"M551s in Europe 1985?" Topic

Did any units have M551s in europe in 1985?

Hmmmmm, perhaps one, since they were used in the 1st Persian Gulf War.

82nd Airborne, IIRC.

Most were retired prior to that, though there are a lot running around in the SW desert, pretending to be Soviet vehicles.

I have some frim an aborted Nam project and hoping to use them for team yankee

Aside from the NTC, the 82nd Airborne Div's tank battalion seems to have been the only unit still running them after 1982ish. Have them as part of a XVIII Airborne Corps deployment to the Northern or Southern Flanks, perhaps?

What Rob said – they started phasing it out in the late '70s from most units, but 82nd airborne kept theirs until the mid '90s. They even air dropped a squadron of them in the 1989 Panama invasion.

Only the 82d had them by 85. But hey, there is a war on. Sometimes you just have to use what is available and there were several hundred in storage that could have been issued to Guard or Reserve units and flown in.

We were using those in storage, for parts.

Saw a whole battalion of them that had been nerfed at reforeger (1978?). It ran into a German Leopard battalion and got the worst of it. Each side used a different color Nerf ball on their antenna and when you were hit you removed the nerf ball (you got nerfed).

From what I heard the 152mm gun could only shoot out to 700 yards and the Shillelagh missile didn't become stable till over 1000 yards. So there was a 300 yard gap where if engaged it was DOA. Then I also heard that firing the gun damaged the electronics for the Shillelagh missile.

Gamershs, I served in the Sheridan BN, at Bragg, from '85-'90. From my experience, the info you rec'd about the gap and damaged electronics are incorrect.

Those were not the systemic issues we faced.

Yea, or just backdate your conflict by 10 – 20 years.

Lots of good opposition for them to fight back in the 1960s and 1970s too, and the T-72s look a lot like T-64s to me, if you don't look too closely at their bogies.

My T-72s may do double duty as T-64s shortly, and/or fight it out with hordes of T-55s.

Yea, the range gap issue isn't a problem, since the gun covered that, and could fire pretty well out to 1,200 – 1,500m, though in a slow, lobbing shot compared to normal guns. Once they got laser rangefinders, the issue was no longer a problem though.

I've read about the guns K/O'ing the missile system, due to the shock from firing it, on the US Cavalry website, and anecdotes from guys that served in them, so I suspect they'd know. The tank would lift off back to the 2nd, or 3rd roadwheel, when it fired.

Also, the missile system was down generally, about 33% of the time anyway, due to its complications, and the status of early electronics.

Supposedly, the workaround I read was to have half of a platoons tanks fire missiles, and the other half guns.

Not sure that would really be necessary though, since if you fired missiles first, the gun issue wasn't a concern, and once the range was closed, you'd probably not survive long enough in the vehicle to worry about firing missiles again anyway. Once down to 1,000m, or so, pretty much anything could kill the lightly armored Sheridan.

Miscmini…..I would be interested in hearing more of your experience serving on this vehicle. There seems to be quite a bit of misinformation floating around concerning the gun. Please enlighten us further.

Posted this on the Cavalry TO&E thread, figured it could be useful here:

According to the US Army history ( link ) , the initial complement of 3 x M551 in each platoon was fielded by March 1971. The same year, the Army decided to replace the platoon's 5 x M114 with an additional 3 x M551. The transition was completed between 1972 and 1974, so all M114 were gone by then.

In 1978 the Army decided to replace the 6 x M551 in the Scout platoon with 4 x M60A1 RISE Passive. The exchange occurred in USAREUR between 1978 and 1979. The Army then decided to upgrade them to M60A3. The exchange occurred between 1979 and 1982 ( except for 3rd ID div cav ) .

IIRC, by 1985 only the 82d ABN had them in their organic armor battalion. Sheridans say action in Vietnam, Panama, and, Desert Storm, all as part of the 82d.

