Slide 12 of 24

One country who listened and learned from the Korean War, was France embroiled in its own war in Indo-China where it was massacred several times while road-bound in wheeled armored cars. The French had successfully dismantled several M24 Chaffee light tracked tanks which performed heroically for them at Dien Bien Phu. Designing a light tank that could fly intact in available fixed-wing transport aircraft intact meant they had to keep the overall weight down. The French succeeded with the AMX-13 while we tinkered and tinkered with the gas-powered M56 Scorpion exposed self-propelled 90mm gun, the M50 Ontos 6 x 106mm recoilless rifle carrier and the abortive T101 and T92. It would take 10 years before the diesel-powered M551 Sheridan AR/AAV was fielded. Why the highly successful diesel-powered M113 Gavin wasn't cut-down to make an assault gun tank or we simply bought some AMX-13s is a troubling question still today. Details:

When the Vietnam war increased with U.S. advisor involvement, the idea was to use light tracked M113 AFVs provided to the South Vietnamese and CH-21 helicopters flown by Army aviators to maneuver ARmy of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) units into decisive battles with the Viet Cong (VC). The early results were favorable until the VC changed their tactics to gain asymmetry and exploit foot-mobile ARVN Soldier vulnerability as they left their helicopters in a large open Landing Zones (LZs) beginning at the battle of Ap Bac in 1963. The unarmored helicopters themselves were targeted by concentrated enemy fire. Pinned down by enemy fire, helicopter-delivered infantry were unable to advance without heavy casualties and had to wait for their light tracked M113 AFVs to arrive overland. Had these armored vehicles with heavy fire support been landed organic to the heliborne infantry, the battle would have gone more favorably. When the M113s did arrive, they were too late and the VC were waiting for them, concentrating their fire on the Track Commanders manning .50 caliber Heavy Machine Guns but without gunshields for protection. The U.S. advisor at the time, LTC John Paul Vann almost pulled victory from the jaws of defeat by dropping ARVN Paratroopers behind the line of retreat of the VC, but the ARVN Commander disregarded his advice and dropped the men where they had no blocking effect. Thus in this tiny battle, we would see the problems that would plague the Army years later because they did not have an integrated AIRMECH capability. Had M113 Gavins been parachute airdropped with the ARVN Paratroopers there is a chance that the VC withdrawal could have been stopped despite a poor Drop Zone (DZ) selection by a timid commander far from the action.

The Army of the 1960s looked like the World War II model and with the draft still in effect was a large conscript force whose divisions were modeled on the armored division of World War II and whose fundamental tactics were based on massive application of firepower and armored shock tactics, good for a Cold war confrontation in open terrain against massed Russian tank armies, but unready for the closed terrain struggle in the jungles of Vietnam.

MYSTERY: 101st Airborne Division had M41 Walker Bulldog Light Tanks in 1961: Where were they when the "Screaming Eagles" went to Vietnam a few short years later?

www.3ad.com/history/cold.war/abrams.htm

By Web Staff Cold War Index

Gen. Creighton Abrams
3rd Armored Division Commander, 1960-62 (for whom today's Abrams M1A2 Heavy Tank is named) "Ready to fight with gunpowder or tactical nukes." (magazine sub-headline)

In the varied and illustrious career of Gen. Abrams, the 3AD was the only tank division he ever commanded. He was also the Division's assistant commander in 1959-60. Comments by the General about the Cold War and his time with Spearhead appeared in the 1961 TIME magazine story below.

See Time's mention of this cover story 42 years later (in 2003).

And later: Commander, V Corps, Frankfurt, 1963-64

Commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, 1968-1972 (succeeding Gen. William Westmoreland)

Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, 1972-1974

Selected excerpts from the Cover Story of October 13, 1961:

"Abrams makes no bones about his pride in commanding U.S. Soldiers at a critical point in Western defenses. 'If there's going to be trouble,' says Abrams, 'I prefer to be right here and right in this division [the 3rd Armored]. This is the job I want.'"

