsdale, AZ. They manufacture the M134 at their building there and even redesigned it to weigh less and be more reliable. I think the m134D is the latest model. And since the great state of Arizona is one of the top 3 2A friendly states in the country these guys take out their helicopter with an m134 on it and do some "scientific research" with targets out in the desert. Boy do I miss Arizona for it's 2A friendliness and the beauty of such a diverse state.
Yes! Isn’t it appropriate that a company known for the best progressive reloaders would get the contract for the mini gun! 🤣
Dillon's re-design of the de-linker revolutionized the 134.
@@timcanterbury9738
👍👍👍👍👍👍 NAILED IT!
Dillon's the Feeder delinker made the M-134 bullet proof (no pun intended) and made maintenance a breeze !
Move back! We need all the help we
can get!
steve
My dad his second Tour of Duty in Vietnam he served with the 170th Assault Helicopter Company 1st Aviation Brigade. He told me about the minigun.
I remember in John Wayne's Green Berets movie they brought in a Spookie called "Puff the Magic Dragon" with mini-guns and took out their entire base which had been overrun by the enemy. It rained down basically a bullet per square foot. You can watch it on TH-cam "The Green Berets Strafing"
Just watched that was pretty good :)
"Put it on the camp....those people have it!", Mike Kirby.....
Yeah, the us military was really proud to stage this machine in a us propaganda movie...
I flew UH-1C gunships that were mounted with a minigun on a pylon on each side of the aircraft. They could be aimed left-right, up and down, and were fired by the left seat co-pilot/gunner. The rate of fire on our guns was 2,400 rpm, but when the guns were aimed far left or right, the inboard facing gun would stop firing and outboard facing gun would have its rate of fire increase to 4,000 rpm. They were not my favorite weapon as they tended to have stoppages for a variety of reasons. I much preferred our aircraft that had a nose mounted, belt fed, 40mm grenade launcher, which I found to be a very reliable weapon.
I've long wondered why the electric 40mm grenade launcher wasn't used on more platforms. Did it have some notable disadvantage?
@@dwaneanderson8039 I don't think so. They seemed to be easy to maintain and very reliable. Availability maybe?
@@dwaneanderson8039 possibly because of availability and ammo logistical issue perhaps? Because they sure are more heavier and bulky so its more complicated to be delivered to the troops or platforms in the frontline, that's just my theory though, some one feel free to correct me
@@kevinrahmatfathoni7896 The grenade launcher I'm talking about is the M129. It used the same ammo as the common Mk19 grenade launcher. It could also use the low velocity ammo used in hand held grenade launchers like the M79 and M203.
The M129 is smaller, lighter, faster shooting, and apparently more reliable than the Mk19. The only disadvantage that I know of was that it needed electricity to run, but so does the minigun, and people seem to be okay with that.
Especially when the homemade grease pencil cross hairs on the windshield were on the money.
This gun is what our founders intended for us all to carry on a daily basis.
Someone capable of carrying this thing as his daily carry probably has nothing to fear anyway
Ha!
AMEN Brother
The ring doorbell should be connected to one of these
@@richardrose9943 well obviously they intended for their to be enough slaves for everyone that they would do the heavy lifting.
As a CH-47 / MH-47 Chinook CE / FE, I have fairly extensive experience with both the M134, and the M-60D. But my M134 experience was before Dillon Aero changed the drive motors to the DC drive instead of AC drive, (Robert's Ridge was a hard lesson) and the fixed 3,000 rounds a minute (I grew up on Low Rate / High Rate buttons of 2K and 4K rates). I invaded Iraq with M-60D's on all three mounts, and, while they're not "ultra reliable", it was easier to keep a dirty weapon functioning than it was to keep a functioning weapon clean. Removing the safing sector housing cover on an M134, dropping the feeder / delinker, clearing the jam, timing the barrel cluster, timing the feeder / delinker, pinning the feeder / delinker to the weapon, pinning the safing sector housing cover back on, announcing "Right Gun's Ready" just to press the right side button and have the shenanigans start all over again was miserable compared to immediate actions of charging / clearing the weapon on M-60's and M-240's, that's for sure! But if you spent enough PMCS time adjusting and lubing the seven fingers on the delinker with "just the right amount" of LSA-T, the Minigun was a fairly fun weapon to employ.
"Right Gun's Winchester, Cabin Door is Inside"!!! 😉
I wanna hear more. You seem like you might have good stories. If you don’t mind.
@@scrufflesmcgoogles8910
That's me in the thumbnail, talking about flying my "Apocalypse Cow" through the dust storms and on the cabin door -60 test firing. This was 2003, Iraq invasion. My Mother, bless her worrying heart, heard about 4 aircraft being lost for 3 days due to horrible weather, nobody knew where they were, and no sign of them (a bit of some CNN dramatics, honestly). She knew, somehow, that it was me. She also knew, somehow, that I was alright. Lots of prayers, she said.
th-cam.com/video/QGAO2RMGg0g/w-d-xo.html
@@scrufflesmcgoogles8910 SOAR dudes have all the cool stories.
Having been a Vulcan gunner in the Army I can sympathize with you when it comes to clearing a mini gun, check out this story.
The Army in it's infinite wisdom decided at one point that I'd be cheaper to shoot 7.62mm ammo at the Styrofoam radio controlled airplanes we qualified shooting at so they had a mount designed for the mini gun that clamped onto the barrel cluster of our M61 cannons, then you'd take the electric cable to the cannon off and hook it up to some kind of adapter thing that ran the drive motor on the mini gun, there was a big ammo can that hung on the left side of our gun tub (turret) with a flexible feed chute that went to the mini gun.
