The Cold War: A MILITARY History (49 page)

fn3
For example, NATO’s STANAG 2805E laid down that, for unrestricted travel by train in continental Europe, a tank must not exceed 3.050 m in width.

fn4
Specifications of NATO and Warsaw Pact main battle tanks are given in
Appendix 25
.

fn5
The use of a projectile with a smaller calibre than that of the barrel enabled higher velocities to be obtained. The sabot was a segmented jacket which held the projectile in place as it travelled up the jacket but then fell away immediately after leaving the muzzle.

fn6
Also known as high-explosive squash head (HESH) in the British army.

fn7
The technical term is ‘trunnion tilt’, the trunnion being the bearings upon which the barrel is mounted.

fn8
The principal British armoured-vehicle research centre was located at Chobham in Berkshire.

fn9
It should not be assumed, however, that logistical problems did not exist. Warsaw Pact tanks, for example, used four different calibres of ammunition: T-34 – 85 mm; T-54 and T-55 – 100 mm, T-62 – 115 mm; T-64, T-72 and T-80 – 125 mm.

fn10
Italy also had a design capability, but no tanks were sold to NATO armies. Other countries had a capability to construct tanks under licence, but did not undertake design work.

fn11
Italy joined the project in 1958, but did not attempt to enter the design competition. It eventually selected the West German Leopard.

fn12
A version of the West German Leopard 2 was developed specifically to meet the US staff requirement. Designated Leopard 2(AV) (AV = Austere Version), this was tested by the US army but was rejected in favour of the Chrysler version of the M1.

fn13
It was also exported to a number of non-NATO countries, including Australia.

fn14
The AMX-30 was also bought by Spain, but well before that country joined NATO.

26

Infantry

OF ALL THE
arms in the ground forces, the infantry – arguably the most important element on the tactical battlefield – underwent the greatest change during the Cold War. Up to the early 1950s (and later in the smaller armies) the infantry was fundamentally unchanged from the Second World War, being organized into battalions of between 500 and 800 men and divided into three to five rifle companies. The main feature of all infantry battalions, however, was that the great majority of men moved on foot, as the infantry had done since time immemorial, dictating a sustained speed of advance of approximately 5 km/h, which had a major impact on the speed at which battles could be fought.

Efforts were made during the Second World War to make the infantry more mobile. Some battalions were given sufficient trucks to enable all the men to move on wheels, but, since the trucks were simply load-carriers with seats, they provided no protection and the men had to dismount in order to fight or if under threat from artillery or air attack. The trucks also had very limited cross-country capability. Attempts were made on the Allied side to introduce armoured protection, mainly by converting tanks, but the resulting vehicles entered service in relatively small numbers. The Germans produced a half-track vehicle specifically as a troop carrier, but the metal sideplates were thin and there was no overhead cover, so the protection was only marginally greater than that provided by trucks, although mobility was greater. Nevertheless, the basic problem for army commanders was that, if tanks achieved a break-through, their speed of advance far outstripped that of the plodding infantry.

PERSONNEL CARRIERS OR COMBAT VEHICLES?

As so often, the US army led the way to the next major development, the armoured personnel carrier (APC), which initially consisted of an armoured
box
mounted on tracks, carrying an infantry squad of twelve men. A far-seeing operational requirement was issued in September 1945, and the outcome, the M75 APC, entered service in 1951, setting a trend which has continued to this day.

Subsequent development followed two main strands. The first was for a so-called ‘battle taxi’ whose prime role was to move the infantry about the battlefield, giving them protection and speed of movement, and delivering them to a point near the objective from which they could then advance on foot into the assault. For such a requirement the infantry inside the vehicle needed only to be able to see out in order to orientate themselves and to be able to disembark rapidly.

The other school of thought maintained that what was required was an infantry combat vehicle, which not only carried a heavy weapon in the turret but also provided the infantry with the means of fighting from inside the vehicle. In such a vehicle, it was claimed, the infantry could actually fight from their vehicle, keeping the enemy’s heads down by the sheer volume of small-arms fire and disembarking only when actually on top of the objective.

