Other weapons, How about a PBR, Patrol Boat, River...complete...

[Old Guard]

This was a good topic Old Guard, I enjoyed hearing about the pumps. I ahve seen footage where they just power thru mud and much. Did these boats gut stuck often? Interesting about the jet speed record. I reconditioned a 83 checkmate 19 and went for speed even know it considered heavy for its size. A jet needs lots of hp to go fast where as an outboard will fly with the right set up. . I turned a 28 pitch surface piercing prop at 62 hundred rpms for 80 mph .

The jet Props were shaped like the boat propellars, but made of stainless and alloys harder than steel..Nothing like the caged type impellars on a Berkley jet boat...The Knifes on the bottom suction plates were stainless alloys and sharpened like knifes to prevent clogging and damage.The Boat could pull itself off of sandbars, by closing the reverse gates and full throttle reverse washing the sand away..There was one scene of it in Ap redux movie, boat in ambush. Checkmate boats were very tough with the balsa block bottoms in glass, my bud had one with 150 black max..My 140 Evinrude ran a SSt prop with tilt all the way up, but i could not make myself buy the jack plate and skinny lower units.I loved watersking in my prime..
.But back to pbr, tough boats..like guys riding a surfboard with guns..

[Eli]

..I really enjoyed the movie Appoclypse now..

The guy that was reputed to be the inspiration for that story was a good friend of my father's... you've all actually seen him in a movie, too!

Eli

[Old Guard]

The guy that was reputed to be the inspiration for that story was a good friend of my father's... you've all actually seen him in a movie, too!

Eli

After finally getting to look at the Redux and to study it..the whole story made a little more sense..It was Entertaining and to see what others might have experienced..Now I just need to rent a PBR and go for a thrill ride..Og.

[jim bozarth]

FNG here.....heres what I know about the boats you mentioned....The RAG.. River Assault Group...boats were purpose built for the mekong. The Swift boats were crew boats originally used in the Gulf of Mexico to service the offshore oil Platforms. The Mortar and Zippo (flame thrower) and a gunboat they called the Monitor were WW2 leftover LCVP landing craft that were highly modified to work in the shallow water Mekong environment. Why do I know this....i enlisted in 1970 on the USN guaranteed enlistment program and was sent to Coronado to Cox'uns school. Thats boat driver for all you dogfaces and grunt types.
Another interesting tidbit......most of thr LCVP types were assigned to Army and were crewed by them. The Rags and the Swifts lived off LSTs that had been converted in to floating barracks and were anchored in the waterways away from the bad guys.

[CharlieLima]

Narrated by Raymond Burr:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ndQP4eE36M
http://www.tf116.org/catalog/images/11970581071..jpg
CL

[Old Guard]

Narrated by Raymond Burr:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ndQP4eE36M
http://www.tf116.org/catalog/images/11970581071..jpg
CL

Interesting video, these men had their butts hanging out when on attack, there was very little metal to stop bullets and an RPG would demolish one of them..

[CharlieLima]

Please excuse my baffoonery. Here is part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKuELYP2yQ
But yah the only real metal between the PBRs and the bad guys probably was coming out of those twin 50s.
CL