The whole thing sounded good in theory and really didn't work that bad as long as you were swinging the gun when you were shooting it, the problem was the genius that designed the mount had it designed that the ejection port of the mini gun was facing upwards, if you weren't swinging the gun when you'd fire a burst the last spent cartridge out of the gun would fall back down into the ejection port, then when you'd fire the next burst the empty cartridge that fell back into the ejection port would jam in the rotor causing a stoppage that required the mini gun to be taken off of it's mount and tore down, it caused so much downtime that we eventually scrapped the program and just went back to firing the 20mm Target Practice Tracer (TPT) slugs.
One good thing though is that we wound up with 4 mini guns sitting in the corner of our arms room, I was good buddies with our unit armorer and we'd sit in the arms room tearing down and reassembling them just for something to do, they were actually very similar in the way they tore down compared to the M61 cannon, I was really surprised at how similar they were the first time I did it, if you could tear down and reassemble one you could do the other, they even had safety wire in pretty much all the same places, aside from the M61 shooting electrically primed ammo it's almost like GE took an M61 and put it in a Xerox machine and down sized it.
LP
I find it amazing that the American civil was closer in time to ww2 than we are today.
If it makes you feel any better, the US is currently moving back in time
Tic toc gets us all.
Crazy
@@blidge8282, yep, sad to say.
Worry not, CW2 is in the near future.
I served in Vietnam with the Army's 4th infantry division as a 11B infantry soldier in 68/69. My uncle went to work for the federal government after WWll and ended up in Vietnam for 14 months to repair the mini guns when broken. I knew he was in country the same time I was, but I didn't know what he did as a civilian. It wasn't until after he died in 2001 that my aunt gave me some of his history with black and white 8x10 pictures of him in a business suit with two high ranking officers and one of the first mini guns to ever be built laying on a wooden table. He was involved with the mini gun from the beginning. Puff the Majic Dragon kept me and the rest of our patrol secure one night when the NVA tried to overrun are hilltop. Strobe light showed Puff where we were and everything 360 degrees around us was hammered with mini 7.62 fire.
Awesome.
I learn so much from all your Dark channels. I am obsessed. And whoever does the voiceovers...you are so pro man. Nice job.
I absolutely enjoy these series , they are very informative.
I remember when he started there was no voiceover, definitely makes them so much better
Yet, despite the incredible content, the voice over often mispronounces common names of aircraft. Iroquois, for example, is to be pronounced Iro-quaw. In a different video, he mispronounced Canuck as Ca-nuke. But these are minor issues when looking at the larger picture of the terrific content.
@@glennwiebe5128 tomato tahmato
@@glennwiebe5128 are you saying the narrator mispronounced Iroquois as “ir-o-kwa”? Because that’s just how you pronounce it in French, otherwise it is still acceptable to say “ir-o-kwoy” in English because it’s anglicized.
When Gatling invented his gun his intent was to stop wars. He figured no one would be insane enough to charge a position that had two or three mounted there.
Sadly, he was wrong.
Apparently he'd never met a WW1 era British officer either... "Line up and charge" was suicide yet they ordered it again and again. The cream of an entire generation wiped out for this abject stupidity.
Then he wld not be a businessman...strange concept to device a killing machine and expect to sell only a limited number to the reigning nations...
I invented the Death Ray to Save mankind not End it! 🤣
I used to work on the XM61 Vulcan as a 24M20 System technician. The Army employed it on their Armored Personell Carriers. The Achilles heel of that system was it endless feed system. If the system ran out of dummy ammo and kept firing it would self destruct the feed chutes rendering the gun inoperable. The ammunition storage drum was also problematic in that it only held 3000 rounds 100 of which was dummy ammo. The feed system on the Vulcan had 5 timing points in it and if any of those points were out of time the feed system would either jam or self destruct. Reloading a system like this was unbelievably slow and tedious. The first system during 1968 used electric gun drive motors that ran off of either track system power or three 28 volt nicad batteries. If those batteries sere run dead they would go into a runaway charging situation that resulted in the batteries melting. The gun system by itself was well built and easy to service. The feeder attachment points on the rotor housing needed to be designed better. If the feed jammed it was almost impossible to remove it, because it stressed to quick pins so tightly you could not pull them out of the feeder or the rotor housing bosses. In one of our firepower demonstrations we had a track that had a feeder jam on it. There was a live round in the gun and we could not rotate the barrel cluster to clear it. We couldn't bring the system back to tge motor pool with a live round in it so the only way to clear the gun was to break the mounts on either the feeder or the rotor housing or both. I had to make this on-the-spot decision myself. I almost got in trouble for it and I would have were it not for one of the G.E. tech reps and my battery commander explaining to the ignorant Battalion Commander why that had to be done. It was either that, or leave the track on the range in the middle of the desert. The 20mm is a hell of a round, as it shoots 2000 grain projectile at over 3500 fps. That is a lot of muzzle energy.
We had them on a few of our UH-1H's in the mid-90's. There's no feeling quite like that of being 21 years-old, wearing a flight suit, and having 3,000 rds/min (what ours were rated at) of hellfire and brimstone at your fingertips. You're indestructible at that age, with an air of confidence sometimes mistaken for arrogance.
The only difference between confidence and arrogance is effectiveness
Hell yeah bro. You gotta be young when you join the service. Otherwise there’s be a lot more “are you fuckin crazy”? Said when orders were given. I can also imagine the copious amounts of puntang said flight suit attracts.
@@MrCarnutbill67 It attracted its fair share.... ;-)
Yep, you feel indestructible at this age, now your bones and muscles ache and you ask why !?
@@copperhammer Oh no, I know why. My dumbass would do it all over again too.
My dad told me when they would call in spooky that on arrival the Vietcong would vanish. He said it didn't take long for them to clear out once it was in sight.
