"NATO Cold War Vehicle Reliability?" Topic

So, my posting on the T-64 got me to thinking about Soviet/WARPAC vehicle reliability, but also NATO vehicle reliability as well.

I know the West German HS-30s were horrendously unreliable when they were first issued, since one of the commanders of a unit of them mentioned he was able to follow their moves/progress, and determine their location without the aid of radio by merely following all of the broken down ones along the way (sort of like Hansel and Gretal using breadcrumbs to mark their trail).

So, anyone have any rough guides, percentage, anecdotes for tank and IFV/APC reliability for the main NATO nations (US, West Germans, and British) during the Cold War, from the 1950's – late 1980s?

Presumably, in many cases, as time went on, armored vehicle reliability, and their weapons systems would generally improve in quality, and reliability, over time. The one exception to the rule might be when new models are rolled out for the first time, and have a lot of teething problems.

Any rough idea on the percentage of armored vehicles in companies and battalions being serviceable on any given day, like they keep stats on for aircraft?

For a major inspection, exercise, or the possibility of war, how high could they increase the serviceability levels too, for short periods?

Do they vary significantly from some of the smaller nations, as opposed to the larger ones, e.g. Danes, Dutch, Belgians, Swedes, Norwegians, Italians, French, etc., as opposed to the big three (US, Britain, and West Germany)?

I would think so, with the smaller nations having lower serviceability values, but don't really know for sure. I imagine it depends upon how much they spend on spare parts and logistics, as a percentage of their overall military spending budget.

I know in some cases they'd cannibalize some units to make others operational, in order to raise serviceability numbers as high as possible, quickly.

In most nations, since WWII to today, aircraft serviceability generally seems to run about 60% – 67% for major, first-line countries, at least before the combat sorties start.

Less so for smaller countries who spend less on maintenance and parts.

In some cases, this can be bumped up to 70% – 80%, or occasionally even higher, but few can maintain their stats at those levels for any length of time.

Vehicles that had major issues that I can think of right off the bat are:

West German HS-30 – frequent engine breakdowns

US M-114 – tended to throw tracks when moving fast, and would frequently get stuck in crossing ditches, due to its poor hull/track ratio design

M-551 – firing the gun would frequently knock out the missile system

M-60A2 – issues with the gun/missile system reliability

I noticed someone else mentioned the Chieftain had engine (transmission?) issues, but don't know much about that.

Others?

Any rough guides on what percentage, or number of runners there'd be in a tank, or IFV/APC company, or battalion at the start of a war, and after a day or two, to a week, not counting losses to enemy action?

Just to continue this discussion: How well trained the crews are makes a difference. Lack of parts also comes into play. To have spare engine packs and transmissions on hand must have been a logistical problem. Those are bulky and heavy assets that require special equipment (Cranes) to change. Reliability of those components that need backshop repair kept lots of people busy, too. There is only so much a vehicle crew can do to perform field repairs. Best way to keep them running was to apply constant vigilance to certain and known issues with their systems. Such training comes thru constant work on their machines performing preventative maintenance.

I just read where more documents were about to be declassified from the 60's. Maintenance records should be among those you seek. In-commission rates and personnel musters would be a good place to start. Also, if possible, see if you can track crew assignments. Breaking up a crew adds additional tasking to the remaining members as they get the newbie up to speed on THEIR tank. (Yes, machines can have a personality of their own!)

Hope that helps somewhat.

I recall that M113s had quite a tendency to throw tracks on slopes and curves, the frequency rising dramatically with inexperienced drivers. Also, the age of vehicles has a lot to do with breakdown rate. I remember older M113s were OOS a whole lot more often than newer ones.

I recall reading back in even the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, when we were really ramping up to give the Russkies a hard time if we went to war, there were major scandals in the news around lack of spare parts, and very limited ammo, especially for the latest high tech weapons, e.g. AAMs, etc..

Generally, I think any unit should be subject to reliability issues.

Could be as simple as a D10 roll per vehicle, with a 1-2 making that vehicle out of action.
Vehicles known to be unreliable increase the odds by one pip though it's sometimes hard to determine what is more unreliable than something else.

At the extreme end of unreliability were the FAPLA forces using Soviet equipment in Angola versus the South Africans. I have read cases of 80-90% of tracked vehicles breaking down during fairly short movements (under 100km) because crews did not even know how to perform the most basic maintenance like oil changes, lubrication and the like.