"Abrams: 'We're ready in 'atomics' [tactical nukes], but a lot of things could happen without having to use them. If I thought only in terms of 'atomics,' and I couldn't use them for ten days or so, then, by God, I couldn't get the job done right.'"

"Since taking command of the division a year ago, Abrams has weeded out 200 officers and men who did not shape up to his standards."

"Says Lieut. General Garrison ('Gar') Davidson, 57, commander of the Seventh Army: 'The 3rd Armored will give the Reds their first bloody nose.'"

"Abrams [of his WWII experiences with the 4th Armored Div., when he was Gen. George Patton's favorite Third Army battalion commander]: 'I like to be out on the point where there's nothing but me and the goddam Germans and we can fight by ourselves.' and 'There's too much stress on taking prisoners. Our job is to annihilate the enemy.'"

Below is the Cover Story: a study of the U.S. Army and the Cold War mindset of the early 1960's

"This is the Army"

The sirens screech in the dead of the West German night. In dozens of barracks and off-base housing units, thousands of U.S. men and officers snap awake and dive for field uniforms and equipment. One by one, the diesel engines of the squat, 52-ton M-60 tanks cough and rumble to life. In quick order, the assembled units roar down serpentine German roads toward fighting positions that have long since been plotted for protective cover and fields of fire. Within two hours of the first cry of the sirens, the 14,6l7-man 3rd Armored Division of the U.S. Seventh Army is braced in battle deployment against any Communist thrust through the "Hessian Corridor'' - a stretch of gentle, rolling country that invites invasion from East Germany.

Even on such practice alerts, which take place at least once a month, the 3rd Armored had better be ready, or it will soon hear from its commanding officer, one of the toughest Soldiers in a tough U.S. Army. Says Major General Creighton ("Abe") Arams, 47: ''Our mission is to be prepared to fight. We are ready to fight." If war comes in Germany, it will smash against the U.S. Seventh Army, which guards more than 300 miles of the East German and Czechoslovakian border and anchors the NATO defense line that stretches 650 miles from Austria to the North Sea. The most vital mission in the five-division Seventh Army belongs to the 3rd Armored, which must plug the Hessian Corridor, a historic route of conquest. Says Lieut. General Garrison ("Gar") Davidson, 57, commander of the Seventh Army: "The 3rd Armored will give he Reds their first bloody nose." Wider Choice. Behind the preparations being made by Abe Arams and his U.S. Army fighting comrades, lies the decision made by President John Kennedy last spring to increase the flexibility of the nation's defenses. The main shield of the U.S. remains the thermonuclear deterrent-the strategic missiles and bombers meant to discourage Nikola Khrushchev. But Kennedy holds that the Army must also be ready to fight with gunpowder or with tactical nuclear weapons anywhere from the plains of Europe to the rain forests of Asia. "We intend to have a wider choice than humiliation or all-out nuclear action." he said in his July report to the nation.

Kennedy's personal military adviser is General Maxwell Taylor, a leading exponent of flexible warfare. Last month the Defense Department merged Stateside Army units and Air Force fighter-bomber squadrons to increase vital air-ground coordination on the battlefield. In appropriations, the Army got an extra $1.4 billion with instructions to spend it mainly on the men and materiel of limited war. Around the world, Army units are getting a badly needed transfusion of modern equipment: the fully automatic M-14 rifle (which finally is replacing the famed M-1 of World War II), the lightweight M-60 [medium] machine gun, a lighter and livelier Jeep, the M-60 tank, and enough M-113 armored personnel carriers to give a lift to every foot slogging infantryman in the Seventh Army.

Smothering Brush fires. By the end of the year, the Army will have increased from 856,000 to 1,080,000 men. Three Stateside training divisions are being elevated to combat readiness. Two National Guard divisions - the 3rd Infantry from Wisconsin and the 49th Armored from Texas - have been called up, and two more are on alert status. A total of 40,000 men will flesh out the five divisions and supporting units of the Seventh Army, which may also be reinforced by the 4th Infantry and the 2nd Armored by December. In all, the buildup this year will increase the number of Army combat divisions from 11 to 16.