The other main area of difference was over tracks and wheels. Tracks conferred exceptional cross-country mobility but were noisy, expensive, required considerable maintenance, and tended to damage road surfaces – a major consideration in peacetime. Wheels, on the other hand, were cheaper, more reliable, quieter, easier to replace if damaged, and, when on roads, not only did less damage, but also enabled the vehicle to move much faster. On the other hand, wheels were more vulnerable to damage, and did not provide such a good cross-country capability.

The USA

The first of the ‘battle taxis’, the US army’s trend-setting M75 APC, entered service in 1952. It carried a driver, a commander and a squad of ten men. It was of all-steel construction and was high, making it difficult to conceal, and it was not amphibious; it also had a petrol engine. Nevertheless, it was an impressive start. The M75 was followed by the M59, which entered service from 1954 onwards. This too was of all-steel construction, but was cheaper than the M75 to produce and was amphibious in calm conditions.

Still not satisfied, the US army persevered and its efforts in this particular development chain culminated in the M113 APC, which became the archetypical APC between 1960 and 1985. The original US army requirement was to provide a lightweight armoured personnel carrier for armour and infantry units; it had to be capable of amphibious and air-drop operation, have superior cross-country mobility, and be adaptable for multiple functions by means of kits and/or modification of its superstructure. The designers succeeded in meeting all of these objectives, and the M113 proved to be one of the most successful military designs of all time, with over 80,000
being
produced for service in at least fifty armies in a production run which lasted from 1960 to the early 1990s.

The M113 had a body fabricated from welded aluminium, which protected the crew (commander, driver and eleven infantrymen) from shell splinters and small-arms fire. It was powered by a diesel engine, giving a maximum speed of 64 km/h and a range of 320 km (later increased to 485 km). The infantrymen sat on two benches facing inwards, and exited through a downward-opening rear ramp. The basic vehicle was armed with a pintle-mounted 12.7 mm machine-gun, although many users mounted heavier weapons, of which the largest to enter service was a turret-mounted 76 mm gun in an Australian version. The M113 was fully amphibious with little preparation, being propelled in the water by its tracks. Apart from the normal infantry versions a large range of specialized versions were produced, including bulldozers, flame-throwers, mortar carriers, radar vehicles, anti-aircraft gun/missile carriers, command posts, anti-tank weapons carriers, and transport for engineers, communications and recovery operations.

The M113 was very successful, but one of the reasons for its longevity was the difficulty experienced in finding a successor. By the early 1960s the US army had decided on a requirement for a mechanized-infantry combat vehicle (MICV), the first attempt at which was a vehicle designated MICV-65, of which five prototypes were produced, but it was considered too large and development ceased. In 1967 the Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle (AIFV) appeared, which was in essence an M113 adapted to meet the MICV requirement, but this too was deemed unsatisfactory and development ceased, although the design was later produced in large numbers for the Belgian and Dutch armies.

In 1972 the XM723 programme started, which was intended to lead to a vehicle which would serve in both armoured and infantry units, carrying a crew of three plus eight dismounting infantry. After many vicissitudes, repeated reviews (most of them antagonistic), much criticism and many redesigns, this programme resulted in the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) and the initial production vehicles were eventually handed over in 1981, with the first unit forming in March 1983. Forty-one M2s were issued to each infantry battalion, where they replaced M113s, although many M113s continued to serve in other roles.

The M2 was constructed of welded aluminium with spaced, laminated armour on the front and sides, and was armed with a turret-mounted 25 mm chain-gun, a coaxial 7.62 mm machine-gun and a twin TOW anti-tank missile launcher. The vehicle crew consisted of commander, driver and gunner, and seven infantrymen were carried, of which six were provided with firing ports and periscopes. Thus, after a protracted and very expensive development process, the US army finally obtained a MICV which was
only
marginally better than the German Marder (see below), which had preceded it into service by some fifteen years.

