These, needless to say, represent only a sampling of the damage done by the attacks I experienced during my tour.

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A metal maintenance building after suffering a direct hit.  The 122 rocket passed through the tin roof and exploded on the concrete floor which blew the sheet metal panels outward.
hut.jpg (43583 bytes) A Security Police barracks in Camp Swampy which suffered a near miss from a 122 during the night.  The rocket impacted near the bottom right corner of the photo.  A Security Policeman in side was wounded when some shrapnel went through the armhole of his flack vest. Dark spots on building and barrels are shrapnel holes.  Concavity in walls, and missing, panels due to blast effect.
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The remains of the DaNang Base Exchange which suffered a  direct hit.  The small dark spot on the roadway is another impact site. The black hole is a rocket impact and fan shaped pattern on the blacktop is the scoring from the shrapnel. 

Good back azimuth opportunity!! Sight from hole side through middle of fan shape and you have a solid back azimuth to point of origin.

This would have been a super quick fuze.  Shrapnel damage and not cratering was the intent.  A second rocket got the building.

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Another SP barracks (after we were moved from Camp Swampy to Gunfighter Village [Bravo area]) hit by a 122.  The shrapnel from the impact is white hot and flammable objects are subject to catching fire, as did this barracks.

Bottom is bunkered up and top is not.  For my squadron we didn't have anyone sleeping on the second floor at night for anti-rocket safety reasons.  Tiger flight worked the nights, so we had the second floor billets as we'd be on post and not in bunks in the barracks.

damage5.jpg (47564 bytes) Shrapnel pattern from a suspected ChiCom 107mm rocket on a then unoccupied billet in Victor area..  This had been slated for an SP barracks but plans were changed.  All the little dark spots are shrapnel holes.

The lack of barrier walls or sandbagging  on this building would have meant casualties from this night time hit had it been occupied. 

rocket2.gif (73068 bytes) A steel girder in the postal service center  nearly cut in half from the shrapnel from a 122 hit on the roof.  Quick fused for shrapnel effect the rocket did not "penetrate" the building but exploded on contact with the roof.  All those "light" spots are holes......

Shrapnel from a 122 ranged from dust sized particles to hunks of steel as big as your fist. Being in the pattern of that could be injurious to your health.

Hey, doesn't the NVA know tampering with the US Mail is a felony??

rocket3.gif (57971 bytes) Again, all the white spots in this corrugated steel roof are holes from shrapnel.  Rocket in this case penetrated, detonated on the floor and flung shrapnel everywhere.

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The napalm dump goes up in flames after a rocket attack. To give it perspective, that little square thing just above the horizon and to the right of the smoke column is one of the 50 foot tall guard towers at the dump.
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   Last updated: 09/20/2013 00:37:00              © Copyright 1998 William L. Liddell