Apocalypse Now

[LOOSE NUT]

Just got the Apocalypse Now Redux dvd and put it on my home entertainment system - WOW !!
Some really good heli scenes with the sound to match, could almost be in the L Z's. Also some chick scenes for the boys,
highly recommend it.

[Capn Notarious]

Did anything like that actually happen, a sky full of spinning rotor discs and Wagner, heading to an LZ.
Incidentally if you would like to hear an orchestra performing what they do best : try listening to; The entry of the Gods into Valhalla. But send the neighbours shopping and watch loudspeakers disintigrate!

[IHL]

Capn Notarious, " Gods into Valhalla", is that Wagner's Ride of the Valkries?

Loose Nut . Apocalypse Now , a classic. It was an interpretation of Joseph Conrads book "Heart of Darkness".

[Nick Lappos]

The helicopter scenes from "Apocalypse Now" have a great deal of artistic license and bear no resemblance to what a real Vietnam CA (combat assault) looked like. The goat rope of different aircraft, altitudes and equipment shown in the movie makes most Vietnam vets laugh. The real thing was a sight to behold, and a testament to the training and discipline of hundreds of aircrew who did it like it was easy.

I have personally flown several hundred CA's, and this is my impression of what it looked like:

A battalion-sized lift would use assets from a Cav Troop, a lift company, USAF FACs and fast movers, and one or two artillery batteries in a combined arms operation.

The Cav would usually have found the objective a few hours or perhaps a day before. OH-6 and Cobras would scout areas to look for sins of bad guy activity. Commo wire in the trees, signs of truck activity, an established basecamp are all signs that a likely objective is identified. The spot reports that they sent back to the local TOC (Tactical Operations Center) would plant the seed for the CA.

The assault would be planned by the local infantry battalion commander and his staff, usually the CO of the lift company would be involved, too. Planning would usually take a few hours, but on-call assets could start a CA in minutes, if necessary.

The lift company would use up to 18 UH-1H machines each carrying about 7 to 9 troops, depending on the season (temperature) and altitude of the LZ. Each lift would therefore bring in a full infantry company of 100 to 140 troops. Three companies was a battalion, so the lift would be done in three insertions, usually by using a pickup zone that was no more than 10 minutes (20 miles) away, so the entire battalion would be committed in less than an hour . If the objective was really big, two lift companies would be used, but these were rare. I flew gun cover on one 50 ship lift, it was a big to-do.

The scouts would mark the LZ, and arty prep would start prior to the lift. Often, the prep would soften up several possible LZ's so the actual one would not be announced. Just prior to the insertion, fast movers (F-4's or A-6's) might drop big HE in the LZ perimeters if the job were a really hot one. Often, just arty prep would be used. The last white of the arty prep showed the last round clearly for us, using an airburst Willie Pete round. That was usually 20 to 30 seconds from the LZ time, so the insertion crews could see the last round at about 1 mile final approach.

The lift companies each had gun platoons with UH-1C gunships to provide organic gun cover for their slicks. These guys would ride heard on the slick formation, usually two paired teams, one pair at each side of the formation. They would suppress the LZ and engage active enemy that popped up to oppose the landing. Slicks usually broke into 4 or so diamonds for a square or circular LZ, so each wave was actually a series of smaller insertions, spaced at 30 seconds to 1 minute intervals (to allow the gun cover to escort each section in and out and then pick the next section up.) Each full wave took less than 2 minutes, and usually went off silently, with a few simple calls, like "Trail's up" when the last Huey in the wave could see that all aircraft were loaded at the PZ. Often, the guns would call their breaks to let the wingmen know when to roll in to maintain continuous cover. The last 30 seconds of an insertion were tense and strange because of the silence.

The entire team would head back to the PZ for the next wave, usually leaving a gun team behind to help the troops in the LZ with supporting fire.

A glance back across the sky would show the entire lift in lose formation heading back to the PZ, then lifting in perfect formation heading back inbound. The formation might shift depending on how fancy everyone felt, but usually they used a set of 4 ship diamonds for small LZ's and a long staggered trail if the LZ was large or linear.

