Vietnam Mk18 Mod0 Hand-Crank Grenade Launcher
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
- / forgottenweapons
The Mk18 Mod0 grenade launchers was developed by the Honeywell corporation in 1962, and was the first weapon in what would became a category of high volume grenade launchers used by the US military. The modern iterations are all self-loading, but this first example was fired by a manual crank handle, like a Gatling gun. The Mk18 used the same 40x46mm grenade cartridge as the single shot M79 launcher, and this round's low pressure allowed the Mk18 to use a rather unusual breech mechanism.
Unlike most belt-fed weapons, the cartridges in the Mk18 never left the belt. Instead, the breech consisted of two rotating spindles which would form the top and bottom halves of the chamber, closing around each shell as the handle was cranked. As a result, a loaded belt of grenades fed into the weapon, and a belt of empty cases came out the other side. Another effect of the low pressure cartridge was a rather short effective range, which limited adopted of the weapon to the US Navy, which bought 1200 and used them primarily on riverine patrol boats. In this application, the short effective range was not much of a hindrance, and the volume of high explosive firepower was a significant asset.
Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of this very cool early grenade launcher, don't miss the ARES companion blog post:
armamentresearch.com/
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg...
All the deadliness of a grenade, all the fun of a Tonka truck.
Vietnamese: “Hey guys check out this cool jack in the box i found!” 5 seconds later: *TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG* “OH SHIT”
Somebody's job was to test-fire 5000 grenades through that thing? Where do I sign up for such a job?
Do you want to hand crank 5000 rounds
@@generalolivervonbismarck393 you wouldn't?
@@christophercollins868 I would love to. I'd be happy just firing 5000 of the blue ogive, orange powder filled training rounds. It would make me feel like "Odd Ball" "Painting pretty pictures".
I volunteer as tribute
Pretty sure they just divided # of rounds by # of reported failures.
Ingenious - while you're raining death down on the VC, you can print off the battalion's weekly newsletter.
"... a very rainbow-like trajectory."
It's called an arc, Ian. An arc. But I will hereby refer to arced trajectories and ballistics as "the shots go like a rainbow". Thank you!
@@Rltvader1 lmao
On the third day he gave us rainbows. On the fourth day he gave us arc like trajectory.
When your the maker of all you can say what ever you want
Sometimes you just need to add a lil color to your language
Ian put's a little of the ol' razzle dazzle into ballistics.
He probably just meant to say a very long arc.
Cruising down the Mekong River, minding my own business when...
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP THUMPTHUMP
Your spacing is far too short and regular
Its more like TRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMP
Trump in Vietnam? That's laughable.
Well i mean it doesnt go thump. Theres more of a click-chump to it. Say trump at about 130rpm and you got the sound it makes
I’m bed be like...
HUMPHUMPHUMPHUMPHUMP
It's as old as I am. . . and in better shape!
"In the fire position it. . . makes a lot of noise and things explode. "
Pure poetry, Ian.
Coming up next time, a muzzle-loading pulse laser.
“Catch it Charlie!”
Or a hand-cranked laser musket!
"A settlement needs your help. Let me mark it on your map."
@@MonkeyJedi99 You beat me to it!
😂
It's a hand crank grenade launcher disguised as a hand crank camera. How exciting..
Afnan Zahran 😁
smile and wait for the flash
MrJarskiperkele Soldiers auctaly wrote that on the gun shields in Iraq!
"Our cameraman always really made the scene *pop*."
Afnan Zahran yeah. Look at the birdie and say cheese!
Can be hidden at batting cages and tennis courts.
:- ]
Game, set, match.
Strohmann lmao
Game, set, splat, lol
Talk about slinging some heat.
Pitcher : Parry this you filthy casual!
The Viet Nam era guys were the ones that trained me, when I was coming up as a young enlisted Marine.
Some of the stories they told would curl your... -ahem-
According to the late GySgt. Boksa (USMC) at least one of these made its way onto a Marine Huey helicopter. They had to do some creative engineering to mount it, the heavy recoil was a concern. Keeping it on target while cranking that handle in a moving helicopter took some practice. Once they got it working though, it scared the holy living [edited] out of everybody. Gunny said that it was great at keeping the LZ's perimeter clear of undesirables.
One of my friends was a crew chief for a group of cobras in veitnam(he had 9 cobras under his command) and he said they at one point had the hydras on the front turret of the chopper and the machine guns on the sides. Aswell as another chopper that was all hydras. The front had phosphorus and the sides had incindeary. They'd hover down in front of a treeline and unleash a hellfire of flames to the tune of six hydra rocket pods all going off at once.