The USSR

The Soviet army initially followed a policy of transporting infantrymen in motor-rifle units in motor-rifle divisions in wheeled APCs, starting in the 1940s with the 6 × 6-wheeled BTR-152,
^fn1
a very ordinary design, which used a truck chassis with a new steel superstructure to carry seventeen infantrymen. This was replaced in the 1960s by the BTR-60, an 8 × 8-wheeled, open-topped, boat-shaped vehicle, which carried a crew of two and twelve infantrymen. The original open top meant that the men could disembark quickly over the sides, but they had no protection from overhead artillery bursts, nor could the vehicle be made NBC-proof; this was rectified in later versions, which had a covered-in roof with hatches. The vehicle was fully amphibious and was powered in the water by water jets. The original pintle-mounted 7.62 mm or 12.7 mm machine-gun was later replaced by a turret-mounted 14.5 mm machine-gun, and firing ports were provided for some of the infantrymen. This was an efficient design and quite unlike anything then in service, making it another example of the radical thinking of which Soviet designers were capable. The BTR-60 was later complemented by the improved BTR-70.

Motor-rifle units in tank divisions were mounted in tracked APCs, the earliest version being the BTR-50, which entered service in the mid-1950s. This was based on a light-tank design, but, like the wheeled BTR-60, it had a large, open troop compartment, from which the men jumped to the ground. This was replaced in the 1960s by a design even more outstanding than the BTR-60: the BMP-1. This was a very low, fully tracked vehicle constructed of welded steel plate and carrying a crew of three and an eight-man infantry squad. The BMP-1 weighed 13.5 tonnes fully loaded and was armed with a new 73 mm low-pressure gun, with an AT-3 (NATO = ‘Sagger’) anti-tank guided missile mounted above it. The BMP-1 had full NBC protection and was fully amphibious, and excellent ballistic design gave protection against small-arms fire up to 12.7 mm calibre. A later version, the BMP-2, appeared in 1982; this was essentially a modernized BMP-1, but armed with a 30 mm cannon and an AT-5 (NATO = ‘Spandrel’) anti-tank missile system.

The BTR-60/70 and BMP-1/2 again showed that the Soviet General Staff and designers were capable of daring and innovative thought, producing designs which, on their appearance, caused some alarm in the West. Pictures were the only evidence that most Western defence experts had of
these
APCs until examples were captured in the Middle Eastern wars, but there was also a very lively debate in Soviet military journals on their employment in combat, with officers of all ranks joining in the frequently heated discussions.

West Germany

In the late 1950s the
Bundesheer
started to consider the design of its first Cold War infantry fighting vehicle, and, not surprisingly, it began by analysing the experiences of the Second World War
Wehrmacht
on the Eastern Front. These studies convinced the Germans that they needed a vehicle from which the infantry could fire their weapons, enabling them to fight their way on to the objective, thus protecting the infantry during the final – and very vulnerable – assault phase. The result was the Marder, the first prototypes of which ran in 1961, although there was then a very careful, albeit somewhat prolonged, series of trials before it entered service in 1971.

The Marder had a steel body, the front of which gave complete protection from 20 mm rounds. It was operated by a crew of three: commander, gunner and driver. The dismounting infantry numbered only six, sitting on outward-facing benches, four of whom were provided with firing ports. Armament comprised a 20 mm cannon and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine-gun in a two-man turret, with a separate remotely controlled machine-gun at the rear of the vehicle. All vehicles were later also fitted with a Milan anti-tank guided-missile launcher. The result was an extremely capable vehicle, highly mobile, with considerable firepower and good protection from small-arms fire and NBC, but with a weight of 28 tonnes, which made it by far the heaviest MICV to enter service. Marder equipped the infantry battalions in both tank and panzer grenadier divisions, and with periodic updates it served the
Bundesheer
from 1971 until well beyond the end of the Cold War.

Other Countries

All NATO and Warsaw Pact countries had little option but to follow the lead set by the US and Soviet armies, and to mount their infantry in vehicles. Most simply adopted US or Soviet carriers, but there were a number of exceptions.

Some armies adopted wheeled APCs. The Czechs and Poles, while following the Soviet lead in adopting a wheeled APC for motor-rifle troops, did not adopt the Soviet BTR-60 but instead jointly developed the OT-64 8 × 8-wheeled APC, which entered service in 1964. This carried a crew of two (driver and commander) and two sections (eighteen infantrymen) – by far the largest number of men carried by an APC. It was very successful, but was eventually replaced by the BMP-1.