I don't know for sure, but Littlefield's may have come from Indiana collector Fred Ropkey, who passed away around 2014, having operated the Indina Museum of Armor at Crawfordsville since his relocation from Indy.
Posted on 03/17/2017 6:09:57 AM PDT by C19fan
The PT-76 seems like a minor oddity of the Cold War — a Soviet amphibious light tank with thin armor and an unimpressive gun. Certainly it seemed bound for rough treatment on modern battlefields full of heavy weapons and heavier tanks. But the floating PT-76 chalked up a remarkable record, carrying knife-wielding Himalayan soldiers into battle, sinking gunboats on the Ganges Delta, dueling powerful U.S. Patton tanks in Vietnam, and launching amphibious surprise attacks on both sides of the same Middle Eastern war.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
“That blew up real good.”
It took some guts to ride that thing through the waves.
It probably took even more guts to ride a Sherman with the canvas sides through the waves. When I see pictures of those I think life was cheap.
I can’t imagine being in that death trap version of the Sherman tank going into the drink.
One of the videos with the original story shows a snorkel tank going through a river.
Yikes.
Oh, sorry. I thought this was a McHale’s Navy thread.
Bear in mind that we had the Sheridan - lightly armored (but with a big gun). If you were in one of those things you had almost no protection except for not being seen.
Yep.
The Sheridan was an Armored Airborne Reconnaissance Vehicle (AARV).
The trouble was, the Airborne folks wanted to use it as a tank.
Barely armored, floating bump.
The PT-76 was flimsy. M-72 LAW opened it up like a tin can. In 1972 NVA didn’t do any better with real tanks like T-54s or T-55s. Their military genius Vo Nguyen Giap sent them against us with no infantry support. Grunts with LAWs made lots of their tanks dead, too.
Indeed it was flimsy. But that was the price of making it amphibious. Against troops armed with light machine guns and rifles only it could be very dangerous. But give the troops a .50 cal or almost any heavier weapon and the PT-76 could be in deep trouble.
I recall now pix of a PT-76 that Ma Deuce turned into a collander. It was half submerged after several .50 hits made it go glub-glub-glub-glub.
The so-called Easter offensive.
http://vnafmamn.com/Valiant_Anloc.html
“By April 7 the NVA had reached An Loc, a town about 50 miles northwest of Saigon. There, the South Vietnamese government forces and their American advisors were made their stand.”
I’m proud to say that my father was one of the advisors. He said his ARVN counterparts were skeptical but agreed to have their men lay low. As the tanks passed they disabled them with LAW. Yeah, they cleaned house that day. He said they fought well.
Another thing, he said the M-16 was a “fine weapon as long as you cleaned it.” By early `72 they had the ammo and cleaning kits problem addressed.
God bless our Vietnam vets. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
I thank your father for his service and hope he is still with us. My helicopter battalion flew in the relief of An Loc & we saw lots of killed enemy vehicles along QL 19 outside the town. Volleyed LAWs could separate a T-54 turret from the hull. There were knocked out BTR-50s as well.
There were also shot down Medevac Hueys that had been painted white with red crosses. No rules of war for the NVA.
The ARVNs at An Loc outlasted the French at Dien Bien Phu and impressed us with their tenacity.
Read “Trial By Fire” by Dale Andrade, 1995, for a comprehensive account of the Easter Offensive and our last full year in RVN.
Which didn't help a lot, since one could be heard moving for about 3 miles.
I don't know for sure, but Littlefield's may have come from Indiana collector Fred Ropkey, who passed away around 2014, having operated the Indina Museum of Armor at Crawfordsville since his relocation from Indy.
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