When I got to 3/8 CAV, 8ID in October of '78 the unit had just turned in the Sheridan and drawn M60A1 RISE

From the Guild and a former US Tankie:

Nice stash!!! 11th ACR didnt get M1s until the early to mid 80s, they were the M1 with the 105mm, the 120mm version didnt hit till late 80s early 90s. The M60 soldiered alomg side the M1s until the mid 90s. If I remember right the 11th ACR Had acouple companys worth of M1s, the rest of the battalions were M60s. 1st Battalion was 2 companies M! and 1 compay M60s so you can mix and match depending upon the date you chose! Also there were 3 M60a2s floating about still on TO&E. The Sheridans went on into the 90s. Hope this helps.

So go for the 11 ACR!

Tally Ho!

Hi Nick,

Was your friend an 11th ACR guy? I find this info very hard to swallow for a number of reasons:

-fielding four types of tanks at a time in one unit? Extremely unlikely from a purely logistical and crew training perspective

-I know for a fact that 11th ACR never had M60A2. There were only 6 Bn of them in Germany: 1-32AR, 3-33AR ( both 3AD ) , 1-37AR ( 1AD ) , 2-68AR ( 8ID ) , 2-64AR, 3-64AR ( both 3ID ) . No cav units got them ( link )

-a friend of mine was a 2/11 officer, and later V Corps staff officer working on the force modernization project of re-equipping the various units. He has 11ACR transitioning from M60A3 to M1 on the following dates: 1/11 ( Apr-Jun 1983 ) , 3/11 ( Jul-Sep 1983 ) , 2/11 ( Oct – Dec 1983 ) .

So yes for a short period of time M60s and M1s were in the regiment at the same time, but would not be mixed at the Squadron level.

Likewise, the M551 was removed from 11ACR in 1978 ( link ) . Interestingly the regiment did pick them back up when they became OPFOR at NTC in 1994.

Hope this helps

I shall have to query him!

Tally Ho!

I've read of them cross-attaching one company of M60A2s, or two, in exchange for the M-60A1s, in some mixed units, experimentally, so it is possible.

The M60A2s were supposed to take on the extreme range targets, while the M60A1s dealt with the others.

IIRC, they might have also done that down at the company level also, by swapping platoons out.

Hi Mako,

Indeed, I'm sure this happened in AR battalions, but I highly doubt Cav Squadrons would have done this. Trading vehicles with a unit on a completely different post would be an utter nightmare, especially if it's not even in your chain of command.

And why would a Cav Squadron want to do this anyway? They had M551s with the same missile system as the M60A2 organic to their own unit until 78/79. Then once those left they still had M150/M901 at the platoon level, so still had a long range (and much better) system organic to them.

But yeah I think fielding a mixed A1 and A2 AR battalion in the late 70s would be a feasible cross-attachment. Would be an interesting challenge for the NATO player!

2 & 3/64 Armor 3rd ID only had one company M60A2's left by late 79. My platoon was Teamed with the last M60A2 Company in an ARETEP at Hohenfels in 80, it was a Company in 3/64.

Both of the Armor Battalions in 1st Brigade were primarily completely M60A1 by late 80 early 81, and thought they had received some M60A3 in 80 as well. The 60A3 were good transition tanks for the M1 (as good as you were going to get without having M1s).

From 79-81 I never saw a M551 in Germany.

My Source's source is his brother who was based next to 11ACR so is probably about E6! A shame as it would have been a fun orbat!

Tally Ho!

Hi Lincoln,

That's great on doing the ARETEP with the M60A2 company!

I'm pretty sure 3ID never received M60A3s, as they were the first unit tagged for M1 upgrade because they were still running M60A1 RISE Passives.

For sure Nick, though if the balloon goes up, reinforcing units from the States would probably bring anything they could, so probably not inconceivable to see them in the same place!

VISMOD 551 at Fort Polk:

[URL=http://s134.photobucket.com/user/Huck1863/media/IMG_2349.jpg.html]