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I especially liked this quote: The Ontos carried the beehive round that sent out a hundred darts per firing to clean out a jungle of its enemy. There was no other weapon that could clear a jungle for a depth of a ¼ mile like the 106mm recoilless rifle using the beehive round.

The Marines had no other weapon that could clear out a jungle for a depth of a ¼ mile, maybe, though the *green can* rounds with 8500 steel flechettedarts and *Black can* loads for the M48A3 tank's main gun with a 1000 5/16" roller bearings in each round came pretty close.

But the Army had the M551 sheridan, with that big ole 6-inch, 152mm gun. And the M625 canister/fleshette load for it. Ten thousand little steel nails in those darlin's.... At 200 meters range, they simply shredded anything within a path 50 meters wide. You didn't even need a gunner aboard, most track commanders just *fired from the hip* from the commander's cupola, using it like a giant shotgun. Which it was.

When I was in the 82nd in the early 90's there was a battalion of these Sheridans attached to the division. I don't believe they are still there, though-last time I saw an MTOE (in a Tom Clancy book-Airborne) they had been removed from the list, so I guess now they only serve as OPFOR vehicles at NTC/JRTC and so on. Talking to the crews and such, they seemed quite pleased with them. I had a chance to see them in action when they were tested against the Armored Gun System in '95 at FT. Pickett, VA (I was on detail manning radios, pulling guard for the test site, serving coffee, the like...). The AGS had a 3 person crew with an 105mm autoloader. It had some of the same problems that the Soviets had with their autoloaders on some of their tanks (I believe T-64). Anyways, the crews still preferred the Sheridan to the AGS-which has yet to be adopted.

Again, thanks for all the great info posts