MILITARY COLLECTOR GROUP POST, April 30/98 INDEX: ANNOUNCEMENTS; COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY, & VIET CONG; Part IV, By LTC William L Howard MEMBERS WRITE; HUMOR; *********************************************** ANNOUNCEMENTS; PRC-6 deal at present does not look feasible. The dealer want's $45.00ea plus postage for the radios take one, or take them all. From what I understand, they are used, and possibly don't include the xtals. This is not at all a reasonable amount for several reasons. First is the fact that they are the most common military radio in existence, and as such, collector interest is minimal. Second, they've been offered by several vendors over the last couple years for that same price but new in crates, with xtals, manual, and antenna. The battery prices aren't any better, $26(with the radio), and $28(separately) has been quoted, again, no quantity discount. They've been reported as new, but may be a few bad ones in the lot. We can make our own batteries for less than $15 and have no surprises. So again, no bargain here! Thanks to Carl for checking into this for us, but I think we'll pass. Sorry if I got your hopes up, but we can do better than this. Dennis *********************************************** COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY, & VIET CONG; Part IV, By LTC William L Howard OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS The first observation that one can make is that the Viet Minh and later the NVA and VC were strongly influenced by what they saw of the WW II Japanese Signal Service. The Japanese had signal units that were triangular with a telephone section, a radio section, and a messenger section. The Viet Minh and later the NVC and VC copied this organization. The Chinese were also impressed by radios that they got from WW II Lend Lease and items captured from the Japanese. Preferring the US design radios, they copied their 102 E set from the US SCR 694 radio. They also liked the idea of a volt meter on the hand cranked generator used by the Japanese so they added that to their radios. When they got the technology to make sub miniature tubes such as those used in the AN/PRC 6 and 10, they liked them for the smaller size. However, unlike the American versions which had tube sockets, the Chinese simply hard wired the tubes into the circuit board. With the high pay scales of electronic technicians in the United States, you do not want a technician spending a lot of time soldering tubes in and out of a circuit. On the other hand, the Chinese workers who were paid about 50 cents a day and a bowl of rice could be used to solder tubes all day long. That was cheaper than making tube sockets. It is also highly probable that they did not plan a large logistic support facility for radios. If a set broke down, throw it away and get a new set. Again, labor being very cheap, the radios cost less to make than they would if made in the United States. The Viet Minh used what ever they could scrounge from captured stocks of WW II material. Japanese and German weapons were the predominant small arms as well as some Russian designed/ Chinese made copies. There is no reason to think communications equipment was any different. To the best of my knowledge no Japanese or German radios were captured and by 1965 most radios came from China. Any radios captured from the Japanese may have been used in training in North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army, as the Viet Minh became, began to resemble a modern army with modern equipment as early as the late 1950s. As Chinese radios became obsolete in the Chinese Army, they were sent south to Vietnam, in much the same manner as the Russians supplied the Warsaw Pact nations with their obsolete radios. North Vietnam did not develop an extensive electronics industry, preferring to rely on foreign aid from other communist countries. The only notable exception was the VTS-2 radio. The Viet Cong, as the South Vietnamese communist insurgency was known, evoked much sympathy from the Americans despite being the "enemy". This was usually based on their inept performance on the battlefield. One remark made about them was that no matter who won the war, they would be the losers. They were, however, very resourceful people who made much of what they needed, such as rifles, pistols, mines and hand grenades. Radios were no exception. The various "ammo can radios" attest to this fact. Most seem to have been made from parts taken from junked commercial radios. Asian military forces, unlike European and Western armies have been predominantly infantry forces. The requirements for extensive radio communication that is found in an armored force does not exist in most Asian armies. As a result, they do not have as many radios, do not have an extensive radio manufacturing capability and therefore have less radios. This is one reason why there are so few VC/NVA radios in existence today. Chinese Industrial Efforts Chinese industry seems to be better at copying somebody else's technology. Most of their weapons are copied from Russian or American plans. During the Korean war their weapons were copied from WW II Russian plans, most notably the PPSh 41 sub machine guns and later the PPS 43 submachine guns, and the 75 mm recoilless rifle which was a copy of the U.S. recoilless rifle. The few radios that were captured by U.S. forces during the Korean war were Russian made sets such as the 10 RT used in tanks. In the post Korean war era, they copied the Russian SKS, AK-47 and RPD Light Machine guns. These were copied in 1956 and Chinese AK-47s are properly called Type 56 assault rifle, etc. Chinese tanks are simply copies of Russian tanks. The Chinese seem to have made great strides in creating a radio/electronics industry but once again, were dependent on the Russians for the basic plan/technology. As was pointed out in the CIA article, the Russian's have not supplied them with high speed keying equipment, burst encoders, etc. Several Chinese radios have been made for tanks and one was discussed in a prior series on the Radios of Desert Storm. Other items found during Desert Storm were Chinese Silk Worm missiles so it can be concluded that the Chinese are getting involved in Missile technology. This however is beyond the scope of this short article. William L. Howard LTC Armor USAR(Retd.) CMEC 1967-1968 THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 *********************************************** MEMBERS WRITE; Just a reminder-30 April is Camerone Day, a holiday for the French Foreign Legion. All crimes except murder are fogiven if committed on Camerone Day. Commemorates the Battle of Camerone, Mexico.1863 Resulted in the most sacred relic of the Legion, the wooden hand of Captain Danjou. William L. Howard LTC Armor USAR ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi Dennis, Regarding the the use of Motorola MX-300Rs by Special Forces in Grenada.I presume you are refering to Delta's use.Regular SF didn't participate in the invasion,nor should it have,as it's mission is military training.Several monthes later several of the non-Spanish speaking detachments from my company were deployed to Grenada to train the new defense forces, under operation "Label Conch" (known to us as Label Crotch), later expanded to operation Tropical Breeze (Tropical Sneeze).They drew max per diem of $150 per day to stay in the Hilton type hotel. The only time I ever saw Motorola rigs, was in '79 while going through the Special Operations Training course, a counter-terrorist /SWAT type course that preceded,then paralleled Delta.We used them one day,and liked the remote PTT switch which we could feed down our sleeve. 