Punisher storytime - The Platoon #3

To paraphrase Sartre, freedom is what you do with what's been given to you. Lieutenant Frank Castle and his men have been given a big black plastic lemon and told their lives will depend on it. What's a man to do? Read on and find out, brothers!
youtube.com/watch?v=8EuwjahnYqo

Other urls found in this thread:

smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1735
youtube.com/watch?v=hCDAfa-NI-M
youtube.com/watch?v=5hlOU1MQ8U8
pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/episodes/
anyforums.com/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

You can tell it's Mattel, it's swell!

I actually had a great convo about this with a fellow writer who clearly knows a lot more about it than me. As it turns out, while the self-cleaning bullshit was indeed true, it seems most of the problems with the M16 had to do with the Ordnance Corps loading the rifle's 5.56 ammo with a surplus of ball powder instead of IMR powder, which is what it was designed to use in the first place.

Like, they still had stockpiles of ball powder from WWII. Not that it was inferior or worse than IMR, but it was different, and was not tested conclusively before being loaded and shipped to Vietnam, against both Colt and Gene Stoner's advice.

Here's the source that was handed to me, and it's a pretty damn interesting read: smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1735

If you tilt your screen just right, you can see the little lightbulb popping up over Frank's head...

youtube.com/watch?v=hCDAfa-NI-M

yay

Hehehe, I remember that Murray/Golden's The 'Nam used "REMF" a couple of times, and later in the glossary, Hama would say it was:
>"A very rude and crude way of describing those gentlemen who stayed behind the lines and seldom, or never entered the field. Not complimentary."
And that sure is one way of putting it, Larry.

...

...

ARCLIGHTS EVERYWHERE!

Brother Giap!

And Sister Ly!

Best Viets.

Is it still grave-robbing if they're not in graves?
Asking for a friend.

...

Oops.

Reply "Sleep tite little Frank" and M14's and 7.62 ammo will come to you.
Ignore and you'll have M16's and ball powder forever.

...

...

youtube.com/watch?v=5hlOU1MQ8U8

sleep tite lil Frank

And that's that for today. Next issue!
>Frank and his platoon go on leave to Saigon!
>Sister Ly manages to be adorable while covered in mud and blood
>Jesus fuck Frank we can't take you ANYWHERE
Until next time, keep your boots dry!

sleep tight frank.

thanks judge.

Been fucking waiting for this.

thanks for that
really feelin The Platoon

Excellent cover.

No, its just cold-looting.

The solicits yesterday showed the cover for the last issue and it is boo-coo sweet.

Cool.

That's an intimidating fucking look.

This book is disgustingly excellent.

OH WOW!

I think this might have been the best issue yet. And that's really saying something.

This has been great so far. Cummings is a faggot.

M16 being a bad gun that jams a lot myth needs to die. Also the black powder from WWII isn't surprising. Look up the USS Forrestal fire. The ship had been resupplied with bombs from WWII, which had been stored in the humid climates of Okinawa and Guam. At the time with increased bombing campaigns in Vietnam, the new Mk83s were in low supply, so naturally they started to pull from old stockpiles. The captain of the Forrestal either had to take these old bombs or cancel the next day's operation.

Anyone have the alternate cover for this or the last issue?

it ain't a myth, the guns were notoriously unreliable for the first five years of its use, hence their replacement with the M16A1 in 1969

Yes I understand that, but it jamming is completely overblown.

Sleep tite little Frank

And thanks OP! This shit has been amazing.

But can anyone with historical knowledge help to explain Donald and his AK smuggling operation? I get it in context to this story, but I'm curious if anything like that was actually happening in real life. Where would the AKs be going that would raise a profit?

I highly recommend checking out the textless version of this cover. It is an absolutely beautiful piece of artwork. I think someone posted it over in the Win-O'.

And a lot of the problems at the time were fixed by giving them cleaning kits.

the problem was any jam would render the gun inoperable entirely, and the chamber had corrosion problems that would cause case extraction failures

Which was due to the powder and no cleaning kit, outside factors of the gun.

Best release of the week.

Fuck, best release of the MONTH for that matter.

so it worked in special cases only?
that seems shitty gun case all over.

the chamber was entirely related to the gun, and deemed the most pressing issue with it

it's literally the whole reason they made the A1

>new "the platoon day"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Special cases? Yes, if you mean the proper cases.

