![]() They liked that Ontos was so fast and agile and seemed capable of going anywhere they went, which was more than could be said about most tanks. The Marines, on the other hand, were not nearly so fussy. The Army backed out of the project, canceling their share of the 1,000 vehicle order. 50 caliber machine gun rounds, and that the underside’s armor plate was not even half that thick, making it totally vulnerable to mines or anything that might explode underneath it. They didn’t like that the half-inch armor plating on the sides wouldn’t protect the crew members from anything larger than. They hated that the six recoilless rifles that made up its armament were externally mounted and had to be reloaded from the outside. They didn’t like that the turret was so shallow, really little more than a cast steel turntable and hatch in the middle. They hated that it was so small and too tall and that there was not enough room inside it, either for the three-man crew or for ammunition for the recoilless rifles, of which only 18 rounds could be carried. Army, and they immediately hated what they saw. In 1953, the prototype was presented to the U.S. Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections photo Two M50 Ontos from the 1st Anti-Tank Battalion move up to support a 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines patrol in the Quang Tin Province of Vietnam during Operation Iowa. Among the few things that it specified was that its running gear would be based on the M56 Light Anti-Tank Vehicle and that it would utilize the same six-cylinder, inline gas engine common to all the military’s 2½-ton GMC trucks. According to legend, the spec sheet they developed it from was only one-page long. The development contract went to Allis Chalmers’ Farm Machinery Division, with the work being carried out at the company’s Agricultural Assembly Plant in LaPort, Ind. The Ontos program began in November 1950 as a joint Army-Marine Corps program. In the spirit of cavalry, such vehicles would have to sacrifice protection in favor of speed, agility, and ability to deliver serious firepower. Part of it involved using air-transportable mechanized forces as a kind of light cavalry, capable of doing reconnaissance, and when necessary, laying extremely deadly ambushes against enemy armor. After the war he wrote a book called Airborne Warfare, outlining his vision for using airborne forces in future wars. James Gavin, wartime commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. If there was a general after whom the Ontos should have been named, it probably would have been Lt. For this reason, the NVA feared it and avoided the Ontos wherever possible.įor all its out-and-out eccentricity, Marines found it handy to have around because it was nimble and fast. And Ontos packed a punch that was way beyond its weight class. Thanks to its relatively light weight, Ontos fairly glided through swamps and rice paddies, where heavier vehicles wisely feared to tread. For all its out-and-out eccentricity, Marines found it handy to have around because it was nimble and fast. Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections photoīut fight it did, distinguishing itself at Hue, Khe Sanh, and countless other battles. Another reason was that Ontos was designed as a tank killer, but since the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) only rarely used tanks, Ontos was used mainly as an ad hoc weapon.Ī M50 Ontos during a training exercise at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., Dec. Officers might serve in an Ontos unit for a tour, but then they’d move on to something else and whatever they’d learned from it never really entered into the institutional memory. There was never a military occupational specialty for Ontos crews. It meant there weren’t enough Ontos to engage the tactician’s imagination and so it never featured in tactics problems in the basic schools. The reason has less to do with the Ontos’ battlefield performance, which at times was stellar, than it did with the fact that only about 300 were ever built, a little more than half of which survived up to the time of the Vietnam War. The M50 Ontos had to have been the strangest armored vehicle ever to make it into the American military inventory.Įxcept for some Marine Vietnam veterans, the Ontos is, today, almost wholly unremembered. With its tiny chassis, tinier turret and six, massive, externally mounted recoilless rifles, the M50 Ontos had to have been the strangest armored vehicle ever to make it into the American military inventory. Instead, the name it got handed was Ontos, the Greek word for “thing.” It was an apt name. But there was one armored vehicle that was so singularly odd and strange looking, it didn’t get named after anyone, lest perhaps, some insult might be taken. Over the years there has been the Stuart, the Grant and Lee, the Sherman, the Patton, the Pershing, the Abrams, t he Sheridan, the Chaffee, and the Bradley. ![]() Army to name its tanks after great generals.
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