Something old is new again
A ceremonial handover took place at Robertson Barracks in Darwin today marking the introduction of the fighting vehicle to the army’s 7th Battalion.
The vehicles are not new but are an upgraded and redesigned version of the Vietnam-era M113 personnel carrier.
The old APC with 7RAR on operations in Vietnam-1970
The new APC almost ready for deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan – 2007
The old APC with 7RAR on operations in Vietnam-1970
The new APC almost ready for deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan – 2007
“The extensive upgrade to the M113s have successfully concluded a long and rigorous testing program and the ADF (Australian Defence Force) will receive a vehicle that delivers increased firepower, protection and mobility,” said 7RAR commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Gabriel.Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Gabriel emailed me yesterday highlighting the event and in reply I wondered;
I don’t know how many APC fleet upgrades or buys there has been but I wonder whether the APC that we trained on in 1968 in Puckapunyal could be there in it’s second or third life. I recall Normie Rowe (the Pop Star) as the driver of our track and Kevin C*** as the Ops O. Are some of the new fleet that old or is it just us?It’s a rhetorical question but an answer would be interesting. More on the upgrade at Tenix, the contractor responsible and here for the 7RAR website.
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Dunno how new it is – the ‘improved seating’ looks like the crappy fold down bit of tin I remember sitting on.
A 7.62mm MG instead of a nice big .50 or chain gun?
A flat bottom so it’ll be a death trap in an ‘IED rich environment’.
The yanks have upgraded 113s in service in Iraq and big (and smaller ones as well) bombs flip them off the road onto their roofs and kill all the occupants.
It’s why they are upgrading to their new MRAPs.
I’m a relatively frequent visitor to Thales and their designers are horrified at the thought of old fashioned APCs going to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Bushmasters have survived much bigger bombs than 113s without injury to the crews.
The Dutch love them, the poms are jealous but the rest of NATO don’t care because they don’t go outside the wire.
Kev
Could well be – the “Grandfather’s Axe” principle applies.
In 1989, during the pilots strike, I traveled from Townsville to Brisbane on the same C-130 Herc that flew us from Richmond to Rockhampton en route to Shoalwater in 1969.The plane smelled the same. The tail number was the same ( I record them – It’s a minor obsession).
I was with some colleagues who were going to a principals’ conference and was able to warn them to organise themselves in the queue so that we avoided the narrower section of the fuselage which houses the undercarriage.
They were very nervous when I told them that I’d flown on the same aircraft twenty years prior.
Yes, I think Grandfathers axe is almost right. I understand the hulls and chassis are the same though
The hull is the same only to the extent that it is the same high grade alloy and basic design principles. The rest is new. It would be fair to assume that the majority of hulls were around during the Vietnam era, although it must be said only a small proportion actually got to drive around SVN. Not all of them came back either.
The first vehicle I drove in a unit was a former mine damaged M106 that had been converted into a M125. It still had the original TGM120 Record of Service and slight bulge in the driver’s hole where a previous occupant had been hit with a mine in SVN and thence repaired.
…although it must be said only a small proportion actually got to drive around SVN
I would’ve thought most of the vehicles in RAAC’s inventory during the war would’ve seen service in SVN or are you saying that most of the hulls still around from that era came into service late and for that reason didn’t drive around SVN?