Door gunners

Did the U.S. do anything to address the the casualty rates of door gunners in Vietnam? Experimental designs or anything? It seems weird that they wouldn't try and fix that somehow.

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drafted dudes

What typically caused a door gunner to become a casualty? Getting shot? Falling out of the helicopter? Dying in a crash?

From my knowledge, it was primarily from getting shot. They don't have any solid cover or concealment, and they're usually thrown into intense firefights

it was already an underpowered airframe, anything done to protect the gunners would only weigh it down further.

You're floating in the air shooting a machine gun in a firefight, you're a damned pinata

Alright so the thing I'm wondering now is how those rates compared to the rest of the crew and the guys inside. I mean, it's not like a huey has any armor. If you're shooting at the guy in the doorway you're more likely to hit someone else or something vital in the heli than the gunner just because the rest of that stuff is a bigger target than he is.

Something else I'm chewing on: as far as I can tell, we still use gunners in exactly the same way today. Do they die less now despite not (to my eyes) changing anything?

Transport helicopters are extremely vulnerable to small arms fire during transitions from the air to the ground and vice versa.

They couldn’t even add a gun shield on it?

So is the pilot, copilot, and medic onboard. Guess it's just the shit end of the stick, because human nature wants you to stop who's shooting at you, and stop them now.

How many hot lzs have we flown into since Nam?

Can't see em so good

From my memory, there were 2100 something Pilots KIA, and 2500 crewmen.

Nowadays our helicopters are more heavily armored, have bigger door guns, and move significantly faster. Plus, the middle east is more of a desert than a jungle, making it easier to spot targets

Not many, but I don't mean total casualties, I mean per capita. Are we still losing gunners are the same rate in similar circumstances or did we change something to make that less deadly?

Or to put it another way, if we took a modern heli and flew it into an LZ like we saw in Vietnam, would we get the same kind of casualties or no?

it's hard enough to see what is going on considering the dense jungle terrain, no doubt a shield that obscures most of your view would be even worse.

>Do they die less now
yes mostly because fighting is nowhere near as tight and personal as it was in the jungles of vietnam.

large flat open fields make a big difference, communication to know where everything is on the ground is also very helpful.

>same casualties

No. Our helicopters are bigger, faster, and better armored, and more powerful in terms of "how much can it lift"

>From my memory, there were 2100 something Pilots KIA, and 2500 crewmen.

How does that compare to door gunners specifically? I just realized nobody's posted the amount of gunner casualties yet.

>Nowadays our helicopters are more heavily armored

I didn't realize that Blackhawks were armored. What kind of armor do they have? I know that Apaches have that kevlar fuel tank situation to make them tougher but I don't know much about the Blackhawks.

There are no similar circumstances now so we cannot answer your question.

they can't kill you if you kill them first

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What the hell happens when your belt gets hit and starts cooking off?

Does anyone know the casualty rate? Also were door gunners successful in killing NVA/ Viet Cong or were they mostly used to provide cover fire

Not how it works no guns

>cook off
a harder feat than you would think

Do 20mm explosive cartridges not carry an increased chance of that kind of thing?

If only they had some sort of scifi material that could magically block or intercept bullets to protect the gunner...

I would imagine around the same probability to that of normal .50 or 7.62. the probability of a shot that would manage to cause a catastrophic event such as a cook off or a shell exploding in the helicopter is incredibly low. this also doesn't take into account that if you're facing an enemy in a hot LZ where you're already getting shot at in the first place - the idea of a cook off would be just put in the fact that you'd most likely get shot down anyway in the worst case scenario

*sad boop*

I know, right? We could have been dropping guys off in the middle of intersections below rooftop level during Fallujah