Fun fact : The minigun was mainly designed to be fired from the arms of large muscular Austrian men.
Or conspiracy theory loving governors!
Minnesota Governors have been known to hip fire one on occasion.
Or a CHOPPA
Get to the Choppah!
But in Predator, it was carried/handled by a Big African American man. F me but I forget his name all the time.
I’m very impressed with the accuracy!!! Normally even gun channels are riddled with false or misleading statements. This is remarkable in its accuracy and detail. Definitely one of my new favorite channels.
This video is terribly inaccurate. It missed the entire point of miniguns in favor of of a completely wrong reason given for their use.
For as long as I live, I will never forget the sight of the most awesome man in dress blues I have ever seen. He was CMSGT Bartucci. (sorry if spelling is wrong, been a long time ago) I met him a few times when I was stationed at Barksdale AFB (weapons loader) in the 90's. He was a heli gunner in Vietnam. When he was in his blues uniform, he definitely had more medals than some 4 star generals. He oozed confidence and machismo. He rode a bad ass Harley to work. Just an amazing human being.
The Greatest contribution to the m-134 was Dillon's feeder delinker
I've seen it in action. While flying in a CH 47 we took a few rounds thru the rear engine. I watched 3 Cobras pull a daisy chain on a tree line about 1 klick away. VERY impressive.
Oh yeah I remember that mission in cod too!
What's a "daisy chain"??
@@davidlafranchise4782 It's where 3 gunships rotate at 120 degrees to bring continuous fire on a single location. Imagine 3 people dancing around equidistant from each other with the target outside the circle. As each person passes they fire on target then swing past and the next starts firing. Continuous fire on one location w/o crossfire.
@@Music-lx1tf there would not be cross fire if all are firing downwards no ????
@@glezgaboy9390 Ricochet from target and ground probable at what I would imagine as their angle of attack and height.
My Dad was a door gunner on Huey's he wouldnt tell many stories until I got older and joined the military myself. I joined the USAF and was a munitions loader. The last few years of my service I got the opportunity to work in CSAR(combat search and rescue). That was my first time getting to work on the M134 it was an awesome gun and honestly not hard to teardown clean and reassemble. The most fun I had though by far was my first 4 yrs in when I loaded exclusively on the A-10 now THAT is a Gatling gun the 30mm GAU-8. I t was a pain in the butt to remove and install but looking back now it was awesome!!!
I wish we had the a-10 in the jungle. The 130's were a beautiful sight, especially at night. It looked like you could drive a truck up that river of tracers. Every five rounds looked like a one solid piece of melted steel. No, you could not do a body count.
Loading these weapons with incendiary rounds makes targets with flammable materials burst into flames. Instant car fire!
A lovely piece of ordnance. M134, two please.
Agree with Webb. Never had any significant issues with the m60. Did a fair amount of testing the mini on C models, and had far more issues with them. When they worked, they were awesome.
Whole documentary missed the entire reason from miniguns or even more generally why aircraft, helecopters, and anti aircraft guns generally want higher rates of fire than fixed machine guns or vehicle mounted ones. Its because drum roll they move faster.
@@peterisawesomeplease I’m pretty sure he pointed out that they wanted higher rates of fire, right? Or am I missing something.
@@bracoop2 Yes he points out they wanted higher rates of fire. But he never says why this is wanted. Why would you trade a lower caliber for a higher rate of fire. In particular he gives a false reason from why the higher caliber but lower rate of fire gun was dropped while never giving the actual reason.
I’m jelly
I secretly refer to my coworker as "minigun" because he talks just as fast.
12:00 "...to rain hell on the enemy". love the over the top language!!
Lost my flight jacket while flying with the 20th SOS, Green Hornets USAF. I was wishing if Charlie found it he would turn it inside out - the inside was bright Orange. We worked with Army Special Forces dropping teams in Laos and Cambodia where officially we weren't suppose to be. Gunbirds, UH-1N Twin Pratt & Whitney engines, had the GAU-2B mini-guns. Butterfly grip with two triggers. Pull one the rate of fire was 2000 rpm - pull both triggers jumped it up to 4000 rpm. Ammo Cans only held 15,000 rds per gun. Slicks that carried the troops only had M-60s, 550 rpm - same ammo - 7.62 and every 10th round was a tracer. Hand held M-60 was a backup if your Mini crapped out. No over heating problem because in a Race Track pattern you were on target only for a few seconds. Note the Beanie Weeniie Can on the side of the M-60 - it clipped where the ammo pouch would go - helped the flow of ammo out of the ammo can into the gun.
Note - mini-guns were removed from AC-130 Gunships - they had two 20mm gatling guns, two 40mm cannons and 1 105 howitzer.
Note - Hazardous Duty pay and Flight pay came to an extra $4 a day, but at least cigarettes were $2 a carton, and beer was 10 cents a can - hey, it was hours and hours of pure boredom interrupted by moments of pure terror.
I was in the 9th infantry division and felt the power of the 6000 rounds per minute in front of us less then 10 meters from us. It makes you feel in awe to be there!
Hopefully that not a nalpham bom, minigun still devastating until now
My friend, I was senior gunner 20mike vulcan. 3/4ADA. Bragg 79/80. To sit in that tub and spit 6000 rounds HEISD down range.
Down right kick in the ass.
Coolest shit I've ever done.
And I've done some shit
High explosive incendiary self destruct round
I actually got to see Spooky in action many times while patrolling around "The Rock" . It was a sight to see for sure. The first time we saw it we had no idea what it was, we were just hoping it was on our side. Spooky was a fire breathing dragon that got to be a very welcome sight when we were out on night patrol. After awhile we were able to call for support from Spooky and brother, it was always a very welcome sight. Seeing that line of fire coming from Spooky was awesome but the sound of the mini gun would give us a real sense of safety.