The minimum aim of the Army is to be able to fight two limited wars simultaneously in such distant corners of the world as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Each of these wars would be fought by a corps of two or three divisions. Even now, the U.S. can drop a battle group (1,800 men) of the combat-ready, U.S.-based 101st Airborne Division into action some 8,500 miles away in 80 hours, and put the rest of the division on the line in two weeks. Under present plans, reinforcing divisions would travel by sea; the standard infantry division has far too much heavy equipment to be airlifted.

Another Layer. The Kennedy Administration's defense policies plainly put a life-or-death premium on Army abilities. Just how good is that Army? How ready is it to meet the critical responsibilities assigned to it?

Judged on the Washington level, there seem to be several flaws. "Attacking the Army's problems is like uncovering Troy," says one Army officer, "You always find another layer." Says a top Defense Department official: "I look at the whole mess more in sorrow than in anger." In part, the Army's troubles stem from the Elsenhower Administration's "new look" decision to get a bigger-bang- for-a-buck by curtailing the weapons of conventional war and concentrating on the massive nuclear deterrent. From a peak strength of 1,668,579 men and a budget of $21.6 billion during the Korean war, the Army slumped in peacetime to 856,000 men and $9.5 billion in 1961.

But Army leadership also was to blame, as it groped for a new mission in the age of the missile and the atom. With what money it had, the Army joined the inter-service scramble for space and developed the Jupiter-C that launched the first satellite in 1953. Army Research and Development spent millions perfecting the intermediate-range, nuclear-tipped Jupiter missile (no kin to Jupiter-C), only to have it taken away by the Department of Defense and given to the Air Force. Other sorely needed Army funds were spent on such Buck Rogers gimmicks as the one-man helicopter and back-pack rockets that would turn an infantryman into a fly-boy capable of clearing a building.

As a result, the Army was slow in developing the weapons for its historic mission fighting on the ground. Item: the Army needed only three years to create the Jupiter missile, but required twelve years to develop the M-14 rifle. Item: the Army needed nine years to develop the M-60 machine gun, which only now is beginning to replace World War II models. Item: the Army, after seven years of work, is just now beginning to get the M-60 tank, the answer to the Russians' T-54, which appeared in 1952. But Army tank experts fully expect that the Russians will soon produce a new generation of tanks that can outclass the M-60.

As the Army's Chief of Staff from 1953 to 1955, General Matthew Ridgway fought publicly for a bigger budget for conventional warfare - and was eased out of the Pentagon. General Taylor, Ridway's successor, waged a behind-the-scenes battle - and resigned in 1959 in frustration. Next came two men who have been criticized for their lack of drive. General Lyman ("Lem") Lemnitzer, 62, a military staff officer with little combat experience, served as Army Chief of Staff from 1959 to 1960, then moved up to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Kennedy have made little secret of the fact that they feel Lemnitzer does not have the forceful personality to fit the job. Lemnitzer's successor, General George Decker, 59, is a first-rate controller, a crack golfer and a man who has been described as being "as colorless as a bushel basket full of fog." Army Secretary Elvis J. Stahr, on leave from his job as president of the University of West Virginia, has yet to learn his job, recently admitted publicly that he did not know the difference between a battalion and a battle group.

"Mother!" But the farther from the Pentagon the Army gets, the better it looks. Since 1957, the Army has shucked off nearly 100,000 of its dead beat "professional privates'' that once cluttered up the ranks. A startling 83% of the enlisted men are in the Army for a career. Roughly one-third of all active-duty first lieutenants have had either ranger or paratrooper training. In the Seventh Army, nearly 75% of the officers above the rank of first lieutenant have had combat experience. "The Russian Soldier is not nine feet tall to us." says General Bruce Clarke, commander in chief of the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR) and NATO'S Central Army Group (CENTAG). Says Davidson: "The Soviet and Czech soldiers may have more rural ruggedness than our kids, but there's no mental comparison. Man for man and weapon for weapon, I'll take our people any time."

