was relatively easy to obtain. So were the countermeasures to employ against the launching sites. At night, however, when both the launchers and targets had the cover of darkness, suitable aiming points became few and far apart.
A letter home is not written in a few se- conds, especially when a lot of thought is put into it. So just a sliver of steady light at night provides an excellent aiming point for an enemy gunner. Knowing that rockets are not all that accurate, he still, orienting on the aiming point, has a good chance of hitting the “center of mass” and doing considerable damage. The thought- ful letter writer gave the foe the time he needed to set up his rudimentary cross stick launcher, point the rocket at the pinpoint of light in the darkened motor pool, check his range estimate, and send the unguided rocket on its way.
Luckily the letter got written, the trooper made aware of the danger his small light
engendered, and no enemy rocket was launched.
Well, back to the Bastard Cav and the yellow paged newsletter. I thought about sending it back to the Black Knights’ as- sociation president with annotated com- ments and attaching these reminiscences to it. I could have let him pass these pages around to see if my comments were valid, my facts correct, my thoughts on track, and my memories intact. On second thought I did not. These were my reminiscences alone. Be that as it may, all us veteran Vietnam era cavalrymen hope today’s 5th Cavalry troopers (now foot soldiers) will benefit in their own way from lessons we learned in the Bastard Cav, many years ago.
BG Raymond E. Bell Jr. PhD, U.S. Army Retired is a 1957 graduate of the United States Military Academy who branched armor. His first assignment on graduation was to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Subsequent tours were with the 1st Medium
Tank Battalion, 32nd Armor, 3rd Armored Division as platoon leader, and company executive officer, S-3 Air Combat Command “C”, 3rd Armored Division, (Germany) “A” Tank Company commander, 2nd Medium Tank Battalion,15 Armor, 1st Cavalry Division (Korea), instructor and assistant professor of German, USMA, executive officer, 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry and headquarters MACV (Vietnam), assistant professor of history, USMA, staff officer headquarters, NYARNG, commander 5th Psychological Operations Group (USAR), and commanding general 220th Military Police Brigade (USAR). Graduate of C&GSC, Army War College, and National War College. Holder of BS from USMA, M.A in German Culture from Middleburg College, and Ph.D. from New York University in Eastern European History. Editor’s note: BG(R) Bell has published more than 20 articles over the years in Armor and the Cavalry and Armor Journal. He is a staunch supporter of the branch.
Fall 2024 CAVALRY & ARMOR JOURNAL
35
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