Paraguay keeping M3 Stuart, M4 Sherman tanks in service

The M3 Stuart light tank and M4 Sherman main battle tank, both nearly 75 years old, appear to be going back into service with the Paraguayan Army as operational trainers.

Although the Paraguayan Army made a brief use of Italian Ansaldo CV33s, the M3 and M3A1s were its first real tanks. A total of 15 M3s were delivered in 1970 in three successive lots as donations from neighbouring Brazil. Paraguay's Stuart tanks first served with Cavalry Regiment NÂ°3 (Regimiento de CaballerÃa NÂ°3: RC3), part of 1st Cavalry Division (DivisiÃ³n de Caballeria 1: DC1), headquartered at Campo Grande near Paraguay's capital, Asuncion.

Since then - and aside from their part in the 1989 coup d'Ã©tat that ousted General Alfredo Stroessner, then President of Paraguay - M3s have occasionally participated in the country's 15 May military parade in Asuncion. For the most part the tanks were mainly out of action, having been stored following a threatened army coup in 1996, until the last several years in which efforts have been made to get a portion of the fleet back in operational condition.

"The M3 Stuart light tank and M4 Sherman main battle tank, both nearly 75 years old, appear to be going back into service with the Paraguayan Army as operational trainers. "

If they keep 'em a little longer, they'll be able to upgrade them with railgun turrets.

(This image is sci-fi, not prototype)

Sci-fi for now, perhaps. Wire-guided or laser-guided fire-and forget 10km missiles first, railguns next. And then, Artificial Intelligence augmentation?

My forty-seven pairs of flint-steel roadwheels are in depot condition. Their tires of spun beryllium monocrystal, woven to deform rather than compress, all have 97 percent or better of their fabric unbroken. The immediate terrain is semi-arid. The briefing files inform me this is typical of the planet. My track links purr among themselves as they grind through scrub vegetation and the friable soil, carrying me to my assigned mission.

There is a cataclysmic fuel-air explosion to the east behind me. The glare is visible for 5.3 seconds, and the ground will shake for many minutes as shock waves echo through the planetary mantle.

Had my human superiors so chosen, I could be replacing Saratoga at the spearhead of the attack.

The rear elements of the infantry are in sight now. They look like dung beetles in their hard suits, crawling backward beneath a rain of shrapnel. I am within range of their low-power communications net. "Hold what you got, troops," orders the unit's acting commander. "Big Brother's come to help!"

I am not Big Brother. I am Maldon, a Mark XXX Bolo of the 3rd Battalion, Dinochrome Brigade. The lineage of our unit goes back to the 2nd South Wessex Dragoons. In 1944, we broke the last German resistance on the path to Falaise, though we traded our flimsy Cromwells against the Tigers at a ration of six to one to do it.

The citizens do not need to know what the cost is. They need only to know that the mission has been accomplished. The battle honors welded to my turret prove that I have always accomplished my mission.

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