A Foxhole View: Personal Accounts of Hawaii's Korean War Veterans

Appendix C: Basic Weapons Used by American and Communist Forces

Appendix C Basic Weapons Used by American and Communist Forces United States 1. U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M-1 (Garand): The basic weapon of the infantry squad. It is semiautomatic, weighs 9.5 pounds, and fires an eight-round clip. 2. U.S. Carbine, Caliber .30: Fires lighter ammunition than the M-1 rifle and can be fired semiautomatic or full automatic but has less range and killing power than the M-1 rifle. Can be used with a fifteen -round magazine or thirty-round “banana” magazine. 3. Pistol, Caliber .45:The standard side arm or pistol of the army. It has great stopping power at a range of 25 yards. 4. Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR): The primary automatic weapon of the rifle squad.The rate of fire is 500 rounds per minute.It weighs 16 pounds or 20 pounds with a fully loaded magazine. 5. U.S. Machine Gun, Caliber .30: It is fully automatic, and uses the same cartridge as the M-1 rifle and BAR. It is the platoon’s machine gun. There are two models. 6. Rocket Launcher (Bazooka), 3.5 inch: The 3.5 replaced the 2.36 bazooka. It weighs 15 pounds and fires an 8.5 pound charge. 7. Recoilless Rifles: The 57mm and the 75mm recoilless rifles are the artillery for the infantry companies.The 57mm is a shoulder weapon and the 75mm is fired from a tripod.They are flat trajectory weapons and are effective against fortifications. 8. Mortars, 60mm, 81mm, and 4.2 inch: Simple weapons consisting of a base plate and a smooth tube. They fire high explosive shells at very high angle capable of reaching targets that are in defiled. The 60mm mortar is carried by a company’s weapons platoon and the 295 81mm mortar by the battalion’s weapons company. The 4.2 mortar has great range and is carried by regiment. 9. Quad .50s: Four .50 caliber machine guns mounted on a half-track vehicle that are fired simultaneously. It was developed as an antiaircraft weapon but found to be most effective against massed ground attacks. It was in great demand by infantry companies in the Korean War. 10. Artillery: The artillery used in the Korean War was of World War II vintage. —105mm howitzer. Has a range of nearly 7 miles. —155mm howitzer. Has a range of 10 miles. —155mm gun (Long Tom). Has a range of 14 miles. —8 inch (202.2mm) howitzer. Has a range of 10 miles. It weighs 15 tons and requires a special utility vehicle to tow it. 11. Hand Grenades:Three basic types of hand grenades were used by UN forces in Korea: concussion, fragmentation, and chemical. The most commonly used one was the fragmentation or pineapple grenade. After the safety lever was released, the grenade would explode, after a four- to five-second delay. It had a kill radius of 5 to 10 yards and could inflict wounds in a blast radius of 50 yards. The Communist Nation 1. Infantry Rifles: The communist forces relied upon a hodgepodge of shoulder weapons from the Russians and captured Japanese rifles. The most common were the Russian 7.62mm carbine and the Japanese 7.7mm Imperial Army rifles. 2. Submachine Gun, 7.62 PPSH 41 (Burp Gun): Designed by the Russians and later by the Chinese, the gun delivered a rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute, from whence the nickname,“burp,” was derived. Its rate of fire was almost twice the rate of American automatic weapons and was most effective at close range. 3. Mortars: The Communists possessed 61mm and 82mm mortars that could fire American 60mm and 81mm mortar rounds, which the Communists captured in great quantities.Their longest-range mortars were the 120mm and 122mm mortars. 4. Artillery: Long-range artillery used by the Communists was the Soviet-made 122mm rifled cannon and the 152mm howitzer. 296 basic weapons 5. Hand Grenades: A grenade shaped like a small bottle was the most common form of grenade used by the Communists. These were made of explosive-filled metal heads mounted on wooden sticks. Similar-shaped grenades with thin metal canisters designed to stun rather than kill were the concussion grenades used almost exclusively by attacking communist troops.A favorite tactic of the Communists was to arm the first wave of attackers with only hand grenades, hoping to stun the defenders.The second wave would...