...

Cleaning kit helped solve the mAlf unction problems than adding a forward assist.

if it helped solved the problems entirely, they wouldn't have made a new version with a chrome-plated chamber

Good call, user.

jesus

Sleep tite little Frank

>the problem was any jam would render the gun inoperable entirely

the problem was that the gun jamming in fucking Vietnam would render the guns wielder inoperable entirely.

Thanks, Judge. I was debating on whether I should put off a trip to the LCS today because of holiday traffic, but since Platoon is out, now I've gotta go.

Nighty nite, little Frank. Sleep tight.

Great work as usual Judge user
Sleep tite little Frank

Thanks, OP.

With the cleaning kit. If you think the A1 fixed all the problems alone the you are ignorant.

You're my man op,thank you for being here every month,I'll be waiting for you again

kek

Sleep tite little Frank

>Pants Status: Filled to Maximum Capacity

There that patented Frank Castle
> I will fucking kill you look

>personally, I’m sorry they didn’t try for Hiroshima number six.
Damn

Frank tite little Frank

Sleep tite little Frank

One of the only Marvel releases I've enjoyed this year. Shit, it might just be the only one.

Sleep tite little Frank

and thanks OP

M16s really did jam a lot too. and soldiers died because of it.

the ken burns documentary series is either over or almost over. it has been airing on pbs on tuesday evenings for a few weeks.

also fragging was real, that happened too. officers were killed if they kept sending their men on suicide missions. the military stopped count after 200 or or something because they wanted it kept secret. think about sending a letter home to the family of a dead officer: "your fascist son was murdered by his own men"

The only historic inaccuarcy in Punisher: The Platoon would be that every Vietnamnese was outfitted with a AK-47. They mostly used inferior and outdated weapons like the MAS-49 rifle.

Since it's related to the thread, anyone else been watching the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary?

Not yet, but I plan to binge it once it's completed.

Sleep tite little Frank

You got a long road ahead of you.

The issue is that the gun as designed was more or less fine, it's just that the military changed design specifications when they went into manufacturing to save money, not realizing things like the type of powder specified for ammunition, anti-corrosion linings, rifling specifications, and actually giving soldiers cleaning kits were really, really fucking important. Almost all problems with the gun can be directly attributed to Army command.

It's not like the M14 was actually a good rifle either, it weighed 10 pounds, had an exposed action, requires constant attention to keep the sights zeroed, was practically uncontrollable in full auto, and was subject to massive lobbying by Army officials - to the point of rigging cold weather trials to ensure superior performance over competitors - in order to get selected for adoption.

GIs were willing to pay to bring them back home as trophies/sell to collectors for a profit.

It's all available online already. Personally I've yet to find the time to watch a damn 17 hour long documentary but I hope to do it before this series ends so I can appreciate it even more.

>It's all available online already
Where can I find it? I love Ken Burns documentaries.

Shit, really? Gonna get comfy and watch it once I have time to clear a weekend out.

If you're american you can watch it here pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/episodes/ I just torrented it lel.

Yeah, fuck that. I'll DL it.

My uncle Chuck was force recon in 68' and as he put it "the gun would fuck you." Once the jamming and corrosion became well known soldiers lost faith in them. It was one half combination of circumstances not even related to design and on half superstition but it didn't really matter why. Everybody had a horror story about a failure to fire incident and if half of them were true it was a shitty gun.

>Frank having fun
this feels so strange

I remember reading an article from a former VC soldier that said after they won their first firefight they found the dead Americans all had AKs on them and they thought this was some sort of trick so they couldn't distinguish the sound of the enemies rifles from their own but then they realized the real reason after looting M16s from future firefights and finding they never worked properly lmao.

I don't think that's Frank, that's the big dude who mans the M60. You can tell by the fuller lips and no stubble.

Sleep tite lil fronk

Dem baby blues

Is this the first time the MAX imprint has been on this book? Or did I miss it on the last two?

Sleep tite lil frank and may a flight of franks frank you to your frank

OLD SCHOOL PUNISHER STORYTIME OVER HERE:

Sleep tite little Frank

That's not Frank, he has no stubble while Frank does.

.....

sleep tite little Frank

Sleep tight little Frank

REMFS?

Is the drug addicted soldier from Born canon to this?

Sleep tite little Frank

Rear Echelon Mother-Fuckers.

Yep.