Yea, I was thinking somewhere in the 70% – 85% range for serviceability, on average. Perhaps lower numbers for vehicles/periods of known issues with very high failure frequencies.

Kyote, early ones were quite bad, from what I've read on the CIA reports that have been released (many redacted, so looking forward to the unredacted stuff).

Check out the CIA archives. They have lots of really interesting reading on nukes, relative aircraft numbers between NATO and the Soviets/W.P., etc.. You can spend hours/days perusing a lot of their stuff. Recommended.

Some warheads were as low as only about a 25% chance of going off (even for American-built weapons of poor design), but most seem to be in about the 50% – 70% range during the 1960s. As time progressed, and we got more sophisticated, that improved into the 70% – 90%/95% range.

That's why early on, important targets were planned to usually have at least three warheads allotted to them, in order to get up to a 95% certainty of destruction, not counting any losses to enemy defenses. If you take that into account, you either need more missile warheads, or bombs dropped on those targets, to ensure the 95% certainty of "neutralization".

Of course, since most were never used, we still really don't know.

Those stats are just for the nuke tips. Adding in failures to launch, rocket failures in flight, etc., would have reduced those percentages further.

As expected, Russian reliability percentages and accuracy were generally worse, and as we've seen, they tend to have lower rocket reliabilities than we do as well, as evidenced by their space program failures which are/were higher than ours.

Of course, with the shuttle disasters, and numerous SpaceX failures, I suspect we're getting closer to their numbers now.

You're welcome.

Yea, and it usually goes wrong at just the worst time.

Ran some hypothetical paper raids a while back, with Vulcans trying to get through to bomb a Soviet strategic target, just for grins. Made it past the SAM barrier along the border, and also the second set of SAMs at the target.

Of course the crew rolled a 10 when dropping their bomb, when I gave its weapon a 90% chance of detonating successfully.

Things happen.

I'd go with perhaps a 50% – 70% rate, on average, for most missiles/bombs, for the 1960s. That should work reasonably well, and for the missiles you can probably assume their failures are rolled into those values as well – same goes for strategic bombers.

Chieftains had shocking mobility reliability issues, eventually leading to a parliamentary enquiry.

For political reasons, the tank was saddled with an underpowered and unreliable motor. The nationalised and heavily subsidised Leyland Motors, reknowned for poor build quality and militant unions, provided the L60 Multifuel engine. The multifuel aspect, admittedly, was not their fault, but whilst other NATO partners quietly abandoned that impractical idea, the Brits, as is their wont, continued trying to do the right thing in the face of all the available evidence!

However, that issue aside, nothing Leyland Motors ever produced was reliable, but an attempt to increase the L60's output for the Chieftain Mark 3 plunged reliability to new depths. If the cylinder liners didn't crack, the cylinder lips seals did. The piston rings broke, as well as the gear cases. The Mark 3 had an up rated engine and strengthened gearbox that could achieve about 50% reliability across the fleet, which wasn't improved by the need for runners to tow the non starters to achieve some sort of turn out on exercises.

Eventually, the Mark 5 attained slightly better levels of reliability, albeit trailing tell tale plumes of black smoke around Germany.

Best tank gun and armour in the world at the time, worst engine!

Mind you, this was of a piece with the British Army's shoestring budget in the 1970s – the whole country was bankrupt, politically as well as financially.

My father, a REME Fuel expert advising on Vehicle acquisition at the time, told me a story about the German Army's open competition to replace their standard medium truck. Leyland motors insisted on entering the new British army truck they had just landed the British contract for (again a political decision). The British military experts in attendance were politely and tactfully taken to one side by the Bundeswher judges and informed it wasn't too late to unofficially withdraw, and did they know that even on paper the new Leyland truck did not even meet the specifications of the German truck the Germans were trying to replace!

I would guesstimate about 75% vehicle readiness (weapon, mobility, communications) for the average unit under war time conditions.

A couple of weeks into the war it would likely be 50% or lower, for units that hasn't even seen combat, due to lack of spares.

I think both sides would have material loss rates similar to the Germans post D-Day.

One thing to bear in mind is that vehicles, and armour like to be driven, taking Bosnia as an example, where the vehicles were driven most days the reliability was much higher than if they were kept in the hangers and started once a week!

As for Chieftain, as Bruce mentions, by the mid 80s it was a much more reliable piece of kit, and remember it had a BV!