The formation would tighten up to about 1 rotor disk separation on short final, for best cohesion, and also to keep the troops close to each other when they get out. The door guns on the slicks were very effective in suppressing individual targets on short final and while in the LZ. Everybody stayed cold on the guns unless fire was taken, then all hell could break loose.

A more reasonable look at the concept of Air Assault is seen in "We Were Soldiers". The guy who helped invent these tactics was Gen Harry Kinnard, who is a character in "Soldiers" seen walking down the hall with Hal Moore (Mel Gibson) when Moore first comes to Ft. Benning.

Kinnard formed the 11th Air Assault, which became the 1st Air Cav Division. Kinnard was with Gen MacCauliff in the 101st Airborne at Bastogne in 1944. It was Kinnard that suggested using "Nuts" as the response to the German request for surrender, since MacCauliff's first response was "F**K EM!" and thus less likely to be recorded in the history. I met Harry several years ago, he lives in Virginia now, when I last heard.

[Robbo Jock]

Thank you for that excellent description, Nick. Reading it and thinking makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

One thing I wondered when reading Chickenhawk, and you've brought to mind. The helis picked up the troops from the PZ, dropped them off in the LZ and then (if I remember Chickenhawk correctly) returned to the PZ to wait until the troops needed extracting With very little cover there, weren't the gathered helis a prime target ? Or was it considered that the enemy would be so busy with the guys on the ground a short distance away, that they were unlikely to attack ?

[Devil 49]

If I may, a few thoughts:

Capn Notarius-
I did a few psy op missions over the U Minh Forest, RVN, in a UH-1D. Speakers nearly filled the sliding door opening. We'd fly relatively low and slow (60 knots at 500' agl, NIGHTS ONLY!!!). As described to me by the psy war team in back, they played funeral music and the bereaved wailing, or a lonely family begging the enemy soldier to come home alive and cheu hoi now. Sounded like cats fighting to a foriegner.
The local TOC wanted a taste, so I flew over one night on returning to base, and then called and asked what they thought of those far out sounds.
"Thought of what?"
"I just flew over with the psy ops tapes blasting..."
"We couldn't really make anything out over the Slick noises."

Point is, one helicopter is pretty noisy, much less a large lift of Hueys. It would take some really MASSIVE sound equipment to contend and be effective.

Perhaps the inspiration for the Wagner music scene in Apocolypse was the Armed Forces Viet Nam radio network-always on the adf when I was flying to eliminate boredom. It was mentally jarring listening to guys in combat and 60's rock or beach music I chose to deal with that conflict of ideas rather than go absolutely nuts... I'm sure I'm not unique in my solution to the day to day inhumanity of combat "in country".

Robbo Jock-
As far as the attacking a relatively defenceless lift team waiting, I don't recall it happening. The VC/NVA were a resourceful, determined and fierce opponent, so I wouldn't be surpised to hear of it happening. I think they had better results amushing lifts in the LZ's. Two of my company's Cobra gun teams once covered an assault that actually caught the bad guys where they were supposed to be. Unfortunately, they knew we were coming and shot down-completely-the first two lifts, and knocked out a large part of the gun teams too-one in flames just outside the very hot LZ. That crew was recovered in a silver star effort by the C & C bird (We frequently a had a pilot in C&C as copilot position to advise on Gun tactics. Our guy suggested he wasn't leaving the Snake crew on the ground, even if it meant shooting everbody on board C&C first. They believed him.).
But I digress...

[t'aint natural]

Nick:
It's about time you say down and wrote that book...

[advancing_blade]

I agree Nick, and can I pre order my copy now!

Robert Mason's Chicken Hawk, is one of very few books I've read more than once. For good or bad, I can't imagine that anything would surpass those experiences.

[Nick Lappos]

Thanks, Guys, for the nice comments.

I can't imagine any bond between men as strong as that where you depend on each other for your very survival. Soldiers, firemen and police, and maybe just a few other endevors require that kind of mutual trust. My friends from Vietnam taught me alot about life and brotherhood, as I am sure was true for so many others in other wars.

One thing that always bothers me is the almost universal belief that somehow Vietnam vets are all wacky from the experience. I can say without any hesitation that the guys I know who served are, as a class, some of the straightest, most trustworthy people. For the few who could not take it, I am sorry, but for the many, the lessons we learned were valuable throughout life, and made us better people. I am also convinced that the tremendous progress the world made in the 50's and 60's is due to the returning veterans of WWII, who believed they could do anything, even go to the moon, if they worked together.

