Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
Okay, as someone who has had M113A3(+) in his MTOE (slat armor, cupolas, BFT, etc). They suck. They were okay in the 1960's. They're a pretty flexible vehicle. Spare parts are available.

But let's not overlook:
5) They break A LOT more than any other vehicle I had, including M1 tanks.
I followed Cavguy's link from another thread and am responding here because it seemed more appropriate.

I agree with all of your points except 5. My M113A3s were never uparmored, but they broke down significantly less than our M60 class bridge carriers, ACEs, or CEVs (my experience is late 90s, fwiw). I know that's not saying much, but of the vehicles I had in my various platoons (M113, Humvee, M548, ACE, CEV, AVLB/AVLM, SEE, HEMMT), the 113 was definitely on the "more reliable" side. Maybe my view is skewed from what I had to work with.

I never really had (many) problems keeping up with Brad/M1 equipped company teams when it was just my organic combat engineer platoon (probably a function of mine not being uparmored with slat armor, etc- I know towing the MICLIC trailer made a difference, so I can imagine that the extra armor would be just as bad). Attach the CEV or an AVLB/AVLM and I had a bear of a time keeping track of the lumbering behemoths behind me, and the tank/bradley platoons speeding ahead.