I was an 0331 so went through machine gun school at Camp Geiger…and after VN was a squad leader in a weapons platoon and had two gun teams in my squad. 3-5 round bursts was standard at the range.
In combat, my team had only one gun. Half of us were pig handlers by MOS, the other 5 guys were 0311 riflemen. So we took turns humping the gun, in fact we changed weapons/responsibilities every 3-4 weeks. I carried the gun for a month, an M79 for two months, a rifle and PRC25 for a considerable time.
We had two radios, two M79s, one gun. Never used the tripod. Bipods only. Most of the time the gun was fired from the hip, shoulder or prone with bipods. Longer bursts for suppression. Naturally everybody shared humping gun ammo and organics like C4, LAAWs, PRC batteries, smokes, flares etc.
"Paladin" Shockley (M79) and "Stretch" Stravaldson (M60) firing suppression on enemy in a treeline. I've posted this photo a number of times. The photo was taken by "Marty" Martinez and the camera caught Shockley's 40mm HE round in flight, upper right.
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"Cool Jim" at the French Plantation, one of our many Day Havens. Weapons and rucks at ease, wet gear drying on the line.
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One of my squad guns on the perimeter at Guantanamo.
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