[Capn Notarious]

IHL

The entry of the Gods into Valhalla: is the closing music to
>
Das Rheingold This is the first opera of Wagners Ring Cycle.

[UNCTUOUS]

The most salient point about CA's was that the bograts (newbies) always got slotted in down the back and the LZ was always plotted on a picto-map without any allowance for the fact that after all the prepping, the pad would be a mess, full of smoke and on fire here and there. I always found that the accident potential was the biggest risk factor. After the lead ship cleared the treeline it was normally every man for himself..... and you sometimes found that you were #15 into a 13 a/c pad, and far too heavy on that first lift to overshoot over a sea of whirling rotor blades - but also with nowhere to go. My first CA was with a chap (Pete) who was about to FIGMO and he knew what he was doing - but we still ended up in the trees just short of the pad with spread skids. I will always recall that feeling of absolute helplessness as we came, still just in translational, up to the edge of the treeline and there was literally nowhere to go and with the RPM light On and audio blaring. Even though our trusty UH-1H was fully beeped up, if you'd been in and out of a few dirty pads that day and badly needed a compressor wash you couldn't overtorque past that magic 52psi if you wanted to. In fact sometimes you'd bleed off at 40TQ.

And I'll never forget the hurt and injured look of the grunt who picked himself and his rifle up after being thrown through the open door of the slick on my side when we hit. He wandered over to my window to say a few groups but I recall realising about then that I was still in one piece and just gave him a big cheesy "visor down" toothy grin. He just shook his head and wandered off. By this time there was a lot of incoming so Pete just pulled pitch and tried to keep up. We couldn't get above 45kts without shaking to bits so we flew it back to Nui Dat on our lonesome. When we tried to put it on the PSP we were thwarted somewhat by a tree trunk stuck up the hell-hole. Gunner and crewman fooled with that forever but we eventually accepted the inevitable, fuel-chopped it and fortunately, although unexpectedly, stayed almost upright.

My recollections of carrying around the big banks of PsyWAR speakers were that they were effective and because of the giant amplifiers, clear enough, particularly in the early morning hours. It was all in support of the Chieu Hoi program for deserter solicitation. Because they normally attracted ground-fire I was a bit suspicious of what the ranting Vietnamese tapes actually said. It could have been their equivalent of "Your Mother wears Army Boots".... for all I knew or cared. We sometimes used psywar ops in conjunction with the people-sniffer packs hung on the back of each pilot's seat with an operator calling readings to a C&C ship as you NOE'd along at 20ft above the tree-tops. The big readings (50 and 55) always seemed to peak and coincide with the tree in front of you erupting with a tribe of baboons - so I began to suspect that the B52 strikes based upon those methane concentrations didn't hit as many base-camps as they would have liked. On long transits back to base with the speakers it was not unusual for the gunner or crewman to play one of their favourite Diana Ross or Dusty Springfield tapes. I had a Jose Feliciano one that I liked punching out (The Entry into Bilbao etc). But I cannot recall them ever being used in the heat of battle. As I recall, the best CA's were done into base-camp areas after a B-52 strike. The SAS LRRP teams always seemed pleased with their body count after one of those ops - but it seemed hardly fair. Standing in a Fire Support Base about 8 clicks away from a six a/c ARCLight raid in the pre-dawn and feeling the ground shake makes you realise why those B52's are still in service. There's nothing like them for raising friendly morale and doing the opposite to the bad guys. But once the NVA started using the RPG-7's against our birds and then later introduced MANPAD missilry into the theatre, all the fun went out of helicopetering troops into the thick of battle. I think that era has gone - and doing something similar with NVG's? Not my idea of fun either.

[Lu Zuckerman]

Since there are so many of you that participated in the Vietnam conflict flying helicopters did any of you run into the following pilots?

Ray Woodmansee, Dan Butler, Jack Morrow, Bob Cox or Garrison J. Boyle. I worked with these guys at Fort Uterus, Vagina. Incidentally if you ever read Brandywines War Garrison J. Boyle was featured in the book as an area S++t control officer.

