Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: scw@ollie.SEAS.UCLA.EDU (Stephen C. Woods) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: U.S. Ground Vulnerablity Message-ID: <1990Sep24.002102.24929@cbnews.att.com> Date: 24 Sep 90 00:21:02 GMT References: <1990Aug22.025624.16870@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep6.154922.26471@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military-request@att.att.com Organization: UCLA School Of Engineering & Applied Science Lines: 90 Approved: military@att.att.com From: "Stephen C. Woods" In article <1990Sep14.042909.2079@cbnews.att.com> bcstec!shuksan!major@uunet.UU.NET (Mike Schmitt) writes: > > > A more recent historical event with missile-armed infantry vs tanks: > An Loc, Vietnam. LAWS vs T-55s. (I'll do some more research - standby.) Well perhaps I can shed a small amount of light on this subject, first some background. In 1968 (From Jan through Nov) I spent 47 weeks learning, at great expense to the DoD, how to speak and understand The Hanoi dialect of the Vietnamese language. At the time I was a Sgt. in the USMC. One of my classmates (a washed-out aviator) invited me to go Sky Diving, being young and foolish , I accepted his invitation and we trotted off to Ft. Meyer VA. (Just across the River from Washington DC.) At Ft. Meyer in an OLD (WWII temporary building built in 1942 to last 5 years) barracks was the Ft. Meyer Sport Parachute Club, a Non-funded operation. About 2/3 of the members were Green Berets (most of them taking various (useful?) languages to prepare for various contigency plans [Aafrikans, Etheopian, Swahilli, Xohsa, Zulu, Vietnamese, 4 dialects of Chinese, Russian etc). Two of these Green Berets had been members of the A team at An Loc, RVN. The fight for An-Loc was a minor (Sorry guys, I realise that if you're on the giving/recieving end of a firefight it's not minor, but in context) portion of the Ke-Sanh (I've probably misspelled this) AKA The Americian Den-Bien-Phu (which it wasn't at all, but I digress) campagin. The Special Forces camp at An-Loc (containing a Special forces A team, and 1 reinforced Bn of the ARVN) was overrun at night by a (small) Division or a (large) Brigade of mixed armour and infantry. The armour consisted of a small number (an estimated Platoon) 3-5 of T-55 MBT and (a Company?) 10-12 PT-76 Light tanks. The APRVN (NVA) infantry forces consisted of at least 1 Main Force Regt, I used to know the actual unit(s) involved, but I have long since forgotten. The effectivness of the various anti-armour weapons were described to me as follows: Against the PT-76 the LAAW (M-72) was effective, they got 7 PT-76's with 9 (or 10) hits. Against the T-55 the LAAW was a joke. They got 0 T-55's for 10-15 hits, it seemed that every time they hit them, the hatches would fly open, the tank would stop for about 20 seconds, then arms would reach out and pull the hatches shut and the tank would continue. The only other AT weapon that was available was the 105MM Recoilless Rifle. This was VERY (read awsomely) effective against the PT-76, the got at least 3 with 3 shots, each shot totally destroyed the tank (all shots were with HEPT rounds), against the T-55 they were also effective (2 for 3 shots, my informant claimed that it should have been 3/3 but the bunker collapsed as they fired the last round). Unfortunatly for the defenders they only had 2 105's (as I recall, 1 was knocked out by a direct mortor hit on the tube, the other by the colaps of the bunker) and the remaining tank(s) got into the compound, leaving no real choice but to ( his words) 'execute the plan B, di di mau!' (trans: go (imperative form) fast, or to quote the Messures Monty Python, 'Run away, run away!'). MBT Main Battle tank. T-55 A Soviet (Warsaw pact) MBT, aproximates the later versions of the US M48 tank, but with better armor. PT-76 An amphibious (swimming) tank and as such is very lightly armored, I have heard from people who should know that the PT-76 can, under favorable conditions, be suscessfully engaged with .50 Cal HMG (as long as you have AP/APT or APTI rounds). LAAW Light Anti-tank/Anti-personel Weapon, a disposable Bazooka short range (300 Meters), 1 shot and discard. 105MM RR A Recoiless rifle, almost a shoulder fired cannon (it's hand carriable but needs a tripod to fire), very effective, has a huge backblast that can knock down tents for 50-100 feet behind. HEPT (AKA HESH) High Explosive, Plastic Tracer, the primary tank killer round for the 105. uses a soft deforming head that squishes against the armor of the victim then explodes, the shock wave traveling through the armor causes the inner surface to flake off (spall), the diameter of the flake is ~~ the thickness of the armor, the depth is ~~1/2 the thickness, this flake is actually a cloud of very small bits of metal moving very repidly. HMG Heavy Machine Gun AP Armor Piercing APT Armor Piercing, Tracer (back glows brightly, makes it easy to see where it goes. APTI Armor Piercing, Tracer , incindiary. As above but it starts fires too. -- ----- Stephen C. Woods; UCLA SEASNET; 2567 BH;LA CA 90024; (213)-825-8614 UUCP: ...!{ibmsupt,hao!cepu}!ollie}!scw Internet:scw@SEAS.UCLA.EDU