SGT Billy D (USMC 3/9/3 1966-67)
82nd dustoff and they saved my ass more than once. Picked you guys up on a regular basis. The 9th arvn too.
A History Channel commentator called the 7.62 mini-gun "The Tasmanian Devil" of mini-guns!!! Yeah. I, WHOLEHEARTEDLY, agree with him as I saw a door gunner lay down.some SERIOUS suppressive fire with his mini-gun. Yo. Every fifth (5th.) round is a red tracer. Dude. All I saw was a wall of red coming down from above!!!! I remember thinking that I sure as hell am glad I'm NOT on the receiving end of that madness!!!!! But, am DAMN SURE was very happy that they, the helo and, crew, were on our side!!!!!!
CLEARING A LANDING PAD AND GROUND SUPPORT 👌.
Great video, but there's one thing.
The feeding system is NOT simple. Watch Forgotten Weapons' video about the M134, the most complex part is the feeding system. Designing a system that reliably feeds rounds at these rates is an incredibly complicated task.
Yeah he completely skips the delinker, which is the magic that makes all this possible.
And it's even harder on larger rounds, such as that used by the Phalanx ship-borne anti-aircraft weapon!
The feeder/delinker was the tricky part. That is where most of the jams would happen. Some jams would be so bad the only way to clear them was disassembly. The guns themselves were fairly simple and very reliable.
@@mab1120 yeah. Hence my comment saying exactly that.
I think he is speaking relative to the larger vulcan cannon
I never would have thought a company know for making refrigerators would have the most successful weapon during the Vietnam war
GE makes a ton of weapons
@@billybob-gb6ol and jet engines
GE has been a very diversified company for decades. The company also has made train locomotives for years, in addition to Defence products, such as the minigun, & jet fighter & commercial jet engines. These are probably only a few of the range of GE products.
Contractors of all kinds are out there. I have a shotgun shell from Vietnam that has little steel arrows called “Flechettes”. It was made by Whirlpool. Another huge appliance maker.
"GE......we bring good things to life!", old TV commercial......
The Dillon corporation, who manufactures reloading machines, has the contract for mini guns now. They have improved it in many ways. It’s appropriate that a reloading machine manufacturer do this, considering the massive amount of ammo the mini gun uses!🤣
General Electric: "Progress is our most important product".. Given em' hell Harry!
THANK YOU to all of our U.S. Vets on this page!❤🖤My Brother was in Vietnam on a PBR. On his 3rd day there, the Vietcong sunk his boat. Miraculously nobody was killed. All he ever told us about in his letters was the weather, so I thought he had it pretty easy! Thank you once again for this video also.
I use to work with a retired Master Chief that was in the "Brown Water Navy" as well and he had some war stories about those PBR'S and the tactics they employed.
The best one was when they kept getting ambushed at one certain point in the river where there were two back to back bends.
They sent two PBR's up river several hours ahead of another PBR, then the two upriver boats cut their engines and drifted back downstream timing it so that they arrived back at the S- bend at the same time the 3rd boat began taking fire from the regular ambush point.
The way he described it, the VC got caught between all three boats due to the VC positions being Midway between the bends, which pretty well tore the VC up, but they also had coordinated with a couple of Cobra gunships that finished off the surviving VC.
After that, no more ambushes at that location.
RIP Master Chief Christi!
OUTSTANDING!!!🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅
They had gun trucks during the Vietnam War as well. These trucks were mounted with M60s, .50-calibre machine guns, XM 134 miniguns and anti-aircraft weapons such as the quadmount .50 cal. machine guns.
I seen a show on them they recreated the most decorated truck for a museum I forget the name of it
I was a 20mm Vulcan gunner in the Army back in the 80's, my Sgt Major was on one of the 5 Vulcan guns sent to Vietnam.
Needless to say they weren't really used for their designed role of air defense since the North Vietnamese weren't exactly flying their aircraft over South Vietnam, what they used them for was the same thing the gun trucks were being used for, convoy escort.
Their first assignment was convoy escort in an area that'd been getting heavily harassed by VC who wanted to raid the convoys for supplies, they put one at the front of the column and one at the rear, he said that when the VC attacked they turned the jungle into "tossed salad", I guess enemy harassment of convoys in that sector quickly dropped to zero.
@@johnscanlon2598 They have some documentaries on gun trucks and I remembered watching them a few years ago.
@@dukecraig2402 Thanks for your reply and service . Sounds like the VC got more than what they bargained for. My dad served in Vietnam and was assigned to the m107 or m110 self propelled gun and did a few supply runs but never told my grandparents because he didn't want to upset them. Funny thing is my grandfather joined the USAAF during WW2 from Canada and flew into Pearl Harbor on a B-17 while it was being attacked.
Every American should be allowed to own one...perfect home protection
That gun is what created the A10 WARTHOG A.K.A BUZZ SAW! The greatest aircraft ever created!
So far this has been my favorite video of your content that I’ve seen so far! 👍🏻
It shouldn't be given how inaccurate it is.
That it was never used for 50 years - by either side - was mind-blowing! Imagine a WWII tank with a main gun and a mini-gun
@Phil Manson Don't put me inside a steel box with a minigun! I enjoy breathing!
or a p51 with a minigun.. or b17 with miniguns instead of M2's . . . prolly would have weighted too much though.. and chewes trough ammo then end up being docile targets.. but still would have been a sight to see
I'm so happy to be part of this company
Sergeant Burse Kirk was awarded USAF Airman of The Year for mounting the first mini guns on helicopters in Vietnam. Mid 1960's
It evolved into the GAU 8 Avenger found in the A-10 Thunderbolt 2. The plane was built around the gun. Firing it actually slowed the plane.