That is why Charlie don't surf.
Remember sons Napalm smells like...victory
@@brodiewaldrop5364 smells like untold human suffering.
@@rippedlimbo7884 smells like a healthy dose of vitamin beer smokes and ptsd for years to come” that gasoline smell can’t replicate it anywhere else”
Wow, that's the most overengineered pasta machine I've ever seen
You should see the pasta they made...
It also makes the pasta sauce.
Yuck! Too many bits and chunks in it
You gotta use the blend setting.
Taste the rainbow, Charlie!
We're going to candy mountain, Charlie!
They took my freakin' kidney!
Heh, hello?
ZEEEEE!!!!
fun fact we used this shit later to fight the chinese and khmer rough lol tks for the weapon yanky :) charlie like it but lack of ammo cause we face chinese human wave lel in the end c4 work the best to fight human wave lel
"We don't need to get into the mechanics of this cartridge today."
Oh yes we do, daddy
It's pretty simple. Standard high pressure "cartridge" inside and directly in front of the primer. The rest of the case is hollow, and the HP part vents into this through gas ports. Need the higher operating pressure for the powder to burn properly (go to Taofledermaus' channel and check out what happens you you set a shotgun shell off outside a chamber), hence the inner chamber and smallish ports. Like he said, gas expands into a larger chamber, causing a huge reduction in pressure.
I love how you referred to Ian as daddy.
@@immikeurnot Thank you very much for the explanation!
5:43 Ah yes, Mylar Dakron, my favourite alien warlord.
That thumbnail made me think you made this picture in ArmA 3's virtual Arsenal lol
Now we need a video about GM6 Lynx
Oh shit, waddup
What!? Sherm is a normal person, not an ArmA God....
Didn’t know you watched forgotten weapons shermenator
I'm not surprised, Sherm. Someone's been playing a lot of Unsung, I see.
Fascinating. When I was assigned to the Seabees out of Tan Son Nhut, our teams in the Delta had M-79 single-shot grenade launchers. Got to take a couple of training shots with it... very simple to load, aim, and operate. Fortunately, I never had to use it for real. We were able to cruise and work around the Mekong and were left mostly alone.
Elbow grease powered large pew.
The following pew depends on how fast you crank it!
Dragon Butt so it is a variable speed elbow grease powered large pew.
Wow I had no idea they had an automatic grenade launcher in Vietnam. I thought they only had the M79 and early M203's. Great video as always Ian. Keep em' coming! =)
It's not automatic, it's hand cranked. What category does that fit in?
There was also the China Lake, but those were very rare as far as I know.
@John Garand: the US Military used many types of grenade launcher during the Vietnam War :
- M79 (40x46mm, stand-alone GL for infantry use)
- XM148 (40x46mm, underbarrel GL for infantry use)
- XM/M203 (40x46mm, underbarrel GL for infantry use)
- China Lake (40x46mm, pump action, stand-alone GL for special forces use)
- M75 (40x53mm, Army automatic GL for helicopter use: UH-1 gunship)
- M129 (40x53mm, Army automatic GL for helicopter use : AH-1G, OH-6A, OH-58A)
- Mk 18 Mod 0 (40x46mm, Navy rapid-fire, hand cranked GL).
- Mk 19 Mod 0 (40x53mm, Navy automatic GL).
It would be considered Semi-auto because you have to do a separate action for each shot. Rotating the handle which basically equates to pulling a trigger for each shot
Always wondered about this as a book I read years ago described a hand cranked Gatling grenade launcher(hitman thriller ex Vietnam vet kind of thing) and I never managed to find it.
The launcher seems to be the same age as the microphone.
The launcher seems to be from about 38k years in the future.
The microphone is fine, the volume was turned up to high when recording and it was clipping.
He is a firearms expert and historian, not a professional videographer. Plus he travels and does the majority of his recording as a solo act with no camera or audio operator. He very clearly cares about quality and has been improving.
What issues do you have with the quality of the video? Do you have any useful feedback on how that could be reasonably improved without adding in a professional videographer or vastly increasing the size, weight, and complexity of the kit lugged around?
You should donate to his Patreon to cover all new equipment! ;)
Никита Борзовский
LOL
I've read that during Vietnam it was possible for a skilled user to fire an entire belt from one of these into a ballistic arc such that the last round was out of the gun before the first round landed.
Would love to see more grenade launchers, especially if you get to shoot them!
Stuff like this is why Forgotten Weapons is the only gun channel I sub. There are many quality gun/weapon/firearm channels on UA-cam, but I don't care about guns, I like mechanics, and when you have weird arse mechanics...yes please.
