I was never in Bien Hoa so I never saw these over there.
Bien Hoa 1969.
(https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/q71/s720x720/549588_10202123182551173_613606594_n.jpg)
(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202123179271091&set=pcb.560697720644646&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-prn2%2F1175068_10202123179271091_17688907_n.jpg&size=960%2C632)
(https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1175068_10202123179271091_17688907_n.jpg)
Looks like the short guy is holding a Thompson sub machine gun.
The poles are for camouflage netting correct? Antenna? For a second I thought they were juicers. (wishful, but doesn't make much sense for a war train aye?)
camouflage ?
Maybe, though the presence of a large 'tree' growing on the railway track might be a tad conspicuous!
Perhaps parked at the end of a siding they might pass unnoticed.
Colin
Quote from: Skarloey Railway on September 18, 2013, 07:03:59 AM
camouflage ?
Maybe, though the presence of a large 'tree' growing on the railway track might be a tad conspicuous!
Perhaps parked at the end of a siding they might pass unnoticed.
Colin
Not all camo looks like a tree! ::)
Quote from: GG1onFordsDTandI on September 18, 2013, 07:21:40 AM
[Not all camo looks like a tree! ::)
GG1-
True. But no camo looks like railroad right-of-way.
-- D
I can't say that I know this for sure, but it would seem reasonable to me that the poles could be there to support netting that would typically be used as camo for vehicles and such to hide targets from the air.
I can't tell for sure from the pics, but it looks like the overhead wire lines are too far in the background to part of where the rail cars are.
I could be mistaken, it has happened once or twice before ;)
I've always wondered how effective something like that would be in combat.
The car itself would be armored against attack, but what about the track? Obviously, the way to attack one of these things would be to disable the track.
Pretty hard to sneak up on someone with one of those. The track again will predict its course.
Were they self-propelled?
Les
Quote from: Desertdweller on September 18, 2013, 01:23:57 PM
I've always wondered how effective something like that would be in combat. The car itself would be armored against attack, but what about the track? Obviously, the way to attack one of these things would be to disable the track.Pretty hard to sneak up on someone with one of those. The track again will predict its course.Were they self-propelled?
Les-
I don't think that armored trains were thought of as offensive weapons. Rather, they were fortified to resist attack and possibly had special cars for defensive purposes like ground attacks (going back to the Civil War) or air attack (both World Wars, especially World War Two). As such, they didn't need to be stealthy. Interrupting rail traffic could certainly waylay them, but that would only be done because of the supplies or troops carried in the trains. A few armored cars with soldiers or AAA wouldn't pose enough of a threat to be actual targets themselves.
-- D
When I was in Nam, I worked in the port area and worked with the Vietnamese National Railways in Qui Nhon (not sure of spelling)moving cargo out of the port area and moving tons of gravel to build the US airbase at Bong Song. We used armored cars like this one and also another type which was not self propelled but pushed in front of the loco We had several French B+B diesels,oldies but goodies. Those babies could really pull. We also brought in Export GE U8 B's which gave reasonable service. Steam service had just ended before I got there, and the dead line had lots of them just rusting away.
We even went into enemy territory to recover flat cars, which we hauled out by truck. Loaded the body on one flatbed and the trucks on others. In all the time I was there The VC never tried cutting the track, but we always sent out an armored car to check the right of way. In the entire time I was there we never had an attack on an operating train, even though part of the trip was through so called "no man's land"
I do a presentation called "Railroad at War-Vietnam" for any interested group. I only ask for transportation food and lodging expense to do it, but do accept donations. I get incredible response when doing it and include the human side of what was involved. Viewers are often moved to tears when I do it.
It was a stupid useless war :(, but as a young Army Captain I gave it my all and got to play with real trains 8)!!
Bill
Forgot to mention, we never worried about camo, because we had air superiority. The track was also patrolled by attack helicopters fairly routinely. The VC were experts at camo, on one occasion, I was on the ground along the right of way watching the train run by me. A few days later one of the Korean units from the White Horse division found camo spider holes not 75 feet from where I had been standing. It was very sobering to say the least, why they never attacked the trains I will never know.
I find this kind of information very interesting.
Glad you got back in one piece Bill!
Quote from: Doneldon on September 18, 2013, 09:01:38 AM
Quote from: GG1onFordsDTandI on September 18, 2013, 07:21:40 AM
[Not all camo looks like a tree! ::)
GG1-
True. But no camo looks like railroad right-of-way.
