This just came up on my YouTube feed and looks promising if the trailer does it any justice. August 8th is the scheduled release date for the movie, almost 53 years to the day that the battle occurred.
The Battle of Long Tan took place 18 August 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Tan?wprov=sfti1
I noticed one of soldiers using a slick sided M-16 which I believe would have been correct for 1966.
[video=youtube_share;AyUqZLwOo2Y]https://youtu.be/AyUqZLwOo2Y[/video]
Were Anzacs issued M16s in 1966?
Definitely want to see this.
From the information I’ve been able to find online, it is possible that they may have been issued M-16’s in '66. ARVN forces were using the M-16 by then. The ARVN rifles had chrome lined chambers and bores, while the rifles issued early on to our troops did not.
The first AR-15s in Vietnam were store brought. The M-16 were the cucked models.
Anyways I have some authentic ARVN Rifles. Never fired and only dropped once…
I have a book on Anzacs in Vietnam which has a photograph of one Cpl. Lex McAuley, 1RAR with an M16 in December 1965. McAuley would go on to write a number of books about Australia’s military history, including one in 1985 about the battle of Long Tam (which I suspect this movie is based on).
Thanks, much more useful information than the standard FF response.
Armalite sold rifles directly to the Republic of South Vietnam.
Depending on year. There were still Colt Armalite marked lowers floating about.
The AR-15 DID have all the full features contemporary to its era and was arguably superior to the initial Army Cucked M-16. ARs were in government hands since at least 1962. There is a big difference between the Colt AR-15 and the M-16. The commercial ones were indeed buyable in select fire and IIRC the second largest customer at that era was the Navy. The Army Brand M-16 is the one that had a lot of extra unnecessary.
Slab slide slick tops are a good tell if they were actual AR-15s. 1964 was the year the XMs were in swing. I would assume they were using factory direct ARs as opposed to initial issue but I dunno.
The point is gun was fine until it got messed with.
Per foreign acquisition, I’m sure they were the store broughts and not the issued ones.
I actually think but don’t know it may be one of a few reasons why all commonwealth ARs go through Canada because of those initial bad runs.
Certainly an interesting topic
ETA when I say “commercial” do not confuse with SP1s. Those came way later mid 60s. I mean commercial as in you got money we got guns. All were select fire. Before a Differently Abled person goes into the numismatics of Navy this includes Marines as them and Army spooks/advisors favored the rifle. The gun du jour was still the M1 Carbine and if you had an AR anything that wasn’t cucked in the early 60s; you had the most advanced small arm available.
Tl;dr. Pretty sure the ANZAC people had AR-15s.
It’s funny that you mention that the AR-15 was in government hands as early as '62. I took my girlfriend on her first visit to the Sixth Floor Museum this past Saturday, and she was surprised to see this photo of a Secret Service agent with an AR-15. She just assumed that the AR was a fairly new design. We’ve only been dating for seven months, and I’m slowly getting her educated. 
Funny you mention that.
I still think the “magic bullet” was homeboy having an ND
Diggers - like most folks in Vietnam - got their M16s from the US military’s supply system. So anything used by the Australians in '66 would have most likely been either a USAF-spec M16 or a US Army-spec XM16E1. I don’t believe I’ve seen any pictures of Aussies using an M16 without a forward assist.
I think the only foreign buyers who were getting AR-15s in the mid-to-late 60s from outside the US military’s supply system were Thailand and the UK.
ETA: I’m guessing the slick-side AR-15 seen in the movie trailer is an SP-1 sitting in for an M16, just as has been done in We Were Soldiers and most other movies set during the Vietnam War.
maybe.
per We Were Soldiers; I met some folks who worked on that movie. A LOT of the rifles were SP1s but Mel Gibsons gun was specifically built to be period correct. The retro craze wasnt what it its now. Most of the other guns are cheats/Anachronistic
The Commonwealth forces in Brunei/Borneo were using presumably commercial purchase ARs circa 1962-63. The main action was British SAS with the slick side AR-15s but I believe Kiwi and Aussie SAS were involved at least at the individual augmentation level. The main focus was strategic recon and Ranger-like deep penetration raids against Sukarno’s “volunteers “. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/indonesian-confrontation
I mention this because there was certainly Australian exposure to the AR before arrival in South Vietnam. The initial contingents were attached to the 173rd Airborne, so likely to have been given AR-15s.
Wait a minute!! Did FireFly just infer that Commercial-Spec AR15s were originally SUPERIOR to milspec ???!!!
Holy crikey I just body slammed my Yellow chart and threw it down the driveway. Milspec sucks. You heard it here first. I want comspec.
Seriously though that is some interesting pre66 history I was unaware of.
for the time and ammo, 1/14 wasnt bad.
“milspec” at that point was sabotuers giving you bad ammo and corner cutting.
I WILL say that the Forward Assist wasnt the worst idea to come of it.
AR15/M16 was highly immature compared to now and the Whiz Kids messed with it.
Like M14s have a charm but are sooo obsolete compared to AR-10s. The skullduggery against the AR in those days was epic
They released a new trailer for the upcoming Danger Close movie. Still looks pretty solid to me.
[video=youtube_share;_E0J11-rB7Q]https://youtu.be/_E0J11-rB7Q[/video]
IMDB has this as an August 8th release in Oz. Wonder when it will make it to the U.S.? Usually there’s at least a year’s lag for this kind of thing, until Netflix picks it up as a “Netflix Original”.
Fun fact: The bit at the end with the guy with the L1A1 saying, “Breathe,” is based on an actual account of the battle. Think Company Sergeant Prendergast in The Siege of Jadotville telling the men of A Coy. to, “Breathe, squeeze, kill, breathe again.” Guy was basically firing individual rounds on respiratory pause, in the middle of the battle, while talking himself through the process.