In Brandywines War he mentioned the use of loud speakers hooked up to an unarmed Cobra with disastrous results.


:confused:

[Nick Lappos]

Great post, UNCTUOUS! Come grab a cup of joe in my hooch anytime! Some of the lingo made me dredge back into the grounds at the bottom of my brain! Found this:

Hustling back to basecamp after first light recon, swinging down from Rocket Ridge near LZ Fat City, the sun one disk above the horizon, burning a trail of fire on the South China Sea, the skids 10 feet above the paddys and the ADF playing AFVN loud and clear. First song up was "Good Morning Starshine" as if the scene had been planned. S turning into the rising sun, the world smooth green wet and scented with that heavy smell of wet rice plants, and the perfume of the breakfast fires from the villes. Swooping along at 135 knots, rising to clear the tree lines in 5 tons of screaming metal lifted by nothing more substantial than hot flames sprayed against little wheels! Bank toward a village and see the family lined up on the rice dikes, doing their morning constitutional and fertilizing all at once, one tike rocked backwards and fell in as the Cobra thundered no more than 5 feet above his head, moving like a trackless freight train. Next song was "Heavy Metal Thunder" by Steppenwolf. I cannot make this up, a lie this perfect would be a sin! There I was, Lookin for adventure with whatever came my way - Twenty years old, aviator sunglasses helping to block the glint, five hundred whole hours in type, a clear sky above, a green exotic paradise on all sides, three miles from friendly country and another day closer to DEROS.

People ask if I like flying, and I can't even start to tell them. That slice of life will be playing on the inside of my eyelids when I am layed down and checking out.

[Draco]

Nick, Devl49, Unctuous

A different world, and some very personal memories - thanks for sharing them with us.

[Devil 49]

Lu, we had a LTC Woodmansee on the staff in Can Tho. I remember meeting him because my Dad had been in back on a few of his flights in 63-64 and spoke highly of him.

[bcstock]

Hope this doesn't offend anyone but there was a poem going around when we were there.
It had about 20 verses. Can't remember them all but a couple of them were:

"Chuck in a sampan sitting in the stern, he thinks his boat won't burn, f***ing gooks will never learn, napalm sticks to kids."

"VC in a .51 pit, baby sucking mother's tit, Dow Chemical doesn't give a ****, napalm sticks to kids."

A good book about people who tell you they were vets is called:
"Stolen Valor"
Don't believe everything you hear.

[Nick Lappos]

Ouch!

[sling load]

With the talk about helos and movies, who were those guys in Lamas or Alouette IIIs in the Larry Hagman movie, the name escapes me, good shot on one flying through a long open shed at pretty good speed.

I think the producer was a helo nut, some interesting shots in that. May have been an early 80s TV movie.

[Nick Lappos]

sling load,
The classic was "Birds of Prey" with David Janssen, which had him in a H-500 chasing bank robbers into a parking garage and a hangar.
One of the best ever! Rarely seen, it was a tv movie.
Nick

[sling load]

Nick,

Thanks for that, Ill cruise the web for that one, I found the Larry Hagman TV movie 1982, "Deadly Encounter" run about 90 mins, and from memory about 85% of it is all helos, some good flying in there for helo nuts, the story is average, but the sequences are interesting. Can be purchased on line.

On Vietnam, a couple of my old bosses were over there in helos, and I must admit that seeing the red KBAs next to their daily flying hours in their old logbooks certainly put a reality on it.

I dip my hat to you gentlemen.

SL

[zhishengji751]

http://community-2.webtv.net/roybed/HELICOPTERS/scrapbookFiles/mailedD11.jpg

Not sure if this is from that tv movie, but it sounded similar.. ie.. H500 chasing cars in a hangar.

edit*
ok, looks like they dont allow links in, but once the url is in the address bar, hit enter and the pic should load.

if not.. go to http://community-2.webtv.net/roybed/HELICOPTERS/ and scroll down

[flingwingau]

For Notarious and the rest of Y'all,

I did a couple of tours in RVN, first one mostly in UH1-B gunships in III Corp., second one in an experimental unit firing TOW Missiles in combat, (Callsign Hawas Claw) again from 2 old UH1-B's. The second tour we were always attached to a Cavalry unit, usually the clostest one to where NVA armor was found after the April '72 invasion. We got to know the Cav really well, and I will always have the upmost respect for all of them, as well as my former Air Assault brothers.

