               | A TROOP REFLECTIONS ON THE M125 MORTAR
CARRIER In Nam A troop had 81's instead of the TO&E 4.2" because the 4.2 had a minimum range of 960m (if memory serves). Wouldn't do us allot of good close in. The original concept (European warfare) was to position the mortar track 1000m behind the scouts so that it could provide close fire support. In Nam could you imagine leaving 49'er (or 19'er,29'er) 1000m away from the platoon! 1/77 had a 4.2 platoon of 4 tubes, track mounted. I was the platoon leader Oct-69 to Feb 70 when we were at C2 ,A4 and Quang Tri Combat Base. Earl Schorpp (40) photo below: Denny Patrick 48 Delta (3rd Platoon 69-70) writing, sitting in foreground on track 49 
I remember one time we had to H&I in the middle of the night. I woke up to fire an illumination round which shouldn't have been a problem. I dropped the round down the tube, with force, and the round didn't go off. I went through all of the procedural things like kicking the tube but the round didn't fire. I lowered the tube to the lowest level and woke up Jim Knutz to help get the round out. (Photo of Jim shown below on our track 29, the Mary Jane) I started to rotate the tube in order to lift it to slide the round out. Jim was at the other end ready to catch it. As I rotated the tube the unthinkable happened. The round fired barely missing Jim hands. The round went across the river and landed on the opposite bank. A few seconds later the timer expired and the round lit up. We were lucky that the only thing bad was explaining to the Sgt what the hell happened. That was the only hang fire I experienced with the mortar. Taylor Jim Knutz shown below.  photo below: A29  |
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