Even in 2003 as during the trg and planning cycle for Telic, in HQ(7)Armd Bde the last report CO 32 Engr Regt would give was how far the Chieftain AVLBs had managed to move under their own steam before they broke down!

Tally Ho!

amx 30 were quite unreliable in their early form apparently
and we all know what the chieftain was like!

Reliability has a lot to do with maintenance regime prior to deployment. Being financially constrained by track mileage and bureaucratic rules on drive in WG during the period didn't help. We had an extended exercise work up prior going to Poland where we ignored all sorts of norms and actually used our kit. When we actually deployed we were 100% and maintained 98% + availability during the deployment. Seals were lubricated properly, battery charging regime worked etc etc. rocking your armour out of its hangar and leaving it to idle for an hour doesn't help anything

Kyote, read the book The Jesus Factor.

link

A lot of factors go into vehicle availability, not just the design: spare parts and tools availability, trained crews and mechanics, unit leadership, and time. The rule of thumb is a tank needs 8 man hours of maintenance for every hour of operation. A 3 man crew is already handicapped vs. a 4 man crew. Western armies have a much larger organization of maintenance and transportation support units than the Soviet model. And if the unit command doesn't emphasize real maintenance in the motor pool, then all bets are off when you roll out the gate. I have seen some commanders who never moved a vehicle unless ordered because they were afraid it might break down and hurt their next efficiency report.

I was privileged to command a tank company twice in the 80s, in the 1st and 2d IDs. 80-85% availability was about the norm. Dead-lined tanks didn't mean they couldn't fight if needed, but they met certain criteria for reporting unavailability. I am a fanatic about fleet maintenance (I still do it for a living) and once reported 100% availability. The Division IG showed up the next morning with a team of inspectors to verify it because no one believed me. Of course gremlins are a pretty temperamental creature and 1 tank had to start leaking fuel as they were wrapping up their inspection.

What was the old saying, "Chieftain, best tank in the world, as long as it breaks down in the right place"

It also matters just who's Army we're talking about. And just when in the Cold War. For example, when I enlisted in 1977 and Jimmy Carter was President. We were lucky to get over 50% of our tracked vehicles out of the motorpool under their own power. Many of them were rather old. Proper spare parts were sometimes not available. The military budget was a nightmare.
I stayed in the Army long enough to see a real change. After Ronald Reagan was elected, we received almost a complete reissue of equipment. New tanks, new APCs, new trucks, new uniforms. It was like a very long Christmas, of sorts. Our logistical support was almost unbelievable. During that happier time, we almost never had a vehicle that stayed down for any length of time.
Of course, I'm just talking about the U.S. Army during the period mentioned…

Not just vehicles.

Early 70s I was in the OTC using 3 25 pounders. Worked well, no mis fires or anything. Old but reliable. One exercise we didn't take our guns but but borrowed 3 105s from a Junior Leaders unit – none of them worked!

(We gave them 3 working guns back).

As a former Bn and later Bde BMO, '85-'87, don't get me started on vehicle reliability ! It was many times a 24 hour a day job. Before, During and After Ops Maintenance was the norm. As a Co Cdr of an M113 Co., '87-'89, my Op Readiness, Fully Mission Capable [FMC] Rate was always around 94-98 percent. Which took work. And more then just a day or two in the motor pool or as I said, constant maintenance on field ops. That is just the way it works, catering to the iron monsters. They had to Shoot, Move, Communicate, if any of those were not FMC. She was dead lined. Even in the ROK with the extreme winters (you remember Cold Steel !) if a track's heater was down, she was dead lined. A metal APC without a heater became an ice box inside !

I recall that M113s had quite a tendency to throw tracks on slopes and curves, the frequency rising dramatically with inexperienced drivers.

Yes driver/crew training was also important. They had to learn the techniques of how to cross certain terrain without throwing a track, etc. …

How about this:

D10 per unit/vehicle (depending on scale).

1-5: In ready order (vehicle is available, hasn't been blown up and is drivable)
6-7: Vehicle is unavailable but an older model is available (M60 instead of M1, M48 dug out of storage instead of M60 etc)
8-10: Nothing available.

Veteran units get to reroll once.

