These problems kept the M79 from being a 100% success. While platoon leaders loved the extra, mobile firepower, the individual soldiers in the field selected to carry it had a legitimate pucker factor in a close-in firefight. When your only gun is a grenade launcher, everything looks like a good target for a grenade! The gun could however (and was) also be used as a devastating spud gun for very close range targets, hopefully hitting whoever was shooting at you, but the grenade’s explosive charge wouldn’t go off. The M576 buckshot round did not have an arming fuse inside of it and would fire its load of shot at point blank range, but precious few of these were issued. The fact that it required at least 75-feet of travel past the muzzle before it armed left these solders essentially unarmed at close to moderate ranges. Due to the size of the launcher, soldiers chosen to carry it often did so without the backup of any other weapon.
The M79 began to reach the field in 1961 and soon was seeing active combat use in Vietnam. Blooper gunners in Vietnam often just carried the launcher and a handgun for protection.
