The FReeper Foxhole's TreadHead Tuesday -The M50 Ontos May 2, 2007

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[archy]

Ontos/ 106mm Reckless gunnery Pinglist ping; On The Way!

[archy]

Actually what we should have done is developed a missile to have been launched from the 106mm RR or the 90mm RR. This could have been an over caliber missile launched by using a expulsion charge with the substainer on the missile. For example an RPG 7. The RPG 7 is an over caliber recoiles launched rocket with a substainer. Just make it bigger and put a guidance system in it. This would have kept the 106mm and the 90mm in the inventory. This would have given the infantry a capability of not having to use a $300,000 missile on a pile of dirt with the bad guys behind it.

You'd have needed MUCH better optics with an extended-range Ontos; we considered it pretty good shooting with a 106mm M40 to get a first-round hit on a moving target tank at a thousand meters, and that from a fixed position using the M8c .50 spotting rifle. Todays missile-squirters are good out to 3 klicks, even 5; and some are *fire and forget.* And they're getting better, and some have thermal night sighting units.

The real advantages of the 106 was that with the gun mounted on a Jeep towing a trailer full or ammunition, it could be kept in service with the minimum number of rounds close to the crew where an enemy hit or near hit would detonate them all. Also there was a *beehive* canister round available for the 106, which made a pretty good countersniper response.

The better way to go nowadays would be an inexpensive *dumb* nonguided projectile for the TOW II and Javelin launchers now in service, with their more expensive guided rounds available for high-value targets like enemy tanks.

Neither would the shoulder-fired 40-pound M67 90mm recoilless be the greatest weapon to bring back to service; after firing five rounds a half-hour cooldown period is required lest backblast gasses erode the breechblock venturi beyond use. Our Rangers and other lightfighters still using man-portable recoillesses now use the Swedish Karl Gustav 84mm M2 for that reason and since US ammunition for the 90mm hasn't been produced since 1973.

[U S Army EOD]

You mean the Army is still not equipped the .45/70????? I must be getting old.

[archy]

I have often wondered if this vehicle had stayed around and had been equipped with TOW’s and a 30mm how effective it would have been.

Around 1978-79 the 101 Airborne was playing with a setup using a Jeep fitted with 6 multiple 2.75-inch rocket pods from a Huey Cobra gunship. Known as *Slammer VI* the idea was to replace or augment the indirect fire weapons available to the Airborne; the pods launched 19 rockets each, allowing a barrage of 114 rockets in one go. Using the 17-pound high explosive warhead, the things put more explosive weight on target than either the 81mm or 4.2 inch mortar teams, and equalled the power of the 105 howitzer. About the only noted downsides were the facts that the M151 Jeeps weren't amphibious and that the exposed crews had no more protection from chemical attack than other exposed infantrymen; the rocket pods and ammunition were already in the 101's supply system for the helicopters, there were also antitank and smoke rounds available, and the only optics needed was a modified M43A2 sight from an M29A1 81mm mortar, a tube clinometer/ angle finder and a pocket calculator for FDC purposes.

Then some bright Sky Soldier came to the realization that the old Ontos was amphibious and certified as air-droppable. Though the 106s weren't needed for AT use since the M551 Sheridan then used offered a 152mm direct fire gun-missile system and the paras had TOWS, the Ontos recoilless guns could be retained without degrading the capability of the rocket pods, and it was found that 8 pods could be fitted to the M50 Ontos instead of the 6 on the Jeeps. Additionally, instead of the 1/4-ton M416 trailer of the Jeep that could only carry seperate rockets for reloading the Jeep-mounted pods, the Ontos could pull a 3/4-ton truck trailer carrying eight preloaded pods plus additional reload rockets.

A workable system was pieced together, and a proposed Slammer *mini-MLRS* section TO&E was developed on paper, with 4 ONTOS launchers and 6 on Jeeps, plus a few light trucks and a couple of Jeeps for the forward observer teams and the section commander. The entire project would cost less than a single tank or SP artillery piece, and the plan was forwarded to the Army Deputy Chief of Operations and TRADOC for approval.

When senior Ordnance and Artillery branch brass found out about it, they ordered the Slammer VI experiments to halt immediately, and a couple of promising careers probably ended right then and there, though noone went to jail so far as I know. Some higher-ups had good deals promised to them as civilian representatives for the General Dynamics MLRS program after their military retirement, and no troop requirement could be allowed to stand in the way of that sweet deal....

[archy]

You mean the Army is still not equipped the .45/70????? I must be getting old.