Same. Im living in a country where it isn't easy to obtain guns, and im glad that it is that way, but I love watching content about the mechanics behind them
Karl Olson.
Same!
So, you are subbed to AvE as well then?
carl witt AvE is a gift from the hills
yeah same here tbh. I know not everyone in the comments is on the same page in terms of gun laws, but personally, as much as I am interested in guns, I am happy to live in a country without widespread availability.
Museums and centres like Ares are exactly where I want my guns. If I want to go target shooting or plinking, I can do so affordably, if I want to look at big guns and historical weapons (outside of this channel) I can do so at plenty of free museums and research centres like Ares.
Sure it'd be fun to thump a few of these down range, but honestly, I think the tradeoff is worth it.
5:00 The grenade lobbing mailbox.
Special delivery!
Exactly what was on my mind too
The Cartridge case has a High Pressure spherical chamber at the primer pocket which holds the main powder charge. Which when ignited vents the gas through vent holes into the Low Pressure chamber of the main casing body, just behind the projectile thereby pushing the projectile out of the casing into the bore and out. In effect the cartridge casing forms the chamber and why the split feed system works the way it does. This also eliminates wear because the fired casing that houses the chamber for that round is replaced with the next round loaded into the path of the barrel. The grenade is loaded into the cloth ammunition belt just like and early WWI belt fed machinegun. And yes the it's a grenade, and effective range is what ever the maximum range of flight for that given round is.
Very cool. I love to see "old tech" like the crank-fired Gatling gun used to good effect well after its time in the limelight.
We need more heavy weapons milord...
Emile
Warcraft or stronhold
The OG gat crank
TheGoldenCaulk then what does that make the gatling gun?
lets not get bogged down in semantics
when he pulls out the gat but ya gotta crank off one on those bustas first
Very Cool
While in the army I have fired the mk19 and I never even knew this one existed.
So it's not a bloop tube, it's a bloop hose? Nice.
A bloop sprinkler, actually.
Charlie sappin' mah sentry!
SeaBees loved them and outfitted a lot vehicles with them.
First time I got an advertisement for Arnotts Biscuits on a Forgotten Weapons video. Good to see that this video is monetised
I thought that Forgotten weapons was monetised but in range was de monetised.
Yeah, I've been getting a load of ads recently. Metatron gets in-video ads! Surely this can't continue?
Forgotten weapons content is monetised, inrange is not.
Sad to see an aussie icon owned by another country
TY for another great video & Happy Holidays to ALL the Forgotten Weapons crew.
Thanks!
aka "The Chub"
The baby Gatling MK19. Love the MK19. So much fun firing it
Thank you also Royal Armory for allowing Ian to show us these kick ass weapons systems
Looks like something from WH40K movie by Ghibli.
Алексей Любимов looks like a hand crancked Bolter
That's extremely specific and I agree 100%
Fortunate son intensifies.
Ghastly Gibbus that must have been the canon ccr was refuring to
Ian,you are getting better and better.Actually this is the most interesting arms channel on UA-cam right now.Greetings from Romania.Keep up the good work.
Space age mylar belt in a gatling crank gun, what a gem
Very interesting, the mk19 is one of my favorites so this bad boy is now on my radar! Thanks Ian for the history and videos.
As always a cool video but i think you might need a better microphone.
Call Didrik deGeer. He makes nice ones.
The mic was hand cranked as well.
Reminds me of the 1950's hand crack egg beater my grandma left me. I am quite sure its the best eggbeater ever made.
You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to do this video, thank you.
"In the fire position it makes alot of noise and things explode" Ian-2019
"Mylar reinforced Dacron" made me laugh. Super space age indeed.
Heard about this weapon, looked it up on UA-cam and what a surprise you had a video on em!
"it makes a lot of noise and things explode" - best description of 'Fire' ever! Hehehe...
Incredible, why was this not in Apocalypse Now?
Probably because it was filmed in thailand and with 0 US army involvement (can't make the army look bad in them moving pictures son).
Like he said, totally outdated from inception, they were probably pulled from service rather quickly and replaced with the hotter grenade firing weapons
@Нет Нетович: Apocalypse Now was filmed in the Republic of Philippines and it was produced with the assistance of the local armed forces. Coppola rented a lot of US-made equipment from the Philippine military: Huey helicopters, PBR patrol boat, M41 light tanks, LVTE-1 amphibious armored vehicle, F-5 fighters etc...
There is some video clips out there of these on river patrol boats, swift boats, etc, from Vietnam War footage. The History Channel had a fantastic series called Vietnam in HD with some scattered footage of the Mk18 in use.
