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Here's somthing else on the M113A3 Family.

Army's European Immediate Ready Force (IRF)

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2116/m113a3setaf.htm

2004 UPDATE!!!

IRF-M M113 Gavins Airlanded in closing days of Iraqi Freedom attack Phase

Interesting, check out this article in the last issue of MILITARY REVIEW:

www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/download/english/NovDec03/barclay.pdf

Seems that 4 platoons of M113s WERE airlanded as part of the Northern Front, along with a platoon of Brads and of Abrams. Would love to see the logistic AAR for that operation. The article also says an inovative e-mail based logistic system located and moved parts to the airhead with a 24 hour turn around time, without moving mountains of stuff to theater. The young sergeants and officers are doing real logistic transformation with the tools they have, without waiting for DA to do it top-driven.

Operation Airborne Dragon

IRTF 1-63rd Armor, 3rd BDE, 1st Infantry Division attached to 173rd Airborne Brigade

MRC
1st Platoon Bravo Company 2/2 IN M113A3 Gavin light AFVs
3rd Platoon Bravo Company 2/2 IN M113A3 Gavin light AFVs

HRC
2d Platoon Bravo Company 2/2 IN M2A2 Bradley Medium AFVs
3rd Platoon Charlie Company 1/63rd Armor Battalion M1A2 Abrams Heavy tanks

FSB and C4I elements

07 April 2003

Ramstein AFB, Germany to Bashur Airfield Northern Iraq 30 x C-17 Globemaster III sorties

SETAF

173d Airborne Brigade

Soldiers Magazine, the official magazine of the U.S. Army, November 2001 issue:

USAREUR's Ready Force

THE Immediate Ready Force was established to improve USAREUR's ability to rapidly respond to potential contingencies within the European Command's area of responsibility.

The cornerstone of the IRF is the Light Immediate Ready Company from the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, in Vicenza, Italy. This Airborne force is deployable within 24 hours and can be quickly reinforced with additional units from SETAF's 173rd Brigade.

The remainder of the IRF is tailored into force enhancement modules that add specific capabilities in the form of combat power, communications, military police, engineers, scouts, and tactical or strategic control assets.

The FEMs can deploy separately or together, based on the mission, to provide a capable, tailorable and integrated force.

Combat power ranges from the Medium Ready Company, equipped with M113 armored personnel carriers, to the Heavy Immediate Ready Company, equipped with M1A1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.

Key to the mobility of the IRF is its ability to deploy using tactical airlift assets already available in the European theater, belonging to U.S. Air Forces Europe. Every IRF FEM is C-130 deployable, with the exception of the HIRC, which requires heavy-lift capability in the form of C-17 or C-5A transport aircraft.

The successful partnership between USAREUR and USAFE, working together to meet the needs of the EUCOM commander, has been an essential part of the development and employment of the IRF.

Also key to the readiness and rapid deployment of the IRF is the prepositioning of equipment at the Deployment Processing Center.

Located at Rhine Ordinance Barracks, the DPC stocks complete equipment sets for the FEMs, maintaining them at a 100 percent readiness rate.

The location of ROB, adjacent to Ramstein Air Base, the primary aerial port of embarkation in Germany's Central Region, helps speed the delivery of IRF personnel and equipment anywhere they are needed. -- MAJ Paul Swiergosz

Also enclosed are other articles from U.S. Army Europe and Army Times showing how tracked M113A3s are already being used for an aircraft delivered Air-Mech-Strike capability NOW at a fraction of the cost of new purchase, less-capable LAV-III armored cars, that at 37, 796+ pounds are too heavy for USAF C-130s to airland them at forward landing strips (32,000 pounds is the limit for this) While HQDA "blew it" with the LAV-III as the IAV selection (under protest, hopefully over-turned by Congress when side-by-side testing proves M113A3s not only meet requirements, actually out-performs the LAV-III armored car) for the handful of IBCTs, the rest of the Army can still utilize the superior M113A3 Gavin-type vehicles readily available. Light tracked AFVs like the M113A3 do not need Heavy Equipment Transporter trucks. The Australian Army used M113A1s to take-down East Timor flown in from C-130s last year.
NATO Mobility study proves wheeled armored cars inferior to TRACKED AFVs in cross-country mobility

Someone at SETAF (General Meigs) has had the moral courage and tactical vision to bring back the 173rd Airborne BDE and the modernized M113A3 for a C-130 air-deployable mechanized infantry capability! We salute him for his courage and wisdom. Airborne, Sir!

However, the former wheeled armored car fanatic, Naylor still misses key points in his Army Times article:

1. M113A3s with 1.5 inch thick aluminum alloy armor can have extra applique' armor fitted to repel HMGs, RPGs and autocannons far more protective than the LAV-III/IAV's thin 14mm (1/2 inch) can accept--the bolts are there but the Army has yet to buy the armor panels. The lav3stryker can NEVER be RPG protected or even from small bullets because its entire lower body area where the wheels are at is UNCOVERED!!!! No "applique armor" here because the wheels have to turn to STEER. Those that say the lav3stryker can be made RPG protected are liars. These thin boxes on 8 air-filled rubber tires cannot even be protected from common rifle bullets and molotov cocktails let alone shaped-charge RPGs.

2. M113A3s are newly remanufactured from 1987, not "old" as rubber tire man Naylor insinuates to try to discredit them as a defacto paid hack, "yes-man" for the ruling HQDA wheeled armored car mafia. Naylor prints whatever the army tells him to print unless the circumstances are so obvious he grudgingly has to print the truth. But even then he put in his smart ass snide remarks and subtle digs because he's a civilian easily infatuated with what looks sexy and avant garde.

3. M113A3s by their low-ground pressure and tracked propulsion are far more cross-country-mobile and small-arms fire resistant than LAV-type wheeled armored cars rolling on air-filled rubber tires ever will be...

4. Put rubber, single-piece "band tracks" on M113A3s and they are even more "gentle" on third world country roads for peacekeeping operatiions, they are as silent and vibration free as a truck and lose a half-ton of weight and thus are easily CH-47D helicopter transportable as pointed out in the book;

"Air-Mech-Strike: Asymmetric Maneuver Warfare for the 21st century"

www.geocities.com/air_mech_strike
5. M113A3s can be upgraded with all the FBCB2 C4I digital gear and weaponry the Army needs/wants, transforming the entire Army one battalion in every Brigade, leaving the other battalions with M1/M2s to create a 2-D/3-D maneuver capability at a fraction of the cost that new purchase less-capable wheeled armored cars would cost!

Small Turret or Remote Weapon Station: except for the more compact M113A3 Gavin its could be a powerful 20-40mm autocannon and still fit inside a C-130 for airland or airdrop instead of the pathetic popgun the lav3stryker shoots (when it works)

Buttoned-up Squad Leader TV display

P900 Applique Armor (see photo at top of this web page)

Band-tracks

The question is WHEN will the rest of the Army, realize this?

"The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."
-- Winston Churchill

Maybe after some lav3strykers murder some of our men?

www.kforonline.com/news/reports/nr_07sep00.htm