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

[Old Guard]

The Brown water Navy, or shallow water navy, raised my interests after working in a Jacuzzi Factory and building Jet boat units for Patrol Boats..They had contracts to build them for several countries, and we used a lot of very high grade metal to make the units..Titanium, Stainless steel, magnesium, and others were used to fill the contracts..there is no telling How Much each unit cost for the gov... They also never described the boats to be fitted..only we had to hold 225-250 hp diesel powered engines..Later proven to be Detroits...What do you know about the PBR boat family, the Zippo and or the Mortor.{SP} class of boats??..OG.

[Punch The Clown]

I know I haven't seen one in civilian hands. Where are they? Where I live there used to be tons of ex-govt boats but I never saw a PBR.

[Prince Humperdink]

A Pabst Blue Ribbon(PBR) boat?I want one ;)

[Prince Humperdink]

Here's one for Ya Stu,and shouldn't be hard to come by for a man of your means.
http://halltrucksales.com/content/1968-mark-ii-pbr-vietnam-era

[checkmate19]

I live an hour from Tampa, LOL.

[jak]

Here's another PBR....a bargain at $125,000.00

http://www.armyjeeps.net/1968PBR-2X/PBR.htm

[Old Guard]

Here's one for Ya Stu,and shouldn't be hard to come by for a man of your means.
http://halltrucksales.com/content/1968-mark-ii-pbr-vietnam-era

Great, there she is in all her Glory..I really enjoyed the movie Appoclypse now..So much i have it on tape..you really cannot understand what they were trying to say unless you see the full movie---REDUX..It was over 3 1/2 hours long after they cut out another hour, way too long to be shown in the flicks.....War is HELL....Survival is on everyone mind..Just till the next day..Back to the boat, i know there are many more photos of them.. Someone had published them wrecked or salvage on the side of the river in vietnam...Who would not want that front turrant, with the two m-2's on it?? Did you see the huge jet pump outputs and reverse gates?? I machined a bunch of them, plus some Impellers and other parts....We worked on Jet Bowls from 8 inches diameter to 36 inches for tow boats..Jacuzzi held the jet boat speed record at the time,, 98 mph on carb 427 chevy engine in a low profile boat..

[Jimbo Slice]

In my opinion, the book was better than the movie... and I thought the movie was great.

It's Friday and I shall now begin construction of my own Pabst Blue Ribbon boat.

Cheers men!

[Old Guard]

Great post before and after photos..I see that Schlitz might become history too?? Not many people drink it here and it is made with Mem. water??

[checkmate19]

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 .

[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