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New Strategy - Wargames at Discount Prices
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Subject:
RE:Biggest gun?
Texastillidie
5/4/2005 12:42:19 PM
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The M551 Airborne Tank
See: link
And: link
The M551 Sheridan tank was designed in the early 1960's, as a need arose for U.S. forces needing a light tank. Constructed of aluminum armor, it is extremely fast, using a 300 hp Detroit Diesel engine and cross drive transmission. It mounts a steel turret and an aluminum hull. It was air transportable and fully amphibious with the screen around the sides raised. The main gun fired a 152mm standard projectile or a missile. It packed a lot of punch for a small tank. A similar gun was also used on the M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle. It is equipped with nuclear, biological, and chemical protection for the crew of four men. This enables it to fight in almost any climate or situation. The vehicle has seen combat use in Vietnam, Panama and Desert Storm, and it is used today for training in the California desert by the Armored Force Opposing Forces training center. Weight is 34,900 lbs. Top speed is 43 mph. The M551 was built by General Motors, Allison Division.
There was even some M551?s that were deployed by dropping out the back of an aircraft using a parachute or low-altitude parachute extraction (LAPE). During a LAPE operation, the aircraft flies very low over the drop zone, and the tank is pulled out the back by a parachute. The tank is mounted on a landing skid. This is why the vehicle is occasionally called the M551 ?airborne? tank. They could be dropped using the C-130 (42,000 lb max load) and the C-141 aircraft (38,500 lb max load).
The M551 Sheridan light tank parachute airdropped into combat by the 3/73d Armor BN attached to the 82d Airborne Division for Panama in 1989. The Army announced 11 September 1996 the decision to inactivate the 3rd Battalion, 73rd Armor Regiment at Fort Bragg, NC. This unit was the only light tank battalion remaining in the US Army, with the Sheridan tank.
The Sheridan's last battle action was with the 3rd Battalion (Airborne), 73rd Armor of the 82nd Airborne Division during the Gulf War. If the Iraqi Army had gone on the offensive against the 82d Airborne Division, the division?s only antitank capability would have been the 3d Battalion, 73d Armor, the antitank companies of the battalions, and the Dragon gunners in the line companies. When the M551 vehicles were finally placed in the battlefield position that they were originally designed to dominate, the long armed Shillelagh missile system killed Iraqi armor very well indeed.
The M551 Sheridan was developed to provide the US Army with a light armored vehicle with heavy firepower. The main armament consists of a 152mm M81 gun/missile launcher capable of firing conventional ammunition and the MGM-51 Shillelagh antitank missile (20 conventional rounds and 8 missiles). Due to problems with the gun-tube-launched antitank missile, the Sheridan was not fielded widely throughout the Army. The gun would foul with caseless ammunition, gun firing would interfere with missile electronics, and the entire vehicle recoiled with unusual vigor when the gun was fired, since the 152mm gun was too big for the light-weight chassis. In addition to the main gun/missile launcher, the M551 is armed with a 7.62mm M240 machine gun and a 12.7mm M2 HB antiaircraft machine gun. A Detroit Diesel 6V-53T 300hp turbo-charged V-6 diesel engine and an Allison TG-250-2A power-shift transmission provide the Sheridan's power. Protection for the four-man crew is provided by an aluminum hull and steel turret. Although light enough to be airdrop-capable, the aluminum armor was thin enough to be pierced by heavy machine-gun rounds, and the vehicle was particularly vulnerable to mines.
Initially produced in 1966, the M551 was fielded in 1968. 1,562 M551s were built between 1966 and 1970. The Sheridan saw limited action in Vietnam. Sheridan-equipped units participated in Operation Just Cause in Panama (1989), and were deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield. As projectile technology advanced, the Sheridan's potential declined and it was phased out of the US inventory beginning in 1978. The M551 was last used by the 82nd Airborne Division.
At present, Some 330 "visually-modified" Sheridans represent threat tanks and armored vehicles at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California. |
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