@@sobchakvideos Helicopters were even pulled back by the Phil. Army/AF (from the movie set) as they were needed to combat the communist rebels.... kinda ironic....
the improvements from this to the MK 19 are really remarkable also please do a video on the MK 19 if you haven't done one already
One of what, two remaining examples? I was just trying to find more information on these a year ago, and you upload a video. Fantastic!
This is one awesome weapon. Glad I found your channel, love the videos!
"It makes a lot of noise and things explode"
Vietnam soldier: *pulls trigger*
Vietnam Soulja: *CRANKS THAT*
Man. I love this stuff!
Thanx Mr. Ian
You're one cool kat
Great explanations of weapons. Love your channel.
Great content like always, but could you possibly fix the levels on your microphone? The signal is a touch too hot and excessively distorted as a result
TheRealBotcrusher someday Ian will get a real camera crew.
China Lake anytime soon?
That would be awesome
As awesome as that is, I think there are only 2 China Lake MGLs known. One the SEALs still own, more or less. The other the Vietnamese have in a museum, supposedly captured in battle.
+Clint Ambrose True, he may not be able to get his hands on an original (I believe there are actually 4 of them.) However, there was a company that made replicas of them. They are 100% accurate to the real launcher, and are fully functional. Ian doing a review on one of those would be just as good. They are also quite rare, but not as rare as the real deal. They come up for sale every so often, usually for $10k+.
Clint Ambrose there are 3 in the various museums in the US, one in Vietnam, and what remained in naval inventory was demilitarized.
@@jackandersen1262 I believe that the army has one at there training facility for 91-Fs, at least I believe I saw one there while training
Not what I expected when I saw Mk18 Mod0. Cool video.
Fascinating. Never heard of anything like this. Thankyou so much. I think Mr. Gatling would be proud.
Happy 600000 Subscribers!
Thanks!
That's pretty orkish...
proto Astartes Bolter
It's a wee Imperial Guard heavy bolter.
DATS PROPAH ORKY ROIGHT DERE
Yes finally we have sumthin to zoggin smash dem umiez with.
Them mekboyz did a fine job on diz one.
shooty and explodyness first precision last.
“In the fire position it makes a lot of noise and things explode.” Where do I buy one?😂 it’s his subtle dry humor that makes these videos idk if he’s trying to be funny or it just comes out like that but I love it
I always wondered what hi-low referred to. You learn something new every day
Mylar-reinforced Dakkron?
...
Needs more Dakkron
The closest thing we’ve got to a Bolter
This is exactly why I'm a patreon. Ian has the best job in the world
It’s pretty cool to see where the Mk.19 came from
This is the first time I have seen or heard of this. Did it use the same grenade as the M79 or did the M79 use the high pressure rounds.
toomanyaccounts thanks, that is what I expected.
VC troops captured during the Tet Offensive, said the M79 Was the weapon that scared them the most in that inner city battle.
Macnutz420 The Marines also had a pump action M79. Not sure of the name.
Hi-Low pressure rounds were developed by the Germans near the end of WW2 because they were running out of the materials to make propellant. It used a small amount of propellant in the bottom of the case that was contained by a blow through plate. Like a case with a false bottom. The small blast took a moment to build up enough pressure to blow through the false bottom and then push the round down the barrel.
Less propellant and as a happy side effect much more gentle recoil for a relatively heavy projectile. I believe the German weapon was the PAW 600. Number may be wrong. Going by memory. Like many German weapon innovations the USA studied this post war and designed the M79. To shoot a standard 40mm cartridge from a small rifle would be really dangerous for the firer. The heavy, sharp recoil would almost certainly break bones and damage such a light fire arm.
This gun would have to be hand cranked because there would not be enough recoil force or gas pressure to make an automatic action function.
EX41
Shawn R China lake. Never really used that much, they figure only between 16 and maybe 50 actually got made, let alone used. But it worked pretty damn good with HE frag. Not so much with buck/fletchet
Was this issued to the US Steam Punk Navy??
Got to play with one in 69 in vietnam.. it was a real fun toy to play with.. I am a marine and my friend was in the navy (which is a department of the marine corps) He had one on his boat and during an r&r I went out with him and he let me play with it.. haven't seen one since.. well thanks for the memories..
I only say that for the benefit of my navy brothers.. It always gets a rise... you wouldn't happen to be navy would you? if not I think you might be the first ever to rise to the bait that wasn't.. Semper fi..
Really a wonderful weapon thank you so much for this video
That's a US weapon? I thought it was Soviet, it looks like someone tried to make the SU 5 man portable.