Oh YEAH ! A-10 Warthog ~ one of my favorite air craft ! (Staff Sgt, Ret. ~ USMC 0311 , Nam '69-'70/ USAF/ARNG).
I was an M161 gunner during the Vietnam and Cold Wars. It was mounted on an M=113 APC.
Welcome home
Me to, 16R, M163A1 Vulcan 83 to 86.
2/67 ADA, 1st Infantry Div forward element Manheim/Germersheim Germany.
My Sgt Major was on one of the 5 Vulcans that were sent to Vietnam.
The Mini Gun was a force to be reckoned with, Having four of them in very impressive! Thx Dark.
The best voice on the interwebs
Thanks, a lot of good info. I didn’t know Mr. Gatling’s history, for example. Well done! Your videos are exceptionally well researched.
There was a Vietnam story I read years ago - I don't remember the book for sure, it may have been "365 Days" - a truly excellent book I highly recommend, whether it is the correct book or not. There were many men that requested evac from a clearing in the jungle - a heavily cratered clearing that had been cleared by explosives - the men were hunkered down in the craters and very badly outnumbered by NVA regulars that completely surrounded the clearing. They were slowly closing in and in the process of killing all the Americans, who were nearly out of ammo and grenades.. Two helicopters had already attempted to evacuate the Americans but both had been destroyed as they attempted to land. A third pilot in a Cobra agreed to help them and asked that the soldiers all duck down in their craters when he came in. He passed above to see what he would need to do, then a moment later he came back, flying fast and low. He then dropped into a large crater in the center of the clearing, large but barely able to contain the helicopter. He dropped until his miniguns were barely above the crater's rim, then he spun the chopper violently fast, like a top, and fired his miniguns into the jungle until they were empty, while at the same time fired his 2 1/2" rockets until they were also gone. His actions allowed the remaining soldiers to be evacuated. He won several medals for his act of courage - I don't remember if they included the CMH. Those men were finished but for what he did.
That's so gangster. Fuckin Merika 🦅
@@tonyg-2jz82 Merika got it ass handed to them.... Situation normal
That is so Hollywood it ain't funny. The person who made that up knows nothing of ground attack techniques that keep you and your bird from getting shot to pieces or the flight characteristics and limitations of a Cobra.
@@hotprop92 The author of "365 Days" was a doctor who worked at a hospital (in Thailand if irc) patching up soldiers during the war in Vietnam. The book consists of the stories the injured soldiers told him. Perhaps the author is still alive and you can contact him. When I was younger I flew in helicopters quite a bit, I see no problem with the story other than it is second hand and a good way to get yourself killed if you're the pilot - not impossible though - just unlikely. Life is long, complicated and full of unlikely things though. One thing to remember is that the pilots were basically kids, it was war time, and the medal winners in war are often people who did not always use the best judgment and should have got themselves killed but happened to live.
If I was one of those soldiers on the ground I sure would've been grateful for a pilot like that.
Yeh I know war stories but that story is horse hooey. When I was a kid one of my favorite shows was "Whirlybirds".
It was great for kids and adults but at the time there were hardly any, even starch wing aviators, who knew much of anything about helicopters. In some ways it's a world of it's own.
Rule one, you don't, correction, never strafe or rocket an enemy position by flying low directly above them, especially if they are in numbers. You may not live to regret it. If you do manage to survive the ship is a write-off. Slowly approaching the middle of them down to ground level as if to land essentially is suicide. You and the bird will be swiss cheese and you'll end up crashing onto the people you're trying to save, but not before you've thoroughly sandblasted the skin off them with your rotor wash.
What movie did I see something kind of similar, was it "We we're Soldiers and Young", with Mel Gibson? Great theater for fans of Dolph, Arnold, Chuck, Sylvester but that's all.
The Vietnamese were a powerful foe, courageous, used clever tactics, dirty tricks, set-ups that we time and again fell for just so we could get a body count.
LIKE wow ! incredible ! Really cool . I only got to see "Spooky" once at night when I was a Marine in 1969-1970 in Nam. Hard to believe. The firing rate with tracers made it look like a solid wall of fire raining down ! Awesome ! So glad the enemy did not have anything comparable to it ! Hoo-Rah ! Semper Fi ! (Staff Sgt., Ret., USMC/USAF/ARNG Mech. Infantry/ GET Some !)
Damn it ! Tried twice to show correct dates for my Marine combat tour,Nam , as 1969-1970 but it keeps showing typo on the date ~( fk' up !)
fk* up dates and will not correct !
YOU PISSING ME OFF ! THIS SITE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO CORRECT YR DATE TYPOS ~ I'm OUT of here ! F*k off !
Another awesome post! I saw a Viet Nam history piece...maybe done on the war reporters of the time. They'd called off strikes in this area because a couple reporters were going to meet with some mid-level NVA for just an interview. Walking across levies and short bridges to the meeting place and someone saw a helicopter banking back and it turned CHAOS! Everyone running to get in a shelter. Turned out a well-made shelter with layers of tree trunks on top. When they came out of the shelter ALL the palm tree branches around were hanging against their trunks!! I don't know if it was multiple helicopters with mini-guns but that area was messed up!! So...don't tell the government you're having a chat with the enemy around where, around when!!
I'll look for that documentary and post a link when I find it. I hope others have seen that old video and felt the same 'aaaaaah shit...look at that!!' feeling I had when I saw it.
Reporters should stay home and make up their BS. People have a right to know? They do not really want to know, some nights I wish I knew less.
