Paging Jesse Ventura: Iowa Guard Builds Predator-Style Ammo Packs

Remember that scene in the movie Predator, when Jesse Ventura is unleashing his M-134 mini-gun into the forest? It was being fed by an ammo box strapped to his back. Turns out, that wasn’t an actual piece of Army kit, at least until members of the Iowa National Guard created it themselves.

The National Guard division had been recently deployed to a forward operating base in Afghanistan and were issued Mk 48 machine guns when they arrived. The problem was, the belts of ammunition were extremely cumbersome and difficult for the gun’s operator to carry while on foot-patrol. The initial solution of chopping the belts into 50-round lengths and reloading constantly was abandoned after a harrowing 2.5 hour long firefight proved it untenable.

So, Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski welded two ammo boxes atop one another (with the upper case’s bottom removed), lashed them to an all-purpose ALICE pack frame, and mounted the feed chute assembly from a vehicle-mounted CROWS (Common Remote Operating Weapons Station) to the top of it. This allowed the gunner to carry a full load of ammo—500 rounds—unassisted. Even with ammo, the entire system weighed a mere 43 pounds.

Story here

Necessity truly is the mother of invention! Funny how fiction so often becomes reality...



Jesse was "firing" this gun likely before the inventors of this ammo pack were even born!

Raise your hands...who wants one??

I am sure there are plenty of terrorist organizations that will benefit from this invention to i bet the boys in afghanistan are looking forward to the day they meet their own tech on the battlefield and then rue the day they were ever born.

I want these guys to run a vid of that system in use...so so sick, now for the improvised steady cam chest brace 134 mini assembly like "The Body" wrestled around that film....I would waste so much ammo, wonder if you could stand under that kind of continuous fire. Come on Iowa NG build that its winter time plenty of shop boredom to solve

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
I am sure there are plenty of terrorist organizations that will benefit from this invention to

i bet the boys in afghanistan are looking forward to the day they meet their own tech on the battlefield and then rue the day they were ever born.

I'm pretty sure these "boys" have a good idea of what they are up against.

the boys will never know, because america is like floyd "money" mayweather. it chose's opponents it can be certain to beat and don't hit back.

another word for that is cowardice. not on the soldiers, but the government.

Originally posted by randomname
the boys will never know, because america is like floyd "money" mayweather. it chose's opponents it can be certain to beat and don't hit back.

another word for that is cowardice. not on the soldiers, but the government.

Glad you made that differentiation, we feel the same way. It is what happens when you get stuk on a wartime economy, not like you can knock over a financial pillar e.g. OPEC,China, France, Russia, Britain, Venezuela. But those possible "terrorist" states that is "helping" the world community..... blah

I'm pretty sure these have been around for a while and were made by a company prior to being improvised as described in that article. Cost a lot less too and don't use the crows feed shoot.

Originally posted by angrysniper
I'm pretty sure these have been around for a while and were made by a company prior to being improvised as described in that article. Cost a lot less too and don't use the crows feed shoot.

Ohhh hes right they have been around... however Im thinking these are a little more expensive than using scrap available on hand here's the vid

www.militaryphotos.net...

youtube link didnt work so...heres the page

reply to post by randomname


reply to post by lonewolf19792000


This isn't a political forum

www.abovetopsecret.com...

They tried that in Vietnam.

Better have a good set of asbestos gloves and a couple spare barrels as some one will use maximum fire power till the barrel is glowing red.

I saw barrels on M2 HB glow red till the gunner let off on the trigger and the barrel melted down.

Even miniguns have this problem.
media.photobucket.com...

reply to post by kalunom


not impressed - GPMG gunners for the last 70 years have managed with individual belts on foot patrols / engagements , why does this NG unit suddenly need this ???????

the " system " is tide to him - - yeah its only 3 straps - but if he is dead - its going to put the weapon out of action till his corpse can be disentangled from it

one dint in the ammo box or debris in the feed chute - and your entire ammo supply becoumes unusable - till you fix it

with a conventional belt - it the tail of the belt gets twisted / damaged and wont feed up - you drop it out anf your assistant puts a new one in

As cool as it seems, in Predator it made absolutely no sense to be carrying a minigun in a dense rain forest. NO spec ops team would ever employ such a large weapon in that terrain. As for the practicality of making it mobile... pointless in my opinion. It IS a mounted weapon, and should only be used as such. When it comes to firing it and being able to stand up, I have seen smaller guys than Jesse fire the real thing and remain upright with little or no problem(i.e. FPSRUSSIA)

nonsense, you are looking at a peak of ~290-300 lb/ft of recoil at 3k rpm, your not going to fire that from your hip guy.
Do you know how much ammo you need to carry to effectively utilize this system?
How heavy this whole thing is ?

There is a reason why it's not in use...