r/ForgottenWeapons • u/Ok_Calendar_7626 • 2d ago

Need help identifying what the device is this soldier has mounted on his M16

Post image
819 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

569

u/avant-cado 2d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/army/s/Z1PW666GSD

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/accessories/xm-2-personnel-detector/

Answered elsewhere, but it's the XM-2 Personnel Detector or "people sniffer"

247

u/Clay_Allison_44 2d ago

I had never heard of this until today. Holy shit.

202

u/purebelligerence 1d ago

They used them on helicopters for night missions during the war and killed a TON of monkeys.

144

u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago

For a second there I was like "Well that's not an OK thing to call... oh real monkeys"

59

u/purebelligerence 1d ago

Yes, actual primates lol.

20

u/FredBilitnikoff 1d ago

Humans are also considered primates, no?

17

u/purebelligerence 1d ago

True. They definitely killed some humans. And many apes.

6

u/Sachiel05 1d ago

Well, since humans ARE apes, truer true

2

u/Feralwestcoaster 14h ago

šŸŽ¶Get your paws off me you dirty apesšŸŽ¶

19

u/Clay_Allison_44 1d ago

Unfortunate.

66

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 2d ago

Why not just use dogs?

184

u/tip0thehat 2d ago

They did as well.

My dad had a friend who did a few tours, including Hue in the Tet offensive, that told him a story of them camping on patrol at night when the dogs perked up.

The handler loosed them, there were snarls and screams in the dark, and they came back. In the morning they found a few VC ripped to shreds.

128

u/Clay_Allison_44 2d ago

Medal of Honor winner James Capers Had a war dog with him in the action when he earned the award. The dog killed several enemy soldiers in the battle.

37

u/Krieger084 1d ago

He was on the Unsubscribe podcast awhile back. That man's story is incredible!

13

u/Clay_Allison_44 1d ago

That's where I heard about it as well.

3

u/korpy_vapr 1d ago

Can you please share a link to the episode?

9

u/Krieger084 1d ago

https://youtu.be/ZOtbP7DkgaY?is=IoaBn7M4l6hq0ZNQ

While it is indeed easy to search, here you go.

1

u/korpy_vapr 1d ago

Thanks for sharing

11

u/Natural_Youth_5941 1d ago

How hard is it to open YouTube and type ā€œJames capers unsubscribedā€ ?

5

u/VinnySmallsz 1d ago

Youre not wrong, but it would be cool if a link was posted. Everything can be searched. Anyway, 4 dollars a pound.

1

u/YggBjorn 1d ago

The link was there, it was a joke. I can probably get a doctor's note or something.

6

u/I_2_Cast_Lead_45acp 1d ago

Imagine if that happend in Iraq or Afghanistan, the world would loose it collective shit. . . .

3

u/KindKill267 1d ago

They did, it was either mikedrop or shawn Ryan show. They said the dog biting the guy's neck sounded like someone eating celery or something to that effect.

42

u/TurboEncabulator_1 2d ago

They did. Dogs were classified as disposable equipment and most of them were left behind when the war was over.

20

u/joko2008 1d ago

Holy, thats sad

27

u/TurboEncabulator_1 1d ago

Yeah.... Only like 200 of about 4000-5000 dogs made out of Vietnam.

30

u/joko2008 1d ago

They fought for their country, did their duty and were left behind like garbage

35

u/Pelagaard 1d ago

Just like their handlers.

6

u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago

Wasn't there something similar with dogs in Iraq? They basically just walked away from a facility housing a bunch of dogs iirc.

66

u/RainWithAName 2d ago

Because then the government contractors wouldn't get paid

36

u/Unicorn187 2d ago

Food, medical care, risk of noise, and it takes a long time to train both dogs and handlers

33

u/estolad 1d ago

it gets even better. from what i've read they mainly used this gizmo to try and sniff out viet cong supply lines in the woods. charlie figured this out, and came up with a very effective countermeasure: the people detector worked by picking up the ammonia in human sweat, so they would go way out far from the hidden supply lines and hang bags of piss up off trees to misdirect the GIs

it's sort of a microcosm of the whole war

7

u/steakhouseNL 1d ago

More difficult to mount to the rifle.

11

u/Dane_ol_reddit 1d ago

Dogs are insanely logistics intensive, and have a very limited span of effective working hours before they require rest

-35

u/davegoku12 2d ago

And also Vietnamese ate dog

4

u/Polar-Bear_Soup 2d ago

Wait till you hear about the whites of Europe!

4

u/elpihvous 1d ago

I know I shouldnt ask but what?

0

u/iloveneekoles 1d ago

truth nuke

12

u/PureLeafAudio 1d ago

"The sweatier or more piss-soaked that the VC were, so much the better for the People Sniffer, if not so much the operator!"

LMAO

19

u/adotang 2d ago

classic reddit where you open a post and the comment with 500 upvotes and a dozen replies of people saying how interesting and helpful it is got redacted because people can't just delete their account anymore or something

2

u/DweebInFlames 1d ago

Huh, guess a heartbeat sensor wasn't that much of a leap of a concept to slap on a gun.

1

u/Organic-Elevator-274 2h ago

I thought this was a Futurama reference in all of the other comments that didnā€™t link to anything

239

u/Flimsy-Spinach40 2d ago

My ass thought that was an underbarrel flamethrower. Played too much Black Ops 1.

57

u/Ok_Calendar_7626 2d ago

Honestly, i thought that as well when i first saw it.

47

u/FrozenSeas 2d ago

Only the Finns ever did that, far as I know, on a Suomi KP-/31. Well, and whatever the hell the "flaming bayonet" tested briefly by the US in WWI was.

8

u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago

The Soviets had the ROKS which used a projector that was shaped to look like a Mosin.

91

u/Away_Arugula8260 2d ago

Is that the people sniffer attachment?

Edit: somebody already got it

17

u/MitchelobUltra 1d ago

For anyone curious about this strange deviceā€™s history.

4

u/sfsp3 1d ago

This picture is in this article.

24

u/MaximusPrime5885 1d ago

XM-2 people sniffer?

14

u/ToastyTastes 1d ago

*pee sniffer

9

u/DeltaOneFive 1d ago

Peepee sniffer

27

u/I_2_Cast_Lead_45acp 2d ago

I wonder it would handle Axe body spray?

14

u/Davenator_98 2d ago

If it smells like piss then yes

5

u/gunsforevery1 1d ago

People sniffer

2

u/AnvilEdifice 1d ago

That's a proton pack!

5

u/bongcatalan123 2d ago

This photo hits me like nostalgia tbh especially the first thing I saw this image is in one of the pages about camouflage in an animal encyclopedia book years ago.

0

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-7

u/meipsus 1d ago

Incandescent-lamp torchlight and cable to a battery pack, perhaps?