Mech Platoon: CAB or ACR

[Cavguy]

WTF with the "Gavin". No one but Sparky has ever called it that. Never heard it once in 13 years of active duty.

My M113 experience and argument here. It's simply a vehicle beyond its time. I haven't heard a single serving soldier advocate for more of them over our newer vehicles.

[Bullmoose Bailey]

WTF with the "Gavin". No one but Sparky has ever called it that. Never heard it once in 13 years of active duty.

My M113 experience and argument here. It's simply a vehicle beyond its time. I haven't heard a single serving soldier advocate for more of them over our newer vehicles.

you have now

[Steve Blair]

The 113 was good in Vietnam, once they got the diesel versions in-country, but it tended to be used more as an armored scout vehicle and fire support platform (ACAV configuration, anyone?) than it was as a transport. And they had the same reliability problems there that CavGuy mentions in his linked thread. Was it effective in its day? No question. Could we do better today? I'd say so.

And it was never officially tagged the Gavin.

[William F. Owen]

here amongst the Ptarch, the M113 is called the Zelda - cool chicks name, not some old Generals name! - It's a culture thing.

For me, what the M113 shows is the art of the possible. It certainly crushes the idea that coming up with an effective APC is the dark art that so many make it out to be.

[Tukhachevskii]

...IMO the Soviet/Russian MTLB is probably the eastern bloc's...sorry, I mean eastern europe's equivalent (at least re: 2+11 pax). It's light ground pressure footprint is truely phenomenal. If the Russian's could get half decent crew ergonomics going it might even best the venerable M113 "Gavin" (tongue-FIRMLY-in-cheek).

[Ken White]

It is in fact 1950 technology and it is in fact out of date, no question. It suffered in all versions from various shortfalls.

All of which were and are identified. All of which were corrected / are being corrected OR could easily have been -- but to do so would have killed the need for the Bradley in its time or the FCS more recently.

Thus the US Army deliberately did not consistently upgrade the 113 as they could have and arguably should have and as many other nations with less money very effectively did and still do. That's Army politics at work.

Produce the 113 with todays technology and you have a vehicle that would be reliable, have great range, is quiet, has a low silhouette and is adequately survivable when properly employed. It would also be cheap...

Steve Blair's comment on Viet Nam reliability is correct and most of the problems were due to (1) the flawed US tracks (we don't do them that well...); (2) the electrical system; the voltage regulator spec was wrong and all the early versions overcharged and thus over heated the batteries' (3) poor maintenance. Armor did a reasonable job in that latter, Infantry did not.

There may be a better all round utility track out there but I haven't seen or heard of it. It is not a good combat vehicle due to the aluminum armor -- though IIRC, some composite hull trial versions have been built. -- and Steve's right, no one ever called that a Gavin except Sparky and his readers...

[Fuchs]

Produce the 113 with todays technology and you have a vehicle that would be reliable, have great range, is quiet, has a low silhouette and is adequately survivable when properly employed. It would also be cheap...

Hmm, maybe if you think one million or two was cheap.

The modern equivalent is the tracked SEP version, and the project starved (almost) because the 8x8 fashion and MRAP fashion stripped it off cash.
Its 6x6 version (there was one 6x6 and one band track version) was turned into a 8x8 version.

http://media.defenseindustrydaily.co..._Summer_lg.jpg

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/sep/

http://www.baesystems.com/BAEProd/gr...agg_sep_4s.pdf

[Ken White]

Hmm, maybe if you think one million or two was cheap.

it is...