-- D
Quote from: Skarloey Railway on September 18, 2013, 07:03:59 AM
camouflage ?
Maybe, though the presence of a large 'tree' growing on the railway track might be a tad conspicuous!
Perhaps parked at the end of a siding they might pass unnoticed.
Colin
Camo curtains, for side camouflage, was my initial thought, not overhead. Then, looking like a tree or bush, might be effective. I looked as best I could at 400% zoom. There appears to be no obvious indicators of insulation on the poles, or wires coming down the poles, which is why I don't really believe its an antenna. If it were electrical pickup I would think it would not have the wiring parallel to the track.
It may very well
not be for camo, but I don't really don't see any better suggestions as to what else could it possibly be for, so I think Ill stick to my opinion till proved wrong;)
To Terry, Bill, and others who served;
Thank you for your service to our country.
Sincerely,
Joe Satnik
Thanks Joe. My thought was that maybe the long poles were to catch trip wires.
Maybe Tsquared. But aren't trip wires typically low to the ground?
Glad you came back in one piece too!
Quote from: Terry Toenges on September 20, 2013, 11:53:13 AM
Thanks Joe. My thought was that maybe the long poles were to catch trip wires.
I think if you were out to get a locomotive, or the engineer, placing trip wires up high would make some sense. But why the wires parallel to the track?
The poles are not antenna related. The units which were radio equipped(not all were)had a whip antenna attached to one end of the car. You can actually see the whip antennas on the first car in pic one and on the second car in pic two if you look closely. The armored cars as we used them were strictly to check track in front of a train, trip any bombs that were in the track and to protect the crew while doing it . The idea being it was a lot cheaper to lose an armored car than a locomotive, or train cargo. There were a lot of armored car like the ones in the pics, but I never found out who the manufacturer was.
Equipment on the VNR was almost all French built, and I believe the Armored cars were also French built as were all the steamers I saw on the dead line. US equipment was the meter gauge GE U8B loco's and there were also some aluminum Australian boxcars, which we never used as we primarily needed hoppers for gravel service and flats and gondolas were the preferred cargo carriers for all types of cargo. I was a lot easier to load and unload flats and gons under rough or difficult conditions using rough terrain forklifts. The forklifts were easy to use as a mini crane to unload a gondola.
The Aussie boxcars which were in our area of operations were used by the Vietnamese soldiers and their families as homes, and were all parked on an unused siding close to the armored car track and the engine service facilities.
In my time there I learned how well off we here in the US compared to the locals. I learned to respect them, as I watched them struggle to take care of there families just like we do at home.
An example I like to cite was a family of Mom and Dad and four kids, a boy about 14, a girl maybe 12 a boy 7 and a girl maybe four or five. They made a living(if you could call it that) making gravel by hand :o. Yup! by hand. We would go by while all of them with their hammers and chisels busted big rocks into gravel. The little girl carried broken pieces to the pile. The sight of this is burned in my brain because I had a daughter the age of the little girl.
It took them a week to make a pile equal to about one bucket load that would fit our front loader. We would pay about 50 cents for the load. If I couldn't go myself I sent one of my men to buy the gravel even if we didn't need it. I always brought goodies for the kids and Mom and Dad or had them sent. It was heartbreaking to see this and other examples. The food waste from our mess hall was highly coveted by the locals and it was not used for animal feed. We wasted a lot, and it was hard for me to watch at times.
I usually repress my war experiences, but it seems like yesterday.
Back to Armored cars, I am sure the poles were meant for camo support, but we never used it in our area. some of our sidings were near woody areas and Armored cars at the end of a siding in these areas could have been well hidden while making the siding look shorter.
I am going to be out of the country for the next seven days, but will try to post some pics when I get back if I can figure out how to convert slides to JPEG images, if there is any interest.
Thanks to all for the kind comments as well.
Bill
I was so busy looking at the corner poles, I missed the whip antennas :-[ . Thank you for taking time, and having the courage to relay info from a difficult time. I for one, am always interested in hearing about "our Heros" ;D.
I never saw any tracks or trains in Nam, though I spent little time at major cities, bases, and ports.
Maybe they hid these things from the Marines. Saw lots of three, plus inch cockroaches though. ::)