Don Cook, a Marine veteran who’s been maintaining M107s for more than two decades, told National Geographic in 2011 that he one day received a call to Barrett’s workshop from a harried young Marine. During maintenance of the unit’s M107, the Marine had bent the ears of the rifle’s lower receiver; the next day, after engaging the enemy, they discovered the rifle wouldn’t fire consistently.
The M107 is a long-range, shoulder fired, semi-automatic sniper rifle, manufactured by Barrett Firearms Company. It is highly prized for its manageable recoil. The M107 uses 12.7x99 mm cartridges and its effective range is around 1,800 meters, or 1968.5 Freedom Units (yards).
Despite the unit’s lack of tools and time, Cook knew exactly what to do. The armorer instructed the Marines to use the bottom of the carrier to bend the ears back down. Within 45 seconds, the weapon was firing properly. “Thank you very much,” Cook says they told him, then he heard a dial tone. They had a firefight to get back to.
“It’s probably one of the biggest highlights of my life, to be able to help a Marine unit during a firefight,” Cook told National Geographic.
Direct calls from the battlefield have been going on since the 80's. After I retired from the AF in 2004 I went back to Afghanistan as a contractor working on tactical satcom systems. I was making good money and bought a sat-phone as a backup.
ReplyDeleteI went to this one sight that had couldn't fix their satcom with the parts to fix it. They had HF backup radio as their MWR satcom went down while I was trying to get there.
I got them operational but a sniper took the satcom amplifier out 2 days latter and a mortar got their HF radio tower. I took my Sat-phone and ordered the parts I needed, a replacement HF antennae, and parts to fix their MWR Satcom. I also turned the sat-phone over to the XO so he could keep in touch with command.
I was stuck there for a week after I had fixed everything. The silver lining was my company allowed me to expense out the data minutes I had expended and loaded another 500 minutes.
I would very much like to not be the Marine that damaged a rifle the Marine Corps issued me. You would not believe how insane armory pogues are.
ReplyDeleteWho the f labeled the pic of the Barlrett? USA Today? There's a fair amount of derp there! At least they show it with Raufoss ammo...
ReplyDeleteM-107..semi-auto, 10-round mag and no bayonet lug so, happily it doesn't qualify as a target of the twerp David Hogg's "rid the world of assault rifles" bullshit.
ReplyDeleteBut-but-but-but "Weapon of Warrrrr"!!
ReplyDelete