Hard one to hit like but as a Marine I had to because of how many lives those guns saved. It's part of history and present capabilities. If not for the deterrent of fearing nuclear bombs the Russians would have already been stopped in their messy tracks while invading Ukraine, their own solders know it is wrong and that is why they haven't wanted to fight, they see nothing worth fighting for against basically brothers on the other side of the lines. This world has become something that makes no sense, even to opposing in a war pushed by one man.
Oh, for heaven's sake. This doesn't need five minutes of introductory "Civil War Gatling gun" coverage.
This was definitely one of the top five best video's put out in this series. IMHO
A friend of mine at work flew the Loach in Vietnam. He had them install a mini gun in it, but quickly had it removed. It pushed his tiny helicopter sideways!
And if it was shooting forward it would maybe do a backflip
The feed system for mini gun in the turret of the AH-1Gs was driven by a flex shaft similar to a speedometer cable and it had a habit of breaking, a lot of us who worked on them wondered why the didn't use the electric feed system that was developed for the mini gun when used on the UH-1 prior to the development of the AH-1
a common reason for the feeder drive shaft to break was quick short burst firing by the pilots. the rapid start/stop/start/stop of quick bursts instead of a longer burst stressed the flex shaft quite a bit. trying to time two electric motors independently would be really sketchy. the cable method was the right idea but it could have been beefier.(former Armt. Dawg i worked AH-1P Cobra's through DAP Blackhawks) greatest MOS in the Army.
@@mikeholton9876 OK makes sense, I was a 68J the 68X worked on everything from "Hogs" to Apaches
@@williamhigdon8728 OG 68M converted to J, never touched an Apache. we had fun though!
@@mikeholton9876 Avionics & a lot of other MOS's were folded into 68X it was great fun watching them hav to go out to the FARPS & get their hands dirty
@@williamhigdon8728 probably so, but its sad in a way, the Armament shop always had the best personalities and frankly everywhere i worked they had the more driven troopers. i'd rather leave the sparkies, turbine surgeons, and tin benders back at the barn, just cut us and the 77F gas passers loose give us a grid to set up in and get out of the way. didn't have no time to be wet-nursing some avionics puke on a FAARP...
easily among the very best military and science doc channels on the net........anywhere.
Babe wake up ....Dark Docs uploaded
I think you may have missed a couple of other vehicles that used the mini gun to their advantage. The up armored Duce and a half’s and 5 ton trucks providing protection for supply convoys and I think a few gun boats borrowed some too to add some firepower to their boats.
You must be referring to the brown water riverine patrol craft. AKA PBRs.
Never heard Kiowa pronounced KEY-O-WA 😂
Wow! Thank you!
I was a Cobra pilot and I sincerely bwlieven that without the minigun we ( I ) would not be here today!
The rounds were lethal enough but the spent brass and link would tumble as it came down through the tree canopy and do just as much damage. Ground forces with overhead protection who tried to bug out as soon as the aircraft passed were shredded by the hot brass and link as if they'd been hit with a chainsaw.
The spent brass trailed the aircraft like a magical golden thread as it was side lit by the afternoon sun. Somethings you never forget.
the brass cant be that hot. I dont believe it.
"Shredded by hot brass and link". Hilarious
You're full of crap, have your doctor adjust your medications.
The best version of the Gatling is the Gau 8, used in A10 Thunderbolts
The tank muncher! Must sound like Godzilla taking a giant sh1t on you being at the business end of the Gau 8
A marvel of high speed material handling!
Worked on the first Puff C-47 at Elgin AFB in 1963. Great experience there. New equipment tested all the time.
The ME 262 during the end of WW2 had 4 single barrel 30mm guns that individually had a slow rate of fire, but together they had a devastating impact on targets. The volume of ammo and rate of fire was perfect, and was not surpassed until the Gatling gun was introduced in the later half of the 20th century.
They only fired 2 at a time not all 4 like people assume, that was done to increase their firing time because they didn't carry that much ammo.
Those guns (the MK108) are vastly overrated in terms of effectiveness, particularly in the 262. Their max effective range was 600 meters (very low muzzle velocity and heavy-ass projectile) and the 262 pilot had to break off at 200 meters to avoid collisions. In a stern attack profile, that only gives you 2 seconds to aim, fire, and get out of there. All the destructive power in the world doesn't matter if you can't hit reliably hit the target.
For comparison, the MK108 used in the 262 had a muzzle velocity of 540 m/s (which is about the same velocity as a 180 grain .44 magnum bullet out of a 7.5 inch barrel) while the Hispano 404s and MG151/20s had a muzzle velocity of 840 m/s which is in the same ballpark as the machine guns already in use (the Brownings, the MG17, etc) which in turn helps simplify aiming the guns. Another consideration is the MK108 used minengeshoss rounds which had very thin jackets allowing a lot more explosives to be packed into them. Great when you hit the target... but you're also having to close to much shorter ranges to get those hits in the first place.
@@RaderizDorret wow, I didn’t expect a reply like that, you know your weapons. all good info and thanks for sharing! But I have to say, at 600 meters (2000feet) on the MK 108, that is still quite the range for such a heavy round, especially with the Minnengeschoss. Especially with the very fast closing speed of 700 km/hr the defensive gunners on the bombers had very little time to react. Only one or two rounds had to hit the target for it to be disabled, and since these were extremely heavy rounds wind or weather only affected them slightly on their trajectory. Muzzle velocity is not always the key for a successful kill, since the high velocity has a tendency to pass Through the target with minimal damage. A heavy tumbling round at lower velocity, as for example a .45, will do much greater damage.
@@dukecraig2402 yes, that was the case for some pilots, but there was an option to fire all four in short burst.
@@yuppy1967
They could arm as many of the guns as they wanted, but SOP was firing 2 at a time, that's how they were trained and instructed to fire them.