Army training methods are excellent. At Fort Jackson, S.C., last week, Company B, 2nd Battalion, 1st Training Regiment fidgeted in new, stiff fatigues and listened a Sergeant Delia Stanfill bark out the basic facts about a gas mask. At the end of the drill, after they had practiced donning the mask, another sergeant tested them by dropping smoke and tear as grenades near by. About 20 of the basic trainees bolted in terror for the woods. In the past, trainees have cried for their mothers. But, after this first day of panic, most of the trainees complete the tough. eight-week course with flying colors and move on for further instruction to the three training divisions of the Strategic Army Force: the 1st and 2nd Infantry and the 2nd Armored division. The elite of the Stateside divisions are the 4th Infantry and the all-volunteer 2nd and 101st Airborne, which make up the Strategic Army Corps, the combat-ready reserve that would be thrown into battle wherever it might break out around the world.

"Jump Again." At the 82nd Airborne's jump school at Fort Bragg, N.C., last week. a trainee leaped from a 35-ft. tower and was jerked up like a marionette by the wire attached to his shoulder harness. When he reached the ground, the trainee's lips were flecked with blood. The instructor ignored it. "Your exit was too quick and you didn't keep your elbows in,'' he snapped, "Jump again." Nearby, a captain walking behind a row of trainees suddenly barked: "Hit it!" The men bowed seemingly in unison and shouted: "Airborne!" But four who had been slow to react by a flicker were set to doing pushups. Explained the captain: "We teach them to respond instantly to stimuli, such as a command." Under pressure of this sort, morale is sky-high in the 82nd. Enlisted men call out "All the way, sir!" when they salute an officer, get the reply: "Airborne!" One 82nd sergeant trained men while encased in a crotch-to-neck cast that protected three broken vertebrae. After a recent training jump, the 82nd marched 85 miles back to Fort Bragg. Major General Theodore J. Conway, division commander, jumped with his men and hiked all the way.

At Fort Campbell, Ky., the l01st Airborne is as ready to go as a sprinter braced on the starting blocks. Everything the division owns can be carried by air except the barracks: 25-ton M-41 tanks, antitank guns, Jeeps, the "mechanical mule" (a kind of flatbed wagon), field kitchens, ground radar, and the 150-mile Honest John rocket, which can be fitted with a nuclear warhead. One company (300 men) is always ready to move out within an hour; an entire battle group (1,800 men) can be on its way in four. Every morning, every man on alert assumes he will be headed for combat before nightfall. He gets his bedding ready to lie turned in. Private cars are parked in a special lot. A folder containing each man's personal papers - including his will - is kept up to date.

Sharpened Knives. Around the world, other Army units are on the picket line. G.I.'s muffled in cold-weather gear patrol the white wastes of the Arctic. In the jungles of South Viet Nam, guerrilla-fighting experts of the Army's newly formed Special Forces teach villagers how to fire the M-1, then lead them on forays against the Communist raiders that are filtering across the border in increasing numbers. In Hawaii, the 25th Infantry Division is trained in the stealthy art of jungle warfare. During maneuvers, men of the 25th drill on techniques of getting along with native tribes, eat roots and insects served up by their buddies masquerading as witch doctors and chiefs. Dug in on the hillsides of Korea, the 1st Cavalry and 7th Infantry divisions guard the battle-torn border.

If the Communists decide to touch off a brush fire in Southeast Asia. the first Army troops to swing into action would be the 2,000 paratroopers of the 503rd Battle Group, which is stationed on Okinawa, 1,500 miles from South Viet Nam. Despite the knowledge that they are expendable troops, the spirit of the 503rd men is so high that many were genuinely disappointed that they did not get into action earlier this year during the Laotian crisis. Says Captain Jere Hickman: "We were sharpening our knives. I felt sorry for the enemy." The paratroopers share Okinawa with the rugged 3rd marine division, which also would be thrown into a fight in Southeast Asia. "We can go into any landlocked country anywhere." says one 503rd officer. "Every single bit of our equipment is parachutable. Every man jumps even our chaplains. They don't carry guns, but they can pass the ammunition."

