Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
I've always found it interesting that some other countries saw the potential in the M551 when it seemed that the US did not. I believe it's been mentioned before somewhere on this forum, that the Australian Army was testing the M551 as well as the M114 as potential vehicles for the reconnaissance role. Unfortunately the M551 was found to be a bit too delicate for Australian conditions (and the M114 wasn't found to be entirely suitable either).
It really does appear that the higher-ups in the US Army had no interest in light tanks despite their demonstrated usefulness in WWII in the recce role.
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The persistent and understandable concern is that in extreme circumstances they'll be used in place of MBTs and suffer the inevitable losses. When light tanks get hit they have a much higher incidence of crew injury and death to similar penetrations compared to MBTs owing to the fact the far heavier armour and chassis of the MBT absorbs most of the energy of the strike.
The problem with the M551 was that unlike nearly every vehicle it was expected to be perfect from the beginning when really it had several evolutions in front of it owing to it being a fairly new concept. While it looks like a "light tank" that whole concept was outdated and nonviable on the modern battlefield. It was instead supposed to essentially be a fragment-proof heavy weapons platform and reconnaissance vehicle and then had its role changed several times according to whatever fad was sweeping the various military think tanks at the time. I can understand why the US Army was suspicious of such a creature born of many fathers really.
At the time of its creation MBTs were doing away with massive armour except in a few cases and instead relying on speed and agility as it was thought that the recently-perfected chemical rounds could cut through any thickness of practical armour. This was the period of the Leopard 1 and the AMX 30. The gun-launcher allowed the M551 to mount the equivalent killing power of a 105mm+ cannon on a 15 tonne chassis (just) while still being able to defend itself from any MBTs it couldn't avoid while still being able to cross light bridges, negotiate soft ground and in extremis swim across rivers. As the Japanese found in WW2 having a pathetic tank that could get places no other tank possible could is very valuable indeed.
Now, from a US standpoint this is nice but hardly essential. They had a lot of MANPATs around of varying utility and the US owns the air in all but a NATO-Warsaw Pact confrontation and even then they intend to get
local air superiority/supremacy via clever operational methods.
However for non-US western forces as you say these little beasties become attractive because in the absence of US military support you suddenly get a lightweight support vehicle that can bring long range heavy firepower to the troops with comparatively little infrastructure. This is one of the many reasons behind the proliferation of wheeled gun carriages that are around now because even though these things can only just stop a 23mm AP round the can blow the ever living crap out of anything less than a current generation MBT. Most armies have kept these specialist vehicles lurking around for airborne and rapid intervention purposes (even the soviets kept the ancient ASU-85 because they had trouble replacing it until the BMP-3 came out). Looking back it seems these vehicles tended to get deployed far more often than MBTs did until recently and when used for patrolling and support tend to get used more often with non-US forces.
Continuing my wild derailment of the thread (I'm going to post another vehicle to bring it back on-track after this) the M551 as essentially a proof-of-concept vehicle should have changed a fair bit over its lifespan apart from the aforementioned dislike the US army power structure had for it. It had simply too little armour and wasn't even rated against 14.5mm weapons from memory in a time when that weapon was everywhere and should have had an engine and armour upgrade. As technology advances arrived they were prime contenders for upgrades and although the did get a laser rangefinder and thermal sights along with some lesser improvements in the A1 upgrade the basic problems were not addressed. Now, there is a ton of reasons for this as there were new vehicles available and no one wanted it around but if these things had been done the vehicle may have lived another ten years minimum.
Here's a list:
- Mine vulnerability
- Autocannon vulnerability
- Obsolescent main weapon technology
- Excessive recoil from main gun
- Slow main gun reloading cycle
- Main gun round fragility resulting in catastrophic loss on some penetrations
- Sensitive sighting systems
- significant dead zone between minimum missile engagement range and maximum HEAT range
- Impractical amphibious system
- Ad hoc commander's weapon mount too large
- Obsolescent commander's station with no hunter/killer functionality
- Limited sensing ability
Now the poor amphibious capability and lack of armour can all be solved by ditching the swimming aspect and up-armouring the vehicle with applique armour. This extra weight would also absorb recoil. Making an A2 version of the gun with a redesigned breech would solve the ammo, reloading and dead zone problems. Changing the missile to a beam-rider would require retrofitting the ammunition but that's a lot cheaper than making new stuff. A modern cupola would finally fix the TC's station.
At this point you'd start thinking that the XM8 Buford is just a simpler and easier system to utilise but that still only used a low pressure 105mm gun and it's inability to deal with MBTs was the whole reason the 152mm gun launcher was adopted in the first place.