C1A1 Sniper Rifle
- Thread starter I Dont Care About You
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fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
We got way more time doing drills on the C5A1 machinegun, & ironically more trigger time on it (barely.) It goes to show you how little range practice even the C2 gunners got. Everyone jumped at the chance to shoot the C5A1 mg. It was fun. I even liked carrying our C5A1 mg. Maybe because we all knew it was not a boat anchor.
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True story;
Back in 1986 at Pet, the RCR instructors had us all qualify on the C2, one person had to lay beside you spraying a can of WD-40 into the carrier group to keep them functioning on the 3rnd bursts.
Sometimes depending who was on the trigger, they even staked the bipod legs down with tent pegs.
The C5 GPMG was always sandbagged down.
I lugged those d@m C2's around and the radio on both of my basic training quals, as I was the biggest guy there to handle them.
Before you ask, I fooooooooolishly Commissioned from the ranks after a year in and had to do another basic.
Started out as a Weapons Tech, then I had to do BOAT Basic Officers, Block 2-3 at Pet in 1986.
Back in 1986 at Pet, the RCR instructors had us all qualify on the C2, one person had to lay beside you spraying a can of WD-40 into the carrier group to keep them functioning on the 3rnd bursts.
Sometimes depending who was on the trigger, they even staked the bipod legs down with tent pegs.
The C5 GPMG was always sandbagged down.
I lugged those d@m C2's around and the radio on both of my basic training quals, as I was the biggest guy there to handle them.
Before you ask, I fooooooooolishly Commissioned from the ranks after a year in and had to do another basic.
Started out as a Weapons Tech, then I had to do BOAT Basic Officers, Block 2-3 at Pet in 1986.
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I was an infantry Weapons Detachment Commander for many a Field Training Exercise in the Army Reserves back in the early 1980s. I even came across a photo of me firing the C5 at our 1981 Military Concentration at Fort Lewis, in Washington State. Good stuff! I used to carry a Bic "Click" pen just because the pen's operating spring was a perfect replacement for the C5's Belt Holding Pawl Springs (x2), which always went missing when the Feedway Mechanism Retaining Pin would walk out under fire. Every good machinegunner knew the Bic pen trick, I reckon...
Here's that photo from 1981. I am in the center on the Gun. Man, that was a while ago. I was a 16-year old Cpl in the Reserves, 'cause they helped me to lie about my age and join when I was 15. The recruiting sub-unit's orderly room clerk forged the date on my photocopied Birth Certificate and "BAM" before you knew it I was attending an 8-week Summer TQ-1 Infantry qualification course with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds. What a hoot! That is how I wound up with my Canadian Forces Decoration for 12 years of service when I was a 27 year old PPCLI captain...
fat tony
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
The C5A1 mg had the best charging handle design of any M1919A6 based mg imo. You could really get a purchase to charge the gun. We had the silly butts for them but everyone never bothered with it. Not sure if we had the bipods, I do not think I ever saw the bipods. They must have been in Coy. stores if we had the butts. Whenever we were doing drills or shooting we had the steel tripod and t&e mechanisms. They were vital guns to have as not everyone had the snooty privelige of getting the mg course, they taught the passed over squaddies the rudiments of how mg's are used.
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Coolest thing I ever witnessed was a Wainright night MG shoot with 3 C5 all running at the same time. This was mid 1989 when I was in the BCD reserve unit.
There was a typical Alberta lightning storm in the background and the wind was blowing across the firing line so they had to shoot the parachute flares upwind to drift across the range. The paraflares lit up the range as streams of red tracer went downrange and constant lightning strikes lit up the horizon in the distance. Soooooooo cool to see. There are times that military service is just incredible. Of course there are times when it sucks balls too.
There was a typical Alberta lightning storm in the background and the wind was blowing across the firing line so they had to shoot the parachute flares upwind to drift across the range. The paraflares lit up the range as streams of red tracer went downrange and constant lightning strikes lit up the horizon in the distance. Soooooooo cool to see. There are times that military service is just incredible. Of course there are times when it sucks balls too.
If you were 16 in 1981, you are one year older than me.
I didn't join the CF until I was 20 though.
Wow, was the clerk a relative? They took a big risk forging documents like that. I thought I joined young at 17, about 10 years later than you, but I had to have my parents signature and I was only accepted at 17 because I would be 18 by the basic training start date. I had to wait 7 months for the basic start date before officially enrolling in the CF.
and then some,,,,,,
The Canadian Forces helped shape me into the person that I am today and that alone was worth every second of time spent in uniform.
I will always consider our Veterans, past-current serving members in any capacity as true sisters and brothers and that goes way back in history for me.
I have done many journeys - ceremonies to the Battlefields of France and Belgium in recognition of those who went before us with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War and I'm on a current project now for the Canadian's who were Shot at Dawn.
I will carry-on this journey hopefully until the day I die.
Cmon now,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, we are all waiting with bated breath!
Back in the 80's I was at a joint range meetup at Borden with a team from the U.S. Army and if I recall, they were out of Buffalo.
We had all our weapons laid out on the firing mound, our C1-C2's and C5's, they had M16-A2's and M-249 - M-60's.
One U.S. soldier walks over to me and asks, how come you boys brought out weapons from your museum, not realizing these were current issue for us.
All I could do was laugh and try to hold a straight face while I was trying to answer him.
They did have a hoot trying out the C1's though.
OK.
Early 90's, we were packing up for FallEx. We were loading up an MLVW with plastic 20L jerry cans of fuel. I got sent up top to haul full jerry cans up and slot them into place. The truck was FULL, like three layers deep in jerry cans and as we slotted plastic fuel cans into place between other plastic jerry cans and walked around on top of plastic jerry cans we were generating massive static electrical charges on ourselves so that every time we touched someone or something we got a gigantic shock. I am standing on top of a truck, on top of a couple thousand litres of fuel, wildly charged up with static electricity and all I can think is that any second now I am going to die a horrible death in a giant fireball when everything goes up due to a spark. I was SERIOUSLY UNHAPPY CAMPER at that point.
On that same FallEx, me and my det-mate dug a full trench with overhead cover, filled it in, then dug it out again when the general wanted to see it and then filled it all in AGAIN. I think we were the least happy privates in the entire CF on that day.
Training in Manitoba, in winter, was the only time in my life that I got to a point where I actually didn't care if I lived or died .... I just needed to sleep.
One of the interesting things about military service is that it pushes you way beyond what you ever thought you could accomplish. Times I wanted to give up because I didn't think I could go on and there was a Sgt to give me an even worse option than quitting. So you pull yourself up and finish the task at hand. These days, very little bothers me that much because I have been through 100x worse during my time in the CF.
You begin to realize how old you are when EVERYTHING you used when you were in the army is now in a museum.
LOL. I joined up mid 1989 and so have trained on the old stuff as well as the newer stuff. I used the C1, C2, C3? Sterling and the C5 as well as the C7, C6 and C9.