Atomic Backstop. But of all the U.S. Army troops, the men most under the Communist gun are those of the Seventh Army in Germany. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstad calls the Seventh "the best-equipped, best-led and best-trained Army the U.S. has ever fielded in peacetime.'' Says Seventh Army Commander Gar Davidson: "I'm confident we can handle whatever the Soviets throw at us, and you can be damned sure there'll be a lot less Russians around if they do."

But if the Seventh Army is strong, NATO as a whole has real problems. The U.S. is the only major power to come close to fulfilling its troop commitments to NATO. As a result, instead of having the agreed-upon number of 28 divisions, NATO has but 22, and many of these are so undermanned that NATO'S fighting strength is equal only to 16 or 17 divisions. Against these, the Soviet Union has 20 Russian and six German divisions poised in East Germany, and could throw another 20 or more divisions into action within a week's time. NATO is especially weak on the northern flank of the Seventh Army where under-strength British, Dutch and Belgian units guard the invasion routes across the flat plains.

Were the Russians to attack and keep rolling, NATO would unhesitatingly resort to its tremendous nuclear fire power. The Seventh Army alone can can lay down a simultaneous barrage of some 200 nuclear explosions with its 280-mm. gun, 8-in. howitzers, and such missiles as the Honest John, the 75-mile Corporal, the 200-mile Redstone and the 25-mile Lacrosse. In addition, NATO'S tactical air forces, built around U.S. fighter-bombers, could unleash an overwhelming nuclear bombardment. Fighting with the atom, NATO has calculated that it could stop the Russians even if they threw 40 divisions into the attack and supported them with their own tactical and strategic weapons.

The Razor's Edge. But the Seventh Army must also be prepared to fight with conventional weapons, and no one knows it better than the 3rd Armored's General Abrams. "We're combat-ready in 'atomics.' " he says, "but a lot of things could happen without having to use them. If I thought only in terms of 'atomics,' and I couldn't use them for ten days or so, then, by God, I couldn't get the job done right."

To get the Job done right, with what ever it takes, General Abrams is honig his 3rd Armored to a razor's edge. Each man spends some 135 days a year on field maneuvers. The division's tanks and combat vehicles are kept stocked with a full supply of ammunition. Since taking command of the division a year ago, Abrams has weeded out some 200 officers and men who did not shape up to his standards. Abrams tries every day to get away from the paperwork at his headquarters in Frankfurt, climb aboard his personal Bell helicopter, and whirl off to inspect everyone in a unit from bird colonel to buck private. "No one is more deliberate in planning for war," says General Bruce Clarke of Abrams. "No one is more violent in execution."

At the Bottom. Abe Abrams has spent years living down a family nickname of "Tootsie," a fond reference to his cherubic babyhood back home in Springfield, Mass. Abrams was the oldest of three children born to Creighton Abrams, Sr., a railroad hand on the Boston & Albany, and the former Nellie Randall, the daughter of an estate caretaker. When Abrams was a boy, the family settled in the rural area of nearby Feeding Hills. There Abrams raised baby beef., ran a trap line for skunk and muskrat, patched together a wheezing Model T. and learned to shoot by drilling holes with his .22 through tin cans tossed up by his father.

In high school Abrams won nearly every academic and extracurricular honor in sight. As captain and center of the football team, he led his school to an undefeated, untied and unscored-upon season and the championship of Western Massachusetts. One day a West Point graduate lectured at school and enraptured Abe with tales of the Academy and its spirit.

As a cocky plebe, Abrams had problems at West Point. "The hazing was degrading," says Abrams today, "I gladly would have resigned at any time. but I didn't see how I could go home to face my friends and family." Abrams swiped food from the mess hall, anointed an upper-classman's radiator with Limburger cheese, kept a contraband radio in a hollowed-out corner of his mattress, and plinked away at the hindquarters of upperclassmen with an air rifle. Recalls Abrams: "The only thing in which I was outstanding was discipline. I was at the bottom of the class." What with his guerrilla warfare against the Point, Abrams stood a mediocre 185th in his class of 276 upon graduation in 1936. That year Abrams married an athletic, auburn-haired Vassar graduate named Julia Harvey, who regularly drove him to distraction by trouncing him in tennis, and began his Army career on horseback in the 1st Cavalry stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.