I hope you're getting old, and will get older. The alternative is boring.

[alfa6]

Did Ya notice Post 8?

he he he

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[alfa6]

Hi there archy, thanks for the comments. Somewhere I read that they tried using the Ontos on an LCM in the delta, I think it was. The results, while not bad, were less than expected and it did not go much further.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[U S Army EOD]

I remember when they did that with the 2.75”. Also what is interesting is 66mm LAW and 2.75” is the same size. You can mate a LAW warhead on a 2.75” motor and it works just fine. This was done in 1972 during the Easter Offensive in Vietnam to give helicopters an anti-tank capability. It worked great.

Take an M151 Jeep and wrap a GP Medium tent aroung it. Then pick it up and put it in the water. It floats just fine.

[dcwusmc]

Thanks for the history lessons. I sorta remember Ontos from back in the day, though I never served with or on them. I DO recall the 106 recoilless as it was mounted on the Mule (and we NEVER heard any bitching from the troops about how “under-armored” it was, either... unlike today’s Hummvee)... I would LOVE an Ontos in full working order. You load it Sunday and fire it the rest of the week. What a concept.

Again, thanks for the history!

Semper fi, brothers.

[PhilDragoo]

Had LBJ granted the Joint Chiefs permission to bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong when they requested it November 1965--

Let the slack be taken up now by doing unto Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--

The remotely detonated artillery shell--what a concept.

Here's drive-by photo of the wondrous beastie:

[PAR35]

You would need to add some armor to the bottom to use in today’s environment.

[quietolong]

Marines at the Metal Shop works to protect brothers
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1827637/posts

That’s my 2nd cousin (1st cousin’s son right?) there from Oshkosh

[Soaring Feather]

Hi Phil.

Whew, that is some mowing machine.

[Soaring Feather]

TREADHEAD PING

hehehe, cool patches alfa.

Gotta get me a new tank, that’s all there is to it. ;)

[archy]

I remember when they did that with the 2.75”. Also what is interesting is 66mm LAW and 2.75” is the same size. You can mate a LAW warhead on a 2.75” motor and it works just fine. This was done in 1972 during the Easter Offensive in Vietnam to give helicopters an anti-tank capability. It worked great.

Yep. They also started issuing recall orders for any ready reservists they could find who had been trained in the TOW missile system, then new and mostly in use aboard helicopters, or the 152mm gun-launcher of the M551 Sheridan, as most crews then in-country had only fired HE and beehive conventional rounds.

I was in college on the GI Bill at the time, got my notice and was at Ft Knox within 4 hours. I got a new issue of fatiges, boots, duffel bag and assorted other One Eachs but happily never left the 'States. But it was a real interesting Easter egg in my basket that year.

[archy]

Take an M151 Jeep and wrap a GP Medium tent aroung it. Then pick it up and put it in the water. It floats just fine.

Don't forget to close the flap for the stovepipe.

[U S Army EOD]

I remember seeing a few of the SS11’s flying around.

[archy]

You would need to add some armor to the bottom to use in today’s environment.

Or a plow out front. The M2 mine plow that's been used on the Bradley would seem to be a possibility.

And you'd need a Diesel engine that'd run on today's JP-8 fuel. Not a difficult problem to overcome.

[archy]

I remember seeing a few of the SS11’s flying around.

Yeah, they were. An early wire-guided system we'd gotten from the French in the late '50s when armed helo operations were still experimental, there were helicopter, jeep-mounted and a quad-missile truck mount setup, probably a few others too. The six-missile version on a Huey was designated the M22 armament subsystem.

Range was supposed to be 3000 meters, as the operator guided it with a joystick while following a tracer flare after the rocket's exhaust had burned out, and the tracer burnout occurred at 3KM. But it took both a steady firing platform and a skilled operator to get hits with the things, though the Israelis also used them, in the 1967 Six-Day War, mounted on old WWII US M3 halftracks. The Indians also used the SS11 during their 1971 war with Pakistan, firing theirs of the locally-produced *Jonga* jeeps also used as a 106 recoilles rifle carrier, and maybe also off of British-built Ferret armored cars.

Despite looking really fierce with multiple BIG missiles in a row, only one at a time could be launched and guided at a time, with a rotary selector used to switch the tracker assembly to the next missile if the first one missed. Letting all four go at seperate or a single target in one go was not possible.

[archy]

That’s my 2nd cousin (1st cousin’s son right?) there from Oshkosh

Tell him an old treadhead who remembers how it was sends him regards and thanks for his hard work. Semper Fi to all of 'em.