Was very lucky on both tours, but did have a wide range of experience, including 3 months in slicks on the first tour.

When I saw Apocolypse Now for the first time, I completely lost it in the theater! I know there was a bit of license, but God it was bloody exciting when they rolled in on the village!! The hut with a .51 Cal. really was used, as I once had it described by a guy with .51 Cal burns on both shoulders!! Almost cut both his shoulder straps in half, just didn't happen to have the third bullet between his eyes!! His name is Harry Holzman.

Of course the Psyops speakers were used all over the place, so yes, they really did play around with them. When I was not flying the TOW ships, and had a day off, I frequently flew as door gunner in loaches (OH6's), so when the mamasan threw the grenade into the medivac ship-- I jumped up and screamed "Grenade!!!" then the next shot was over the shoulder of the loach door gunner when the 2 females ran like hell. I started yelling "Killem, killem"! It was just so realistic I couldn't help myself! So yes, that happened too. I could understand every word of garble on the radios in the movie, and that just wired me as well. Anyway, that was the only time I lost it, and am quite normal now, but hell, I still like to get a big cigar, my cav hat, a good friend (fellow vets) or two and a bottle of port and put on that movie once in a while and just trip back down a somewhat tiwsted version of memory lane.

Hope that this story along with the excellent stories above have helped you understand things a little clearer!!??

A very old, and not so bold pilot (anymore!) :eek: :) :)

[UNCTUOUS]

Carrying a heavy load into a confined area in triple canopy jungle, I touched down on about a 14-15 deg slope and sat there while the grunts, gunner and crewman off-loaded the cardboard boxes and stacked them on the upslope side, just outside the rotor disc. They were boxes of C4 plastique used by the troops to blow (implode) CS irrit-gas into an enemy base-camp bunker system so that it would not be re-occupied; a fairly stock-standard practise. I handed over to Marty, the other pilot, for the ride back to the fire support base. He and I were both just starting to get a bit interested in why the UH-1H collective was up so far yet the aircraft wasn't lifting, when the downslope skid broke free from under a root and we started rolling rapidly into the hill-side. Marty and I both slammed the collective into the floor and off we went bouncing sideways down the slope into the underbrush. At the same time I heard a torrent of abuse start over the radio but was far too busy to concentrate on what was being said. We eventually ground to a halt in the undergrowth and looked back up the hill. The rotor had taken the top layer of C4 boxes and slammed them off the pile and there were packets of plastique scattered all over the pad. The grunts had fled to the four winds and a grim-looking Major was striding down the hill abusing us on his radio as he came. Marty and I looked at each other and, in unison, pulled pitch and we shot through.

Late that same afternoon we returned, unfortunately with the same callsign, and tried the same 150ft vertical into the same LZ. We had a full load of 5 gal jerry-cans of water on board. However, as luck would have it, we'd spent the rest of the day in and out of a burnt LZ and picked up lots of ash. The best we could get out of it, fully beeped up, was about 38psi torque (>52 being an overtorque on the L-13). Each night the aircraft were given a bucketful of walnut shells to clean the compressor and recover the power but, at the time, late in every day we had to make do with what we had. Things were looking good until we dropped below the jungle canopy and lost the 12kt headwind. After that we were going down fast with bleeding rotor and audio RPM warning flashing. Luckily the back end crew were on the ball and started kicking the jerrycans. Just as the first ones cleared the aircraft the same company Major started up his torrent of abuse over the radio. However strangely, as quickly as he started, he stopped. After getting rid of half the load the problem was resolved but the crewmen were enjoying themselves and ended up kicking the lot. As we pulled out, deciding to leave the backload for the next day's logistic support crew, the gunner piped up with: "Bulls-eye, that shut him up quick didn't it".

We later heard that the Major wasn't a happy chappie at all. About two weeks later the Intello came and grabbed us and told us that there was a Major who'd just come off ops looking for us both by name. Name-tags came off helmets and flight suit right quick and next day we were Smith and Jones. Some people just have no sense of humour.