Born to Battle. With the 1st Cavalry, Abrams earned the reputation of being the worst polo player in the U.S. Army and mastered the day's standard tactics of how to attack an enemy tank: circle it at 15 yds. with five troopers like Indians closing in on a wagon train. Not until Hitler's Panzer divisions blitzkrieged France out of World War II in 1940 did the Army really begin its own tank program. Assigned to the brand-new 4th Armored Division, Abrams rose to command the 37th Battalion with the rank of major and drilled his tankers incessantly in marksmanship - particularly on getting in the second shot. Says Abrams: "We really shot much too much, but God it paid off later."

The 37th Battalion was a fearsome weapon of destruction from the moment it wheeled into action in Normandy in July 1944. From the start, Ahrams showed the feel and flair of the born combat man. As General George Patton's Third Army led the conquering sweep across Europe, the 4th Armored Division led the Third Army. The 37th Tank Battalion led the 4th Armored - and Abe Abrams led the 37th. Leaning out of his Sherman tank, he chomped on a huge cigar and rallied his tankers with his war cry: "Attack! Attack' Attack!" Said Abrams: "I like to be out on the point where there's nothing but me and the goddam Germans and we can fight by ourselves." When the 101st Airborne was surrounded at the Battle of the Bulge, Abrams led the relief column into Bastogne with an attack that was watched with unabashed professional admiration by Panzer Commander Fritz Bayerlein. Later, Abrams led the dash to the Rhine, moved so fast that he captured an astonished lieutenant general and his staff at their desks. Fighting far out in front of the Third Army, Abrams was frequently cut off. "They've got us surrounded again," he once said, "those poor bastards." Said General George Patton of his aggressive tank commander: "I'm supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army, but I have one peer - Abe Abrams. He's the world champion."

Because Abrams worked in close tandem with an infantry major named Harold Cohen, the Nazis assumed they were both Jewish and took to calling them "Roosevelt's Butchers." In fact Abrams is not Jewish - he is a Methodist and his ancestors were English - but he often fought as though he was waging a personal crusade against the Germans. Said Abrams at the time: "There's too much stress on taking prisoners. Our job is to annihilate the enemy." Job to Be Done. After the war, to the surprise of colleagues, Abrams calmed down enough to become a fine staff officer. He rewrote the book on armored tactics - putting the stress on the shock value of the mass attack. He served with distinction as chief of staff of three successive corps during the Korean war, and weathered the Pentagon on a tour spent working with the reserves. When he took the command of the 3rd Armored, Abrams moved into a big house outside of Frankfurt with his wife and the four youngest of their six children. The general takes his two little girls out for Sunday ice-cream treats, wrestles shoes onto the plump feet of Brucie, and cheers with his bull-toned bellow for 15-year-old John, who plays tackle on the high school team.

But in thought or action, Abrams is never far away from his 3rd Armored Division. Last week he was busily checking with his troops as they worked to master the new equipment that was flooding in. He approved of the M-60 machine gun with the cold, matter-of-fact terms of the professional Soldier: ''Now my platoons can kill more men." He listened intently as his men talked about the M-60 tank and its 105-mm. gun. "Someone who makes tanks finally started taking suggestions from the people who use them," said Sergeant Reuben Hawes. "I can shoot a country mile with this tank."

Abrams nodded. ''The Hessian Corridor is a playground for tanks," he said later, and for a moment the old light of battle flamed in the eyes of the combat Soldier. Abrams makes no bones about his pride in commanding U.S. Soldiers at a critical point in Western defenses. "If there's going to be trouble," says Abrams, "I prefer to be right here and right in this division. This is the job I want."

It is also a job that has to be done - and last week at induction depots, in training camps, and on the frontiers of the cold war, the growing, improving Army was preparing for it.

Heavy versus Light factions within the Army; what happened to the U.S. Army Airborne?