James Hunter it does look like something the Soviets would make surprisingly
Why does this have the same designation as the CQBR...
Jerome Samuel he told you in the intro it was used in CQB to break contact
Additionally, the US Navy uses the Mod 0 designation to refer to the first, unchanged version of equipment entering service. It's a bit like having an M16A0.
very cool weapon, like a modern gatling gun! i love how the chamber is.
Really cool piece! A very good candidate for a "forgotten weapon."
Also while you didn't explain the mechanics of the cartridge today, I certainly hope you can touch on them later. Sounds fascinating.
Please take it out on the range
i think we just found WarHammer 40k's Bolter's Great X 40,000 grandfather. just got mod it to use a clip vs belt maker all out of the lighest weight materials and lose the tripod...get armored space marine suit. find the heretic!. For the Emperor!
WH40K bolter grandfather is Gyrojet
love what you do, interesting, informative and entertaining, a real time sink if I'm not careful.
We fired these weapons from atop a 50 cal on our riverboats (TF-117). They would lay to the side while you fired the 50 then you could “snap” them up on top to fire. They had a tendency to miss fire but since you were cranking the belt the unfired round would just come out the right side still on the belt. They had to travel a minimum distance to arm themselves so not useful in the smaller rivers. But in the larger rivers you could fire about seven rounds before the first round landed...effective method to drop rounds just behind a landing zone...they had a kill radius of about 40 feet but in the jungle much less. We nick named them Mattie Mattel’s because they looked like they were manufactured by a toy company. Our 7.62 MG’s, 50’s and 20 mm anti aircraft cannons were the most effective way to keep the Vietnam Cong’s heads down...otherwise they liked to pop up and fire RPG’s into the side of our boats.
AGS-17 anyone?
Man that's a ugly duck
Sam George I think it's cute.
Yeah, it ain't pretty but as the story goes, you know what the ugly duck turns into...
A huge and beautiful swan in the form of 40mm death. Hell, imagine the thing in the jungle lobbin' incendiary rounds into your dugout. It'd certainly make the enemy pause and think twice if nothing else.
Sam George there is footage of sailors using it in the Mekong delta. I saw it in a program called " Vietnam in HD ".
it kinda looks like a 1950's video camera
Jonas smile for camera, wait for flash
FYI the AH-1G Cobra used the M129 as their turret-placed 40mm arm, and the UH-1 used the M75 as their nade launcher (nose mounted). It's confusing, since the M18 and M19 were around too.
This thing just looks so cool
One wonders if this is the weapon that earned John Kerry his Purple Heart.
r h - nice. 😂
Sounds like chat from guys who’ve never served, let alone won a Purple Heart.
+Andy P Sounds like you dont have a sense of humor. Why dont you go see your VA doc for some pills to make that happen.
Dragon Butt - I don’t see the comedy in armchair warriors making light of anybody’s military service record - you obviously prefer rich kids who get out of serving by getting ‘bone spurs’ that mysteriously disappear once the requirement to enlist is gone.
My guess is that COD and porn is the closest you have or ever will get to active service.
+Andy P in other words, you dont have a sense of humor. And in place of a sense of humor, you're a hard ass.
But hey, clearly you've got something to prove. The rest of us just want to have a laugh like normal human beings.
Looks like an old school cinema film projector. Guessing this doesn't bring joy and happy memories to the villages it visits when on the road however. Or is it just my conservative school of thought??
Thank you for this story! I never knew this existed.
So many of your vids Ian, I'm left waiting right at the end, for that message everyone wants! Now let's take this out and test it out!
Jesus, these Prager ads are cancer
Anon says the guy who liked his own comment
Man I envy you, for some reason I never get those ads :(
Prager is so entertaining, especially the thought that some ppl out there actually think it's good "education"
Nunya Bidness you're actually getting ads? I wish I got those ads, that way even though I don't exactly support them, some money gets to go to Ian.
Agreed, I just want to learn some interesting history, not hear some idiotic anger propaganda!
What's a prager?
that looks like so much FUN.
Happy new year Ian!!!!
That was an awesome video! Never knew of this gun. More!
that's a fancy looking mailbox you got there
This channel is growing very fast, I've been subd since we were less than 200K, that was almost 1 year and a half ago...
"A machine-gun grenade launcher short of thing" is the best name that could have been given to that gun
Was a MK19 gunner in the Marines. We called it the crowd pleaser
This is amazing! I hadn't known this weapon had existed. It's like a hand-cranked gatling micro-howitzer.
MORE GRENADE LAUNCHERS oh Ian you are good to us.
That’s the coolest mailbox I’ve ever seen!
What was never known cannot be forgotten!