Posted on 01/30/2017 10:02:14 AM PST by C19fan
The M551 Sheridan light tank is largely remembered as a curiosity, an innovative weapon system that proved an overcomplicated failure in action. However, several hundred Sheridans provided useful service in three wars, and left behind a small but noticeable gap in the force structure since being withdrawn in the 1990s that the Army has struggled to fill. That’s because the Sheridan was easily transported by air and could even be dropped by parachute.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
Target marker on tracks.
Didn’t they use beehives in the Nam? Or is my memory failing me, again.
They were sent to Vietnam where the NVA made mince meat of them with RPGs and mines.
Only if you did not want to use it afterwards.
>the 152-millimeter gun/missile system was never fired in anger.<
It was this I was actually questioning.
I was half right. The Shillelagh missile was never used. The tanks fired 152 MM rounds but not the missile.
As a shavetail at Fort Knox, I knew I never wanted to be in one of those things in combat.
Keep up the postings. Always informative and a topic close to my heart.
I doubt if the M-551 crews fired any Shillelagh missiles in Vietnam, but they did fire the HE and AP rounds.
That gun was so big and the tank so light it would sometimes jump off the ground when fired. The guy in the turret hatch would get banged up pretty good.
They’re looking at the wrong issue.
The real issue is whether we need an Airborne Division.
Watched the M551 fire at Ft. Knox. It had five roadwheels & the recoil bucked it off the first three & almost the fourth.
The loader had handholds & stirrups inside the turret. The TC just hung on for dear life.
In Germany M551’s were fitted with plastic shells to make them resemble Soviet tanks.
With respect to the last sentence, you most certainly could toss one out of a plane ...
... but I don't think it would be much use after it hit the ground.
C19fan wrote: “I was half right. The Shillelagh missile was never used. The tanks fired 152 MM rounds but not the missile.”
You should read the articles you post: “Had the Sheridans been forced into battle, they would have been easy meat for Iraqi tank guns in the open desert. Still, some tank-killing armor was better than none, and the light tanks did see action in the Gulf War, firing around a half-dozen missiles at Iraqi bunkers and destroying a single Type 59 tank. These were the only Shillelaghs ever used in combat out of more than eighty-eight thousand built.”
Yes to one...not yet to two.
The 152-millimeter shells made a powerful impression in a firefight, and M625 canister rounds loaded with thousands of flechettes devastated Viet Cong infantry in engagements in Tay Ninh and Bien Hoa. (from article)
Someone told me that aluminum powders in an explosion and contributed to the conflagration.
Moral of the story: Always ride on top of the hull.
bump for later
Now you’ve done it. LOL.
Ride’m cowboy.
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