"Marines LAW in Vietnam" Topic

I am re-basing a bunch of painted Marines I bought a while back. There are enough figures to do a full platoon, with an M60 team in each squad. It will leave me with plenty of leftover command, M79 and M60 figures.

My question is about the figures I got armed with a LAW. Would a LAW have been taken into the field? Useful against bunkers I guess but not much else. If nothing else I'll add 2 per squad and substitute for a rifleman, but only in scenarios where a LAW would make sense.

Thoughts?

What you do is fire off the rocket, replace it with 7oz cans of Coors, and put the end caps back on.hold three of them real nice.

On photo's, you don't see them an awful lot but they do show up.

I guess they could do well against a machine gun nest or "block house" type of fortification.

LAWS were used in the USMC against bunkers, personnel in the open and field fortifications. As a side bar, LAWS became prone to misfires after about two weeks in the field due to humidity penetrating the seals. So after a week and a half they had to be fired off or bundled together with C-4 and det cord and blown. Humidity could also cloud the sights as well. LAWS were treated as a round of ammunition rather than a weapon per se and we carried by everyone in the platoon , if enough were available except for the machine gunners and mortar men.

How do you use a LAW against personnel in the open? Aim for the dirt to set the round off?

Nope. Pick out a nice thick tree right in the middle of the group as your aiming point. Used the ground only as a last resort. The tree would give you a good waist high airburst.

How much do they actually burst outwards?

Mythbusters had a part where they triggered an RPG-7 warhead right next to a dummy and it had basically no effect on it.

Or does it rely on splinters of whatever you hit going everywhere?

Sounds like you're using the tree to create shrapnel, no?

Wood shrapnel is a common battlefield effect. Artillery uses it a lot for the famous "treebursts".

I would think you would get a similar effect by hitting a tree with a rocket.

The explosive burst would be somewhere between a 40mm grenade and a 60mm mortar round. As the Law had a heat warhead the anti-personnel effect came primarily from the tree or ground it impacted . A waist high airburst from a tree would create ample wood splinters that made nasty wounds.

I was with CAP in '68,'69 and we ran small ambush patrols. I always carried a couple. They gave me some range and pretty much the equivelent of an RPG. As mentioned earlier, they deteriorated pretty quickly when removed from the sealed container.

The Marines continued to the 3.5 bazooka until late in the war because it was more effective vs. bunkers.

Was there an M60 in each squad?

Technically, a company had a weapons platoon with M60s, mortars and recoilless rifles. The M60s were usually parceled out to the platoons, the RRs and mortars left behind or used for defending a base (not always, but often).

The M60s could be give one per platoons or maybe kept with the company CO. Just kinda depended on the situation.

The Company Weapons Platoon had six M-60 machine guns, six 3.5" rocket launchers and three M-2 60mm mortars. The 60mm mortars were always in the field with the Company as they were the Company Commanders' "personal artillery,"
The 106mm recoiless rifles and 81mm mortars were in the H+S Company at Bn. level and seldom went to the field.
The Weapons Platoon very quickly ceased to be as two M-60's and two 3.5's were attached out to each platoon on a permanent basis. The 60mm mortars were very seldom attached out . The 60mm section generally moved with the Company Commander.

Don't forget it's value as a suppression weapon.

During Vietnam the LAW was used as an anti ambush/anti morale weapon with patrols carrying LAWS for no other reason than for firing them off causing a disruption in morale of the ambushing force and allowing momentum to change and for contact to be broken.

McDonough mentions having each of his men carrying a LAW while on patrol for the same reason in his book "Platoon Leader".

The technique was still being taught in Rgr Regiment in the 90s-00s.

As noted here … LAWs can be very useful. And not just against AFVs. As it is better to have it … than not when needed. And as pointed out it's like a grenade. It's issued as an expendable round. And light enough for many in the Squad to carry. And never underestimate the sound and explosion of a weapon like the LAW. At generally "close" ranges. In causing disruption, etc., to your enemy.

When I was at the LAW range for familiarization firing a live round was accidentally given to one of our guys to practice popping open and dry firing. The idiot proceeded to pop open the LAW, aim it down range and fire while the range was on safe. We were standing about 20 yards behind him. Fortunately, he had the LAW angled down and most of the backblast went over our head. The round went about 30 yards and blew up in the mud showering us with debris. No one got hurt.

Wolfhag

Sent you a PM Wolfshanza