The development of the "Gatling gun" is pretty amazing seems the rounds just keep getting bigger yet no reduction in ROF. The only time I have shot a 134 it was a GE built weapon and it was at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot needless to say firing the weapon certainly gave a guy a whole new outlook on just what the term firepower truly means! The ammo prices were a bit elevated on year at the shoot and the ammo cost to fire the weapon was 100.00 per second!
I was a Vulcan gunner in the Army back in the 80's.
One year I went to Knob Creek with some of my friends that are class 3 buffs, when we walked by the mini gun someone ask me if I wanted to shoot it and I said "Na, that's OK, I've shot badder", as I was walking away I heard one of my friends tell the guy "He was a Vulcan gunner in the Army", I heard the guy say "Yea, I guess this couldn't top that".
@@dukecraig2402 I worked at GE Armament before joining the Navy, and we built the VADS (Vulcan Air Defense System). Was that your "chariot of fire"? They sent us a couple VADS that had been in Vietnam and had .50 cal and 12.7 mm bullet holes through them and out the other side, wreaking havoc on the ammo drum in the process. Quite a mess. We were supposed to "harden" them against that sort of thing. The M113's "armor" wasn't up to the task.
@@wcate8301
Yep, M163A1 self propelled gun, I was a 16R back in the 80's.
My Sgt Major was on one of the 5 guns sent to Vietnam.
@@dukecraig2402 For the primitive kind of war Vietnam was, I always thought the ZSU23/4 was the more effective solution.
Chryst!! I'd love to fire one of these - but I guess I'm just too tight!! No wonder I never even saw ONE in my 10 years in the Royal Navy .....now they are REALLY tight!!
Great stuff, thank you! Yes this gun is awesome.
Very informative and very well done. Thanks for making it!
Ammo reliability is critical in these guns. While a dud rd. will simply be ejected a delayed hangfire will destroy the gun when it goes off out of battery. Because of the speed the gun fires at there's only a few milliseconds delay between the firing pin striking the primer and the bolt opening. Every round must fire the instant it's struck.
That's why primers fire at over 100k/fps
I read that the 20mm guns are electrically fired, not impact fired. The 7.62 guns are impact fired. I'm not aware of how prevalent a hangfire is, I've never personally seen one but if you are firing many thousands of rounds then maybe the odds go up.
@@billj5645 I thought they are electronically fired as well.
@@billj5645
Yes, the 20mm ammo is electrically primed, you could pound on the primer of one with a hammer and nail and it'll never go off, but if you have a ring on your finger and a static electricity charge built up on your body and you pick up a round and that ring touches the primer you could easily blow yourself up.
I was a Vulcan gunner in the Army, we were trained to remove all watches and rings for safety reasons before handling any of the ammo, and the linker/de-linker tool we had was made out of a special metal that wouldn't carry a static charge on it, also if you're ever at a gun show and you see fired 20mm brass pick one up and look at the primer strike, it's remarkably light, it looks like the firing pin barely touched the primer which in all reality it barely did, the firing pins on a Vulcan have an electrical current that runs through them, as I recall it was a lower voltage but a pretty high Amp rating.
Something that cracks me up is when I see those TH-cam videos where they "prove" whether or not a 20mm round will go through something like a manhole cover and they're using some custom built 20mm gun, they're not "proof" of anything because they're not firing military ammo, they're firing some sort of hand load made from pulled Target Practice slugs and fired brass, you can pick up both at gun shows, I have a pulled 20mm Target Practice slug that's sitting in a fired casing that I picked both up at a gun show to have sitting on a shelf so I can show people what I used to shoot.
They're taking those empty casings and machining out the primer or something like that and pressing in what I assume is a standard #209 shotshell primer since they're the same diameter or close anyways, then they're filling them with God knows what kind of powder plus if you look at those rifles they always have a barrel somewhat shorter than a Vulcans, so they're definitely not getting the same ballistics as a military round fired from a GE M61 cannon, and without a doubt it's not military ammo since they're shooting it out of a rifle with a percussion firing pin.
One of those videos claims that they prove a 20mm won't go through a manhole cover which I can assure you they will, we'd burn holes through light armored vehicles the engineers drug downrange for us, unless you're lucky enough to get a fresh Antrack or something usually they've already got a huge hole all the way through both sides.
Videos like that are just click bait and aren't proof of anything, in one of them some guy claims they try 3 different types of 20mm rounds and holds them up claiming one is a Target Practice slug and the other two were different varieties of the explosive rounds, it's such a joke because the TP round has a blue projectile sticking out of it which it should and even has the description and nomenclature stenciled on it as it should, the other two you can tell they painted the colors they should be but they don't have the description and nomenclature stenciled on them as they should, it isn't even a very good paint job on them, you can tell it's Rustoleum or something like that right over top of the original blue from them being TP slugs, the military nor anyone else would ever surplus out explosive projectiles or even pull them in the first place, and since they were shooting them from a percussion primed type rifle they definitely weren't any kind of surplus ammo since the rifle didn't have a power source for the firing pin anyways, I've handled all that ammo and I can assure you the two they claimed were explosive rounds were simply hand loads with TP projectiles painted to look like the real thing, and like I said to the trained eye it wasn't even a good job, that's why the guy only flashes them in front of the camera for a second instead of having them sitting on the bench or something like that with a close up shot.
I called them out for shooting non military ammo during their "proving" what 20mm capabilities are and ask them how they got electrically primed ammo to fire out of a rifle with a conventional percussion type firing pin and no power source for it but I never got a comment back from the creator's of the video, when I explained in my comment that I'm an ex Vulcan gunner they knew they were busted.