The most important innovation for "high intensity" ground war was the creation of the mechanized infantry division with each infantry battalion equipped with light (11 ton) M113 Gavin Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs), yet strangely enough noone bothered to equip the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions with them even though these were easily air-dropped by USAF C-130 aircraft just starting to be widely used at the time. In fact, the combat-proven French AMX-13 (90mm-105mm gun equipped) light tank was available for use by the U.S. Army Airborne to fill out a complete Airborne combined-arms team with the M113s carrying Paratrooper infantry but noone bothered to push for organizational excellence in the form of AIRMECHSTRIKE, Generals Gavin and Ridgway long since retired. We know now the 101st had M41 light tanks....and the 82nd M56 Scorpion assault guns.....why not infantry fighting vehicles? What's the mental block? The M113 is the AIRBORNE armored multi-purpose vehicle family.

The U.S. Army could have had Airborne MECHSTRIKE capabilities in the 1960s using the M113 Gavin long before the Russian Airborne (VDV) perfected the tactic with its BMD family of 8-ton AFVs used by her massive Airborne Divisions.

When the M551 Sheridan light tank did arrive (to replace the M41s? what were the M41s doing in the meanwhile? we were at war in Vietnam, right?) as an outcast from the rest of the Army, the 82d Airborne turned the Sheridan into a legend, becoming the first to parachute airdrop tanks into combat in the invasion of Panama in 1989. The Sheridan's 152mm main gun shock action was devastating to the walls of La Commadancia, center of gravity of the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) and was the decisive instrument in victory. When PDF dictator General Manuel Noriega surrendered to the U.S. Army there were Sheridan tanks surrounding the church he was hiding in. Later for Desert Shield they AIR deployed to stand guard over Saudi Arabia while no one else was on the scene, resulting in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard staying put, a fact that smart aleck remarks like calling them "speed bumps" cannot refute. A few years later they were poised to airdrop again, this time into Haiti and were later patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince, keeping the peace. Until the 3/73d Armor Battalion was disbanded, its Sheridan light tanks retired and the promised M8 Buford Armored Gun Systems (AGSs) cancelled in 1997, the 82d Airborne division had AIRMECHSTRIKE capabilities. At the present time the U.S. military does not have AirborneMECHSTRIKE nor AirAssaultMECHSTRIKE capabilities. The only forces America can force-entry by AIR are on foot with at best thin-skinned wheeled vehicles. Other Armies with a fraction of our budget have these capabilities; Russia, Germany, Israel, Italy, South Africa, India just to name a few.

Early AIR-MECH-STRIKE with ACRs in Vietnam but then forgotten

In 1957 the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) was assigned to Germany as part of the NATO Forces protecting the border from communist aggression until it returned to the United States in 1964. In March of 1966, the unit was alerted for movement to the Republic of Vietnam. It then began redesigning it's equipment for a new type of warfare. Adding additional armor and two more (7.62mm) 30 cal. Machine guns to the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) which had one 50 cal. Browning Heavy Machine Gun. The addition of protective gun shields for the crew and track commander. The result was a very rapid all- terrain fighting vehicle which could deliver devastating firepower. It was called the Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle or "ACAV". The Blackhorse troops arrived in South Vietnam on September 7, 1966, and quickly engaged the enemy with tanks, ACAV�s, artillery and helicopters. The success of the ACAV in battle prompted the U.S. Army to convert other M113s in other units in a similar fashion..

The main operational area was the provinces around Saigon and up to the Cambodian border. The unit clearly demonstrated it's rapid mobility when Saigon came under siege during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The unit raced over 100 kilometers in eight hours to the defense of the city and fought street by street to overcome the attacking VietCong (VC). History now points out that the Vietcong were virtually annihilated during these battles. From that time forward, the war was fought almost entirely by a well equipped North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces supplied by the communist superpowers.

