Captain Jim Storter armed his recon skydivers with Fabrique Nationale-made Uzi submachine guns because they, “fit nicely strapped atop the reserve ‘chute,” a consideration where compactness and a streamlined load mattered. Master Sergeant Charles “Pops” Humble, a veteran of the 1st Special Service Force, wanted a German Schmeisser SOG got him one.įoreign arms figured in SOG’s night parachute infiltrations-the world’s first combat skydives. For instance, First Sergeant Lionel Pinn, a cigar-chompin’ World War II Ranger, proudly packed an M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. Some arms were old enough to be deniable, allowing World War II veterans to carry their favorite firearms. Had they been captured in enemy uniforms they could have been executed as spies however, not one of SOG’s 57 Missing in Action (MIA) Green Berets-nearly all of them undisguised-came back as a live prisoner. During a chance meeting, the enemy hesitated to engage a masquerading team, giving the SOG men a brief advantage. Some AKM-armed teams added a degree of deception, disguising themselves in North Vietnamese uniforms. Useful for ambushing trackers, removing sentries and seizing prisoners, the integrally suppressed Swedish K was SOG’s most accurate submachine gun.

Recon Team Adder’s Hurley Gilpin practices firing a suppressed “Swedish K” 9 mm Luger submachine gun, a CIA-supplied, untraceable arm. The AKM was not without its own shortcomings: it was slow to reload since the bolt did not lock open with the last round, and its wooden fore-end-oil-saturated by repeated cleanings-could become too hot to grasp. Many teams up-gunned to the more robust 7.62x39 mm, Chinese Type 56 AKM with a fixed or folding stock. That may seem like a lot, but SOG teams often fought all-day, running gunfights against untold enemy pursuers.Įventually the Swedish K’s 9 mm ball cartridge was found inadequate for knocking enemies down and keeping them down.

The typical combat load was 13 magazines-one in the gun and 12 more in pouches-for some 468 rounds. Initially, SOG’s primary weapon was the 9 mm Luger Karl Gustav Model 1945 submachine gun, nicknamed the “Swedish K.” Obtained through the Central Intelligence Agency, these untraceable guns sported a pale green enamel finish, a side-folding stock and a 36-round magazine. Thus, SOG’s armory stocked many foreign firearms with which a team leader armed his men according to how he saw fit to accomplish each mission. To support this deniability, recon teams were required to go “sterile”-meaning no ID or dog tags, unmarked or non-U.S. Since Hanoi insisted it had no troops in “neutral” Laos or Cambodia, the United States, too, denied that SOG operations were underway. These SOG recon teams, usually four to six natives led by two or three American Green Berets, roamed deep behind enemy lines, searching out-sometimes attacking-North Vietnamese truck parks, ammunition dumps, storage sites, truck convoys, command centers and the base camps where enemy units refit between battles in South Vietnam.

Army Special Forces-led reconnaissance missions along the enemy’s Ho Chi Minh Trail road network in Laos, into his sanctuaries in Cambodia, and sometimes into North Vietnam, itself. military unit ever fielded such an array of weaponry as did the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group.īehind that innocuous name, MACV-SOG ran top-secret, covert operations across Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, especially U.S. To subscribe to the magazine, visit the NRA membership page here and select American Rifleman as your member magazine.

This article, 'Deep Behind Enemy Lines: Weapons of Vietnam's Covert Warriors,' appeared originally in the April 2015 issue of American Rifleman.

Sionics silent sniper