Welcome to ArmyAdvice Sign in | Join | Help
in Search

ArmySteve

Steve Smith's Army Blog

Big Guns

No, not my muscles...  We had weapons qualification earlier this week and brought along some other weapons to familiarize with (courtesy of EOD).  I got a few pictures and a couple of nice movies of the experience.  All the pictures are in the August gallery.  Here's one of my favorites:

Me with Barrett M82 .50 cal sniper rifle

More pics in the gallery, including some with a Dragunov russian sniper rifle (that was having some issues with actually firing).

The M82 is a beast of a gun.  It fires the same rounds as the .50 cal machine guns that we use.  It's heavy and extremely loud.  You'll see what I mean in the movie below - it literally causes a shockwave that shakes the ground enough to raise a big cloud of dust for like a 4 or 5 foot radius around the gun.  I've used the rifle a lot in computer games like Ghost Recon, so I was eager to see how it handled in real life.  It's got quite a bit of kick, and of course the games don't do the noise or shock of firing it any justice whatsoever.  I'm sure firing it from anything but prone and braced position would knock me on my butt.

This movie is another soldier firing a couple of rounds from the Barrett.

This movie is me firing an AK -- my buddy only got me firing semi-auto, not full auto, but oh well.

Published Tuesday, August 31, 2004 7:15 AM by ssmith

Comment Notification

If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

 

ssmith said:

Very nice... I so want one. :)

Playing with different weapons is one of the things I miss.

Of course I'm old and fat now (well, 37 feels old).

You've got a cool blog... Keep up the good work.

And thanks for what you're doing.

Go Army!
August 31, 2004 1:14 PM
 

ssmith said:

<voice character='Homer'>Mmmm - Barrettttt</voice>

Yea - my favorite weapon in Black Hawk Down right now. You can really reach out and touch someone with this piece of hardware.

And to the 37 year old - almost 44 still feels young!

Thanks for your service Steve!
August 31, 2004 10:42 PM
 

ssmith said:

Kick ass Steve!!! Woo hoo!!
September 1, 2004 10:29 AM
 

ssmith said:

No wonder you were always so good at kicking our butts in CounterStrike!
September 1, 2004 5:41 PM
 

ssmith said:

I got my orders today...Suppose to leave to Leonard Woof (I hate that place) on October 6th..and its for like 545 days...something crazy like that...I sure hope I dont stay longer then a year...

I think I wanna start a blog like you have Steve...its a cool idea
September 2, 2004 2:05 PM
 

ssmith said:

Have you fired the gun at an innocent civilian yet? Is it just like in Counter Strike? Do you see blood flying everywhere? What if you hit a kid? Does he die too? Who gave you the right to run around Iraq killing people? Your president? What if you showed real courage and refused to kill people? So many questions wasted on someone who thinks he's playing a videogame!
September 14, 2004 4:55 PM
 

ssmith said:

Previous poster - who said I was running around killing people? Read more than one post and you might see that I'm running around cleaning up the country and trying to help the people here. I haven't shot at anything but paper since being involuntarily reactivated to deploy here. So direct your anger somewhere useful or shut the fuck up.
September 15, 2004 9:36 AM
 

TrackBack said:

September 5, 2004 6:52 AM
 

Anthemis said:

barrett, alright. 50 cal. is a beast of a round, that much i know, although i've never actually shot one... anyways, i wan't you to know that unlike that one especially ungrateful and ingorant person, i want to thank you for what you're doing. i speak for alot of people when i say, regardless of the politics of the situation, i'm grateful there are people like you who will defend us abroad. we owe you our grattitude as well as our respect, and from me, you've got them both. and a dragunov huh? oh, one more thing: did you have to open your mouth when you shot the barrett?

August 30, 2006 12:20 PM
 

Steve said:

They told us not to wear our helmets and to open our mouths.  Not sure if it was truly necessary, but I followed instructions.  They suggested that the helmet would focus the sound and hurt our ears or something.

October 31, 2007 8:12 PM
 

mark said:

thats insain! i want one.

whoop!

and the all the old poeple in 15 haa.

January 3, 2008 9:01 AM
 

Lexapro. said:

Half life of lexapro. Lexapro weight. Lexapro side effects. Lexapro. Lexapro and drinking.

July 7, 2008 6:46 PM
 

Side effects of ultram. said:

Ultram. Ultram withdrawal. Generic ultram.

July 10, 2008 6:35 AM
 

About propecia. said:

Does propecia work. Propecia side effects bad.

July 11, 2008 3:33 PM
 

Valium. said:

Valium.

July 17, 2008 9:52 AM
 

alchmeir said:

hello

May 23, 2009 9:02 PM
 

steroids online said:

he did say that I need to hold off at least a month before I get back out on the basketball court.

January 10, 2010 12:41 PM

Leave a Comment

(required) 
(optional)
(required) 
Enter the code you see below

Submit

About ssmith

Enlisted in 1995. Basic at Ft Sill. AIT at Ft Jackson (75F). Served in Ohio National Guard. Went through ROTC program at Ohio State University and received 2LT commission in 1997, Engineer branch. Spent about 4 years in 16th Engineer Brigade in Ohio National Guard, then moved far from nearest unit and went into Inactive National Guard, and eventually Individual Ready Reserve. Called up from IRR in 2004 for duty in Iraq (Engineer Platoon Leader with 1st ID). Made it home in 2005. Resigned commission as a CPT in December 2005.