In July of 1968, Colonel George S. Patton, the son of one of our country's greatest military heroes, assumed command and soon applied his expertise in armored combat and moved the armor off the roads and into the jungles in search of the enemy. So successful was the unit's search and destroy missions within the enemy's main supply routes between Cambodia and Saigon, that the enemy could no longer move freely and were forced to seek sanctuary inside neutral Cambodia. Patton coined the phrase, "FIND THE BASTARDS, THEN PILE ON."

From well established bases inside Cambodia, the communist's would strike out into South Vietnam, then return across the border to resupply and regroup. On May 1, 1970, the 11th Cav. spearheaded the historic attack across the Cambodian border to deny the enemy of these safe havens. The unit battled for more than 60 kilometers to capture the town of Snuol and suffered the first two American casualties by anti-tank fire.

The Cambodian Incursion was the last significant flexing of U.S. ground combat muscle in the war. The capture and destruction of tons of enemy weapons and supplies so devastated and demoralized the communists, that little future resistance was encountered. This resulted in a smoother transition of responsibility to the South Vietnamese military as the American combat forces continued to withdraw. Countless American and allied lives were saved by this operation which left the North Vietnamese Army unable to mount an effective offensive for some time.

After almost six years of combat, on March 7, 1972, the Blackhorse Regiment departed Vietnam after earning eleven battle streamers. One year later on March 29, 1973, the last American combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. Within two years, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese as Soviet made tanks crashed through the gates at the Presidential Palace. Tanks that were never brazen enough to stand toe-to-toe against the Blackhorse Regiment while it stood watch for the people of South Vietnam. South Vietnam's military, without the support of American combat troops was not able to defend it's country.

Essentially in Vietnam, the Army used LIGHT TRACKED vehicle (M113 Armored Cavalry or ACAV units) and Light turbine helicopter gunships, troop carriers and scouts (Air Assault units) to find, fix and gain a temporary mobility differential superior to that of the enemy, but never combined the two forms into an integrated whole. Thus, at the technotactical level, U.S. troops debarking from their light tracked AFVs or their light turbine helicopters fought the enemy on foot at a mobility disadvantage because they had to carry all their water, ammunition and food on their backs could only move at best 1-4 mph on foot while the enemy could cache his supplies and travel fast at 4-7 mph on foot, thus being free to disengage or engage at will. We had known this from the battle of Ap Bac in 1963.

At the operational/tactical level during critical battles, U.S. Army forces were able to mass by light tracked AFV and/or helicopters to repulse enemy attacks at Tan Son Nhut airbase, retake the capital city of Saigon and re-open Route 9 to save the marines besieged at firebase Khe Sanh. However, by not being an integrated AIRMECH force, U.S. forces were unable to completely destroy all of the enemy's main force North Vietnamese Army units because most would escape to fight another day as we tried to chase them at a foot slog. We did not have adequate 3d Generation AIRMECH Maneuver war means to make the enemy leaders in Hanoi give up their political aims despite their heavy losses that literally wiped out their Viet Cong guerrilla infrastructure during the Tet Offensive of 1968. We did not have the AIRMECH means to pursue the enemy and defeat him without heavy casualties of our own due to foot slogging. The enemy understanding that the conflict was a 4th Generation war battle of the mind, asymmetrically targeted the public support for the war at home in America by creating the PERCEPTION that U.S. fighting was futile by the all out attacks across the countryside during the TET New year, and in general a war of attrition by ambushing our men less mobile, on foot and running away. While the enemy lost on the battlefield at the tactical and operational level, he won on the strategic level at hometown U.S.A. This successfully created perception resulted in the U.S. policy of turning the conduct of the war over to the incapable South Vietnamese government called "Vietnamization".

After U.S. combat forces and advisors were gone from South Vietnam, the NVA in 1975 launched a conventional combined-arms attack with devastating long-range M-46 130mm artillery and T-54/55 medium tanks that destroyed the U.S. created string of artillery firebases that were outgunned with only short range 105mm howitzers. As the firebases fell, so did bases for Air Assault helicopter units and the ARVN Army retreated until the final collapse. A perfect example of how a technological material advantage in war can be quickly overcame by an enemy using asymmetric tactics.