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More particularly, 1969 was a watershed year and some elements wanted the vehicle standardized regardless of the requirements it failed to meet because "without it our defensive posture in 'Urp would lack credibility, blah, blah..." The addition of the mine plate meant yet another requirement...

This interesting document further reveals the cavalier nature of AMC’s attitude with regard to crew protection in the M551 Sheridan. On request, an add-on mineplate kit had been developed for the M551 as deployed in Vietnam. The kit added 1400 lbs and it was concluded based upon empirical...

A .45 ACP with a still considerable 185g bullet can easily be loaded safely to 1,100 fps or ~200 fps of a comparable 10mm. I find 1,050 to be a little more reasonable but that's still 200 fps faster than hardball. With that kind of performance there is just not enough incentive to take on the 10...

There is an excellent article on the Battle of Aachen free from the online archives of Armor Magazine. Don't recall the issue but it's also described in Doubler's "Closing With The Enemy". When the M12 was sent for to reduce the formidable stone theater complex and force their surrender, the...

It gets a lot worse than that. D/2/17th Cav, 101st Abn at Camp Eagle

My "Delta Ground" unit in 2/17th Cav, 101st Abn. operated the M151A1, A2 & M151A1C with M40 RR. Completely unauthorized we moved two M40's over to M37 3/4 ton "Beeps", which was a better platform all the way around. Pics from Camp Eagle and FSB Birmingham. I'm shown in an A2 pre-mission in...

I have a RMK Model 14 and Model 16 Special #1 Fighter and they are like night and day. The 14 has a lot of heft and "chopping" potential, which the 16 Spec Fight (really the Model 16 Diver's Knife but with a full tang handguard). It is much less suitable for a chopping action, but much...

A5's as far as I know are all upgunned to the 105mm. I think quite a few went to NG units. An upgunned M48 could hold it's own against it's presumptive enemy through most of the '70's.

These were still "gassers", but with the redesigned heatshields. The 90mm was a good, old-fashioned, percussion fired rifle that was a joy to shoot. I trained on the M48A2C, which was the same vehicle, but with the excellent M17 Coincidence Rangefinder that would find it's way onto the M60...

How about the specialty gun?

I served on all those except the Abrams and they were solid vehicles for the time. The MGM-51/M551/M60A2 chain of debacles paved the way to the Abrams by demonstrating that you can't build a multi-million dollar tank for a few hundred thousand dollars, you have to go all in & plan to keep it in...

I got one of those for the CC advantages. Like a Colt GO model or M1991, but lighter alloy.

Automotively it was a hoot! It stumbled in jungle environments due to cooling systems getting fouled with vegetation (the Australian field trials of the M551 found the same). I was on the Hughes LRF test project and liked it, found it reliable. I don't think it was necessarily superior to the...

TOF to 1500 meters was ~8-10 seconds, 2,000 meters, 10-12...3,000 meters, ~14 seconds. You don't have to have practiced in tank-to-tank combat to realize how stupid that is. Tank round regularly traverse the battlefield in 1-2 seconds. AND, you can begin reloading as soon as the recoil is over...

Yep, if the missile loses signal, it is "programmed" to ground itself. This is why you couldn't pull back among leafy trees or other concealment if there was any chance of the beam being interrupted by a waving leaf. Nor could you move, nor could you reload. Time of flight to 3,000 meters was...

Countermeasures against Shillelagh were only slightly worse than what might normally occur on the battlefield, but it was an issue. Fog and weather: Post-Vietnam I was at the Armor Board and one project was an upgraded VSS-1 Xenon searchlight. We did all the work, at night obviously, at...

What you also didn't know (and many people are loathe to hear) was the extent to which you were put at much higher than normal risk (for an armored vehicle) and you were never meant to know. There were calculations made for the probabilities of "catastrophic failures" of the main gun. Amazingly...

Well, you wouldn't have much, if any, VN-issued ammo. I was with 2/11th Cav when they finally stood down and by that time (71-72) main gun ammo was in short supply. Think about it, Vietnamization in full swing and we were trying to ship stuff the ARVN would be able to use. The M551 was not among...

Official Army figures that appear in reports until the late 1950's cited a first round hit probability at 2K of .27-.38. The practical range with the tech of the 50's-60's for a first round hit was 1,500 meters. Entirely practical for a European war in the projected theater, but not good enough...

Well, we didn't have HEAT in VN, it was all about HE and Can there. The 152 round comes with a neoprene "rubber" around the case to mitigate moisture being absorbed. This only comes off when loading the round. The issue of Project Management for Sheridan/Shillelagh (the two programs were...