Various species of venomous snakes, known to the Vietnamese but not to the outsiders, were dropped into the tunnels.

Beginning in early January, 1966, US and allied troops were almost immediately ambushed and fired on by an enemy who disappeared as suddenly as he had first made himself known. EFFECTIVE RANGE - 50 feet Five of the new weapons and 496 rounds of ammunition were each issued to the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions for a 90-day field test period.

From the trenches of the World War I to the beaches of World War II to the tunnels of Vietnam to the War on Terror of today, in the moment of truth — above ground or below — the M1911 has always been there to serve.

The tunnel rats were required to use their ingenuity and incredible bravery to fight in an unprecedented form or guerilla warfare the American forces had not yet seen. A soldier pops out of a tunnel trap door to relay information. The rugged pistol soldiered on, sturdy and reliable as ever. The primer pocket was redesigned and that eliminated a lot of the misfire problems.

The views certified instructor prior to handling any firearm and be sure to read your owner’s manual.

Wikimedia CommonsSoldiers reach into a tunnel to pull a man out. To maximize available space for the ammunition design, the largest commercially-available revolver design was chosen for development into the tunnel weapon. ROUND LENGTH - 1.866 inches MUZZLE VELOCITY - 750 fps

The payload continues away from the cylinder, moving at what can be a significant velocity. ''The Tunnel Rats were combat engineers,'' Mangold says. But many tunnel rats were devoid of any formal training and though they were sometimes successful in securing intelligence, an enemy hospital, or stores of weapons. This gave the cylinder walls of the tunnel weapon enough strength to function and carry the ammunition, and that was about all. It was a multiple-threat environment in Vietnam, even underground. When the gas-driven piston strikes a constriction at the open end of the cylinder, it is trapped and held in place. Effective ventilation shafts were later installed which allowed Viet Cong soldiers to remain hidden underground for months at a time. Tom is married to a very patient woman, and they live on America’s North Coast, near Lake Ontario. The tunnel rats were forced to be creative and often even managed to maneuver around these attacks. Since the tunnel combat was by nature at a short range, the weapon was to be lethal at 25 feet, minimum. Tunnel Rats: The Underground Search-And-Destroy Soldiers Of The Vietnam War. One thing that the tunnel rats were always sure they could find underground - a quick death. A sealed-in percussion primer ignites the propellant charge in a normal way. Getty ImagesWith pistol ready, a G.I. QSPR (TUNNEL WEAPON) TECHNICAL DATA UNIT # 5 shovels dirt into a tunnel entrance where Viet Cong were believed to be hiding. views and opinions of Springfield Armory. All tunnel rats were combat engineers, soldiers trained to perform construction and demolition tasks in combat.
Ceilings were no greater than 1.8 meters high, and much more often closer to the minimum 0.8 meters high. He was running, and he was about 20 to 25 feet away.” The Armory Life Debrief straight to your inbox every week!

For almost every American soldier who carried one in Vietnam, the pistol represented a “back-up” weapon.

The Army LWL passed on the project to a qualified civilian contractor, Aircraft Armaments Inc. (AAI) of Baltimore, Maryland.

This pistol, part of a limited-time offering and priced at an MSRP of $549, gives you a pistol that offers the best of the classic 1911A1 pistol, but with some modern tweaks and upgrades. The captured piston seals off the end of the cylinder, trapping the propellant gases inside the system where they can bleed off slowly.

The tunnels could be destroyed above ground, but often because the tunnels were so complex and snake-like, an above-ground demolition was not enough to dismantle the labyrinth entirely. Most users trained for an hour or less with the new weapons, firing 30 or fewer rounds each during the session. Despite the muzzle blast and intense flash in the dark, the man-stopping power of the .45 ACP round was unchallenged. And even with a tight cylinder gap, the suppressor didn’t reduce the sound of the shot enough to be worth the trouble. However, tunnel rats were responsible for a large portion of weapons successfully seized from the Viet Cong.

This weapon is far by being better than a .38 pistol we had. I never aimed the weapon. An American soldier peers into a tunnel’s trap door. Soldiers reach into a tunnel to pull a man out. His most recent book is Snitch: Crooked cops and Kings Cross crims by the man who saw it all.A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, as a young captain Sandy MacGregor commanded 3 Field Troop in Vietnam, where he won the Military Cross. We have to avoid contact and the weapon doesn’t compromise our position. The .44 magnum barrel was removed and a simple short cylinder threaded into its place.