Skip the older model out of storage. War stocks are kept well back from the front lines and will probably take as long to prepare as fixing the original. Add in the difference in performance, ammo, etc and you see why you don't mix old and new together. As units get chewed up, they are consolidated with units with similar equipment. Why tie a very fast M1A1 unit with 120 mm guns to an M60A3 that moves at less than half the speed and takes different fuel and a different size round?

Never take the readiness reports at face value. To highlight Legion's comments, in the Korean winter, we backed each M60A3 up to the grill doors of another, then threw heavy tarps over the crossed gun tubes. At night, a detail would run each tank for 15 minutes, allowing the exhaust to keep the other tank engine warm, wait 15 minutes, then run the other tank. If you didn't do this, you probably won't get your tank started until March. We got a new CG who strongly discouraged the practice because our troops were out in the cold at night, but never ordered it not be done. Being a stubborn SOB who was never good at taking hints, I was the only company continued the practice. Until the sirens went off when it was about 15 below zero and exactly 14 tanks in the entire US Army in Korea made it out the gate. Most of 2 tank battalions and the ground troops from the Cav were reported as ready, but wouldn't start when needed.

It's a bit harder to maintain an MBT than an APC, anyway …

So, for the Chieftain Vs, perhaps about 60% – 67% serviceability on average?

If a bit of warning before the balloon goes up, increasing that to 80% – 85% reliability, but having a good chance for it/them to break down during battle when moving cross-country, and/or in hilly terrain?

Sounds about right, with the REME LAD and QM Tech putting in a bit of extra effort and opening the war stores…

Good point Cold Steel.

Might work into a long-running campaign that units with older kit is making it to the front lines then.

A point I don't think anyone has mentioned is that at least front line vehicle maintenance would have needed to be done in at least partial NBC gear.

Trying to repair a track at MOPP-3 would have been very unpleasant and slow work.

Quaker, I once turned a GP Maintenance tent with a tank inside into a CS chamber. Every crew had to replace a single track block in MOPP-4. It took 4 times longer than normal.

Weasel, older kit would be involved from Day 1. Many REFORGER and FRG reserve units still had older equipment. The M1 made its REFORGER debut in 1982, while the 1st ID drew M60A1s from POMCUS. There were still original M60s and M48A5s in the same depot. Depending on how much prior warning NATO had, US National Guard units could have started showing up by M+30.

Appreciate the info.
A friend of mine rode Marine M60's into Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Yea, from the Wiki list I saw, there were only 150 M-1s in Europe during the 1981/1982 timeframe, but thousands of other US tanks there, so slightly more than 1% were Abrams tanks:

1,825 M48A5 MBT
1,555 M60 MBT
5,775 M60A1 MBT
540 M60A2 MBT
1,500 M60A3 MBT
150 M1 Abrams MBT
400 M551 Sheridan AR/AAV (330 for training purposes)
575 M60A1 MBT with the Marines

Total: 12,320 tanks (min. 330 for training only)[3]

link

I don't know how accurate the above figures are, but do know a lot of Wiki info is pretty good, if you can weed out the obvious false data some like to post, just for grins.

It's also interesting to see how many of the older models of the M48 and M60 tanks, and others were still in use as well. Only 1 in 6 of the M60s was the latest M60A3 variant, and the M551 was still hanging around.

Trying to repair a track at MOPP-3 would have been very unpleasant and slow work.

Doing anything in MOPP-3 or 4 was "unpleasant" … the only good thing about MOPP was taking it off …

Depending on how much prior warning NATO had, US National Guard units could have started showing up by M+30.

If it lasted that long ?

Okay, so I've run the numbers, and here are the percentage breakdowns for US tanks, just in case you're interested:

Not including the USMC tanks

M48A5 – 15.54%
M60 – 13.24%
M60A1 – 49.17%
M60A2 - 4.60%
M60A3 – 12.77%
M1 – 1.28%
M551 – 3.41%
M60A1 – Marines - not included in this analysis, since they may be deployed only to coastal zones, or another region – Norway(?)

With the USMC Tanks included

M48A5 – 14.81%
M60 – 12.62%
M60A1 – 46.88%
M60A2 - 4.38%
M60A3 - 12.18%
M1 – 1.22%
M551 – 3.25%
M60A1 – Marines - 4.67%

So, I suspect you can use the above percentages to come up with your own US Tank Encounter Charts, using either percentile dice, and/or a D20, and rounding off, as needed/desired.

