The Most TERRIFYING Machine Gun of Vietnam You've Never Heard Of
Warfare Unclassified
15,620 views
The Army called it "unacceptable for general service." The Marines formally recommended it for adoption. Navy SEALs ran it through 1,345 combat missions and said it beat the M60 outright. This is the real story of the Stoner 63 Weapon System — Eugene Stoner's modular, belt-fed answer to the M16, and the machine gun that split three branches of the U.S. military right down the middle.
We dig into how one receiver became six interchangeable weapons, why the Marine Corps' Vietnam combat trials came back glowing while the Army's own testing tore it apart, and how that gap in verdicts led straight to the SEAL Teams adopting the Stoner 63A and the ultra-rare Mark 23 Mod Zero for riverine operations in the Mekong Delta. Fewer than 4,000 were ever built — a rounding error next to the millions of M16s and M60s fielded in the same war — but in the hands of the men who maintained it obsessively, it outperformed everything else in the U.S. arsenal.
This isn't just another "forgotten gun" video. It's the story of what happens when a weapon demands more discipline than a mass-issue army can guarantee, and why that same weapon became a legend inside the one community built to give it that care.
If you're into Vietnam War history, Cold War small arms, SEAL Team history, or the weapons that never made it into the standard-issue textbooks, this one's for you.
Subscribe to Warfare Unclassified for more deep dives into the weapons history left behind.
Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open: Ambush on the Mekong Delta
1:11 The System Was Called... (Meet the Stoner 63)
2:19 One Receiver, Six Weapons
4:09 The Marines Try It
6:28 The Army Says No
7:58 Into the Delta: The SEAL Teams Take Over
9:44 The Mark 23 Mod Zero
11:31 The Point: Why It Never Scaled
13:15 Legacy: Grenada and Beyond
14:43 Outro: The Design Finding Its Unit
16 Comments
Even if it were a short barrel and you could carry a long barrel with to adjust to different conditions?
Why do you think nobody in the military is really the type the military wants ? The reason is veterans have been telling their children not to join for decades now going back to the late 70`s in the 80`s they started taking whatever they could find that`s why it has waivers for everything it at one point would not consider a recruit for service...That`s the reason for the draft, it can not survive taking whatever it can find but i think it will backfire too,possibly being a tipping point for social upheaval here at home.
The Most TERRIFYING Machine Gun of Vietnam You've Never Heard Of
Warfare Unclassified
15,620 views
The Army called it "unacceptable for general service." The Marines formally recommended it for adoption. Navy SEALs ran it through 1,345 combat missions and said it beat the M60 outright. This is the real story of the Stoner 63 Weapon System — Eugene Stoner's modular, belt-fed answer to the M16, and the machine gun that split three branches of the U.S. military right down the middle.
We dig into how one receiver became six interchangeable weapons, why the Marine Corps' Vietnam combat trials came back glowing while the Army's own testing tore it apart, and how that gap in verdicts led straight to the SEAL Teams adopting the Stoner 63A and the ultra-rare Mark 23 Mod Zero for riverine operations in the Mekong Delta. Fewer than 4,000 were ever built — a rounding error next to the millions of M16s and M60s fielded in the same war — but in the hands of the men who maintained it obsessively, it outperformed everything else in the U.S. arsenal.
This isn't just another "forgotten gun" video. It's the story of what happens when a weapon demands more discipline than a mass-issue army can guarantee, and why that same weapon became a legend inside the one community built to give it that care.
If you're into Vietnam War history, Cold War small arms, SEAL Team history, or the weapons that never made it into the standard-issue textbooks, this one's for you.
Subscribe to Warfare Unclassified for more deep dives into the weapons history left behind.
Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open: Ambush on the Mekong Delta
1:11 The System Was Called... (Meet the Stoner 63)
2:19 One Receiver, Six Weapons
4:09 The Marines Try It
6:28 The Army Says No
7:58 Into the Delta: The SEAL Teams Take Over
9:44 The Mark 23 Mod Zero
11:31 The Point: Why It Never Scaled
13:15 Legacy: Grenada and Beyond
14:43 Outro: The Design Finding Its Unit