The Tunnel Exploration Kit was abandoned in service, most tunnel rats wanted nothing to do with it, and it was quickly withdrawn.

WordPress Theme by Solostream. The hip-holster issued with the weapon was very hard to draw from in the tight confines of a tunnel. Tom is the author of more than 30 books on military history and weapons systems. But even in those unexpected parameters, the M1911 was very successful. Tom Laemlein is a historian. Earlier, in December, 1967, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MAC-V) had recognized that the need still existed for a low-noise weapon for what were now officially called the tunnel exploration personnel in the Republic of Vietnam. In the condensed world of the tunnel rat, even the M2 carbine with a folding stock was nicknamed “The Cannon.” IN general, pistol suppressors were not available, and when they were, the tunnel rats found them to be long and made their handguns ungainly.
This put the tunnel weapons to use in ambushes, prisoner snatches, and other more covert actions.

Suppressed .38 Revolver Was Made for Tunnel Rats in Vietnam. Over 2.75 ounces of steel were removed from the cylinders that originally weighed over half a pound. They used their pistol as a primary weapon. The subterranean world of the tunnel rat was made up of tunnels dug through soil that was described by an engineer as being like natural, reinforced concrete. WEIGHT (EMPTY) - 2.01 pounds RIM DIAMETER - 0.550 inch

The revolver decided on was the Smith & Wesson Model 29, .44 Magnum. The areas usually searched by the tunnel rats were often little more than 30-inch wide tubes cut through the sticky earth. MPs, helicopter crews and grenadiers, too. With pistol ready, a G.I. A few silenced pistols made their way to Vietnam and some of them were used by the tunnel rats. One shot was enough to end the argument. To fire the new ammunition, a revolver system was used to eliminate any problems with trying to function a semiautomatic weapon.

The stub barrel had a 0.400 smooth bore reamed through its center. Exchange a steel cartridge case for the open-ended cylinder, and a plastic capsule full of shot for the payload, and you have the heart of the tunnel weapon.

But not the “tunnel rats,” America’s subterranean warriors that would head underground in the jungles of Vietnam. All proceeds go to the Vietnam Tunnel Rats Association to help cover the costs of producing and posting out our fascinating newsletter “Holdfast”.. No other firearm would be effective in their battleground below ground due to cramped spaces. Often when faced with a Viet Cong soldier below ground, tunnel rats had to resort to hand-to-hand combat, as firing a weapon in such a small space could spell disaster for eardrums and the stability of the space around them.

In another incident, a sergeant armed with a Tunnel Weapon took out a VC outside of a tunnel. Training time for the new weapons ranged from none to several hours, but it usually always included a firing demonstration at the recommended plywood target. A few of the OSS-ordered WWII era suppressed High Standard HD .22 automatics made they way into Tunnel Rat hands. 1968 Tunnel Rats is a 2008 Vietnam War film directed by infamous Uwe Boll.

Most had several levels, with each level accessed via a watertight trap door that protected the entirety of the tunnel system against flooding with water or gas. Tunnel Rat was the term that was quickly coined for these generally small-stature soldiers who would go down the holes. Two of these are at the US Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Specimen #5 is on public display there and the AAI specimen is there in storage. He regularly contributes articles to national magazines and websites on military history and firearms topics, and historical photos from his collection are used by publishers around the world. The “silent” quality of the tunnel weapon gave some of the users questions regarding its lethality. © 2020 Tunnel Rats Vs The Taliban.

I could use three of these in my platoon. Springfield Armory® recommends you seek qualified and competent training from a One did get hold of a .38 from an aviation unit. There weren’t gen… Officers and crew-served weapons’ crews often carried them. The means of this military magic was discovered by a US Army sergeant when he sat on a nail that was sticking up from a hidden trapdoor. The Americal Division used its Tunnel Weapons with its Ranger and Infantry companies. An old friend of mine served two tours in Vietnam, and he commented: “Give me a regiment of VC armed with shovels, and we will tunnel out all of Southeast Asia.” For the American troops tasked with taking the fight to the enemy in Vietnam, part of the job was to chase him into the subterranean warrens where he often dwelled. Tunnel Rat Weapons. “For our use it works real good. In addition to their regular role, tunnel rats had to be extremely good at hand-to-hand combat.