Quote Originally Posted by KenWats View Post
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.
Good point. My FIST-V always had problems keeping up b/c it was still an A2 version with the smaller engine. The 1SG's 113 was fine until we added all the extra stuff. My cross-attached combat engineer platoon had all the same problems.

Best use of a 113 I saw was as a tricked out "bass boat"/mini 577 for the BCT commander (basically a 113 with extra radios) - difference being he could ride around hatch open with his FSO in tow on the battlefieldof Hohenfels - since it was a light track it could get up high where the M1/M2's couldn't b/c of the goat trail conditions.