Would love to see numbers/percentages for the above, for the 1985/1986 timeframe, if someone has those, or runs across them, to see how the numbers change. Obviously, there'd be a much higher number of M1 tanks in the force.

I hope BF is aware of the above, and offers us a nice looking M60A1 variant for the USAREUR in their tank preview, tomorrow. A nice M48A5 model would be appreciated too.

Doing anything in MOPP-3 or 4 was "unpleasant" … the only good thing about MOPP was taking it off …

AMEN, BROTHER…

575 M60A1 MBT with the Marines

I'm thinking that list is global holdings for the US and not just Europe. I know that that 575 number is the total inventory held by the USMC. And while the Marines were tasked to Norway, that total would be split between all requirements (active and reserve, stateside and on float).

What would be held in Europe (active and POMCUS sites) would be different (but how many of what, I couldn't say with authority).

By '81 the M60A2 had been pulled from most/all active units (and good riddance) and were in storage awaiting conversion. And the M551 was almost all gone from frontline units (except for the 82nd ABN; they kept one BN worth up to '96). The remainder were stored or given over to the the OPFORs at the NTC as opposing armor (with suitable visual mods. I well remember seeing them there; after, of course, they had b-slapped my unit to death!). Funny thing about the M551; though the gun/missile system was a something of a flop, the automotive side worked fine.

If the poop hit the fan in the early '80s in Europe, the US/West would have needed every AFV they could keep rolling.

If it hit the fan in the early '80s, I doubt we'd have time to deploy every AFV in the inventory. Or even the Reserves and NGs. It would have been a 'come as you are' fight with what you got in the line and the POMCUS sites (assuming the latter aren't overrun by the Sovs). And we all know what THAT leads to (think 'mushroom' fields…).

It all depended on how much time between when mobilization was ordered and the first attack. A no-notice attack by the Soviets lacked the mass they depended on to win. Despite their training to do it at lower echelons, it violated the doctrine. They needed to mobilize too and we watched for indications of it. When we saw certain things, we responded. NATO expected 7-10 days from when we saw the indicators until the ballon went up. REFORGER units could deploy and be combat ready in 3-7 days. We regularly practiced mustering the brigade or whole division and could have our advance party airborne in about 12 hours.

While stationed in Germany in the 80's with the two Bn's I was assigned to. The first an armored one with M60a3's we pretty much had 100% when we went on exercises. During the exercise was the real test and the Bn normally lost 5 to 6 tanks for maintenance problems. That was out of an assigned strength of 58. The other was a heavy Cav unit.. Read armored Bn renamed Cav. We had Abrams then and I can't remember but having maybe 1 or 2 down for maintenance in The field. I was working Bn S3 at that time. As for 113's and Bradley's they were very reliable. I know for the Scout and Mortar Plt's we had 100% across the board but then if we weren't using them we were doing maintenance on them.

As a mechanic with 1st Cav during the Reagan years, I can say our company ran at 85%+ consistently. We even got a medal during Reforger '83 for keeping our POMCUS kit running at 92% during maneuvers.

The tank crews went a long way toward keeping their AFVs running. The mechanics didn't have to get involved unless we had to pull a pack (engine) or some other heavy work that required an ARV or crane for the heavy lifting. I heard our Soviet counterparts were not as well trained nor did they have the budgets to keep their machines running like we did. Those 3-man crews also had automatic loaders, which is something else mechanical that could break down with no one knowing how to fix it. Our M113s required more mechanic involvement since the platoons just used them as transports (where the tankers actually fought in theirs). Thus, line platoons didn't spend as much time maintaining the APCs as the tankers did.

When I first got there in '82 the doctrine was that maintenance remained behind & went forward for repair or recovery from the Brigade Trains area. By late '83 we were attaching a mechanic to each line platoon so that trouble could be diagnosed & repaired on the spot. We radioed back for parts, mechanic & operators would Jerry-rig something together to keep it running & the parts would get delivered to our position in the field. I spent many a night in Germany under a vehicle making repairs by flashlight.

In the 3 Mech Bns, I served in, each Mech Co. had a Maint. Contact Tm attached while on ops. The Tm had 1 M578 VTR and 1 M113. So the Wrench Turners were right there. Could pull a pack, etc., and have the track FMC in a couple of hours. Once they had the replacement pack etc. … I also remember while being attached to a Tank Bn at NTC. They replaced an M1IP pack in about 4 hours … Catering to the Iron Monster …