@@dukecraig2402 I think I saw that video but didn't really question it at the time, that was before I read the book on Gatling and learned about the electrically primed ammo. I assume the 20mm stuff used in WWII was percussion primed, I didn't know it had changed since then. The book didn't get into many specifics regarding the 7.62 minigun, I didn't think they would develop special ammo just for minigun use.
Great video thanks. My thought were. Mr Gatling didn't get the credit he deserved at the time and you would need a hell of a lot of ammo packed away for this particular gun lol
Love that big smile @ 2:45. 👍
Here it is a century later, and FA still elicits the same response for firearm enthusiasts. 😃
I loved the Minigun but the M60 just seemed more ‘personal’ if you know what I mean. Also, the overheating problem was greatly exaggerated.
I liked the M60, but Ma Deuce was my best friend!
AWESOME weapon, and designed by my favorite
weapon designer, John Moses Browning. He
most likely was instrumental in sending more
people to hell, than Orrin Rockwell Porter.
(Another Mormon sharpshooter.)
steve
During the trials of the portable version intended for ground forces use, the T&E team came to the conclusion that the designated operator had to be, quote unquote a "god damned sexual Tyrannosaurus ".
Another awesome DOC!!!!!
Thanks!!!
My uncle survived being a helicopter door gunner for evac and deployment he was part of the first to go over and lasted to make it home
My uncle was a door gunner in Nam as well. He was on several UH1s shot down in-country. He did three tours and was discharged as an E-1. He had a drinking problem. Watch Full Metal Jacket. That door gunner was a spitting image of my uncle. Born to kill.
Hero
7.62 is a common projectile caliber. But there are a lot of variants and they're not interchangeable. The minigun is chambered in 7.62×51. Which is called the .308. 7.62×39 is your standard AK47 round. Then there's also 7.62×54R. For the sake of clarity most people call the 7.62×51 a .308 round.
I always thought 7.62 NATO was more commonly said than 308
@@PsRohrbaugh That's my impression- in military context it is the 7.62 NATO, in civilian use it is most commonly called .308.
I guess nobody would mistake the AK 47 round or the old-rimmed Nagant round for with the usually-called 7.62 or 308. The 30-06 has the same caliber as well.
Thanks! I have a Yugo SKS, so I don’t think AK when I hear 7.62x39. I love my bayonet and grenade launcher
AH-1 Cobra is truly a badass helicopter in Vietnam War
Even though the venerable Warthog didn't come out until possibly after the Vietnam War (I honestly haven't looked into when the Warthog came out), watching this video made me think of the Warthog I/II series close air support airplane, that plane was and still is one big meanie, that I wouldn't want to face on the battlefield.
the viets had virtualy no aircraft so a fair evaluation is hard
I’m fully in love w the Mini Gun
The Mini-gun is an AWESOME tree and grass mower, not to mention shredding the f*** out of any people caught in the line of fire.
The Vulcan Phalanx is an AWESOME piece of Tech!!
Viet-ming?? Meaning Viet-cong maybe?
As I was taught in Basic training about the M-60 machine gun. Sustained fire of the weapon would melt the barrel and cause miss-fires, and premature detonations, which could/would/did cause casualties/fatalities. They told/trained us to utilize 15 round bursts to prolong barrel life and slow barrel meltdown. Barrel meltdown caused the weapon to be out of service for quite some time to replace the barrel, or permanently. I was the M-60 bearer during my entire time in-service, the 26 pounds of the weapon empty weight wasn't a problem at all. Even loaded I experienced no problems handling/carrying it, even b4 Rambo, I would carry 2 belts of ammo strapped across my body, and 1 belt loaded in the weapon. I didn't want to run out of ammo too quickly. My ammo bearer carried the extra barrels, plus the extra ammo.
Viet Minh, more so what the French would have called them.
Want to scare some bad guys, let a mini gun off for 1/2 a second. Guaranteed to scare the pants off anyone not ready for a fight.
Dude has best narration voice.
My dad was shop foreman at GE where they made both the Vulcan and mini. Also had friends who worked at the range where the mini was tested. A few deer where turned into hamburger. Awesome weapons.
I was a Vulcan gunner in the Army back in the 80's, if your dad's still around tell him I said "Good job 👍👍👍", those things worked pretty much flawlessly, in the 3 years I did it and hundreds of thousands of rounds I fired and saw fired through them I never once saw a malfunction due to the gun, they ran with the precision of a Swiss watch.
"GE, we bring good things to life", needless to say me and my buddies used to get a pretty big kick out of those commercials.
“With no risk of overheating”
Game developers: “allow us to introduce ourselves”
Haha so true, they always get those things wrong in games.
Also the minigun can fire in 1/4 sec so it does not need a long time to spin up like they always do in the games and is pretty much instant.
I have seen a M134 glow red hot. It can be done.
th-cam.com/video/jFEafMjrlOw/w-d-xo.html
Badass
It was great to see all that/devestating weapon!!
What an awesome piece of hardware!
The mini was limited to short bursts due to over heating. Front seaters in the Cobra would cycle the trigger to minimize the gap on fire.
The system had a 6 second fire limit built in. Once it stopped one would simply release the trigger and hit it again with only a small space between "streams'...
I wonder if anyone ever happened to be directly under a helicopter firing 2 of those and out of nowhere just.. brass rain
But seriously, better batteries would make this truly man-portable and terrifying af
That brass rain will hurt like hell because it is still burning hot. You do not want to be under there where the cases are coming down!
I flew Cobras for Blue Max in 1969 and there was always a dread fear of "hitting friendlies". When we would be working "danger close" there would be empty brass raining down on the jungle which would sometimes cause an inexperienced FO to scream "Cease Fire!" and say we were hitting friendlies. This would scare the crap outa' us until they realized it was just the brass - not the business end...