Heavy Weapons

On Friday, we fired heavy weapons, fully automatic machine guns with large ammunition. These are the guns placed on the top of HUMVEE's and other military vehicles and are intended only for heavy combat. They are very scary, and I hope never to be in a situation where they are necessary to use. The drill sergeants at Fort Jackson simply gave us the opportunity to briefly use and become familiar with them. As a Public Affairs Officers we are not likely to be gunners on a convoy.

These weapons give the United States the unparalleled advantage when fighting adversaries directly, and it is probably one reason why the insurgents have used asymmetric tactics to inflict NATO casualties.

Here is a picture of me firing the M240 Bravo machine gun and some video shooting the .50 cal, the largest machine gun in the US inventory. The shells have a range of up to four miles and will pretty much destroy anything they hit, including vehicles and buildings.