73s, De oppresso Liber , Larry --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HUMOR-About a year ago I stumbled on a military humor web site but I never could find it again. The following was from that site. A WWII veteran aviator was asked to talk about his experiences to a grade school class. He told the class about the time his squadron was on patrol over Germany when they were attacked by a flight of "Fokkers" (slight giggles from the children). One of those Fokkers got on my tail (more giggles) and I could not get away. He continued, my aircraft was being shot to pieces by this Fokker (loud laughter). At this point the teacher interrupted and said, children, Antony Fokker was from Holland and was a European designer/manufacture of various aircraft. The Focke Wulf was the name of a German aircraft. Yes ma'am the veteran said, that may be true, but these Fokker's was all flying Messerschmidts! Ed Guzick *********************************************** HUMOR; 1)"A closed mouth gathers no foot" 2)"Eagles may soar, but you never heard of a weasel that got sucked into a jet engine" 3)"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried" 4)"A conclusion is the point when you tired of thinking" 5)"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it" 6)"For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism" 7)"He who hesitates is probably right" 8)"Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with" 9)"No one is listening until you make a mistake" 10)"Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view" 11) "The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it" 12)"The hardness of the butter is direcly proportional to the softness of the bread" 13)"The severity of an itch is proportional to your reach" 14)"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is just basic research" 15)"To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles" 16)"Two wrongs are a beginning" 17)"You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive" 18)"The problem with the gene pool is the lack of lifeguards" 19)"Monday; an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life" 20)"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up" 21)"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory" 22)"When you confront a choice between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before" 23)"Change is inevitable....except from vending machines" 24)"Don't sweat petty things....nor pet sweaty things" 25)"A fool and his money will soon party" 26)"Money can't buy love. But it CAN rent a very close imitation" 27)"Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow" 28)"Always try to be modest. And be damn proud of it!" 29)"If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments" 30)"How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hands...." 31)"Attempt to get a new car for your spouse-it'll be a great trade!" 32)"Drugs may lead to nowhere, but it's the scenic route" 33)"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize" 34)"Everybody repeat after me...'We are all individuals.'" 35)"Death to all fanatics!" 36)"Guests who kill their talk show hosts-On the last Geraldo-" 37)"Chastity is curable, if detected early" 38)"Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener" 39)"Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks" 40)"Hard work pays off in the future but laziness pays off now" 41)"Borrow money from pessimists-they don't expect it back" 42)"Beware of geeks bearing gifs" 43)"Half the people you know are below average" 44)"99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name" 45)"42.75 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot" 46)"A conscience is what hurts when all other parts feel good" 47)"Those who can...do. Those who can't...teach. Those who can't teach become critics" 48)"Love is blind and marrige is an instution, therefore, matrimony is the institute for the blind" 49)"It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought the fool then it is to open it and remove all doubt" (A. Lincoln) 50)"It is not a waste of time if you enjoyed wasting the time" 51)"If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you" 52)"If you think you are indispensable, drop dead" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Toddler Property Laws 1. If I like it, it's mine. 2. If it's in my hand, it's mine. 3. If I can take it from you, it's mine. 4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine. 5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way. 6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. 7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine. 8. If I think it's mine, it's mine. 9. If it's yours and I steal it, it's mine. 10. If I ... Whoops! Sorry! I goofed! Instead of reading the Toddler Property Laws, I've been reading Microsoft's Business Plan. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Clintons bought a new parrot. The unfortunate thing is, this parrot used to live in a whore house. One evening the Clinton family, Chelsea included, arrived at the White house. First Hillary walked in and the Parrot squawked " Too old, too old " Then Chelsea walked through the door and the parrot then squawked, " too young, too young " Then Bill walked through the door and the parrot squawked, " Hi Bill. " ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clinton is exiting Air Force One, with a pig under each arm. As he approaches the bottom of the steps, the Marine guarding the president SNAPS to attention and barks, "Nice pigs, Sir !" The president says to the observent marine,"Son, these aren't your ordinary pigs, these here are Gen-u-ine Ar-kan-saw Razerbacks. I got one for Hillary, and one for Chelsie." Finishing his perfect salute, The Marine barks, "Nice trade, Sir !" *********************************************** (The preceding was a product of the"Military Collector Group Post", an international email magazine dedicated to the preservation of history and the equipment that made it. Unlimited circulation of this material is authorized so long as the proper credits to the original authors, and publisher are included. For more information conserning this group contact Dennis Starks at, military-radio-guy@juno.com) ***********************************************