ARVN Armor.....(THEY GOT 'LINGLES' TOO !!!! )

Dontos

I stumbled onto a site which has a bunch of ARVN armor pics.

Included is this shot of an ARVN M114.

Personally hadn't seen too many, so thought I'd share it here. For those interested.

Here is the link to the ARVN Armor page:

vnafmamn.com/armor_ofARVN.html

Enjoy,
Don

MarkHolloway

I noticed an M577 with a .50 cal mounted on top.

Jens_O_Mehner

Interesting,

I never noticed before that Marvin's M48s hat A2 style headlights in combination with the cupola riser- you learn something new every day. Shocked

Sabot

.....(THEY GOT 'LINGLES' TOO !!!! )

I thought they gave shots for that back in the 'nam.

tanker2010

Jens_O_Mehner wrote:

Interesting,

I never noticed before that Marvin's M48s hat A2 style headlights in combination with the cupola riser- you learn something new every day. Shocked

That's because most of them were M48A3 MOD Bs.

Dennis_Smith · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 192

I wonder what happened to all that stuff after the war? Anyone know?

tanker2010

It got rusty.

Dontos

Dennis_Smith wrote:

I wonder what happened to all that stuff after the war? Anyone know?

This M48A3, On display in the Patton Museum, was left behind.

It had been the property of 1/69 Ar ubtil the withdrawl of US Armor forces.

It was 'given' to the ARVN, thus 'upgrading' their armor forces. It was 'rediscovered' in the 90's, by a 'private collector' during a tour of Vietnam. Sitting, since the fall of South Vietnam (1975) in a 'holding yard' of surrendered equipment.

It was 'supposedly' bought by the collector, returned to the US, fully restored, and then donated to the Museum.

Most equipment though is rusting away, if still 'out in the bush'.

Don

Dennis_Smith · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 192

Thanks for the link to the ARVN armor site Dontos. Not trying to highjack, just have always wondered what became of all that stuff. I thought someone here might have some insight.

Enough equipment was left behind to make ARVN the 3rd largest army in the world. Hundreds of brand new tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, artillery, millions of rifles.

I've heard that it was all cut up and sold as scrap metal, but find that hard to believe. I guess the forces who took control aren't saying. Can anyone provide a link to more information?

L.Delsing · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 960

Several years ago when landing at Ho-Chi-Minh City (or Saigon as a lot of locals still call it)there were platforms with at least 7 C-130s, a platform with lots of CH-47's, UH-1s, C-47s.

In musea you can find M41, M113, Skyraider, F-5s, M48 in the colours of the communist goverment.

A little of topic (no AFVs). When at the Lop buri army aviation center,Thailand in 1996 there were lots of Birddogs still in South Vietnamese colours parked which were used for spareparts for the active fleet of thai Birddogs.

Some aircraft were sold to private collectors such as Skyraider, F-5 and Dragonfly. They can make some good money I think selling airworthy Skyraiders!

Doug_Kibbey

They have collections of armor at War Museum in HCMC, and an extensive collection of stuff at the one in Hue (some ARVN, some ours, that's where I took these). When I landed at TSN in '05, we taxied past a revetment with a 113 in it that looked like it was intended as emergency equipment, though it might have been security. I know of at least one 113 with 106RR that's around in PAVN markings but on display as museum piece, so I suspect that all the captured armor is obsolete now and they probably use Russian stuff.

There are also untold numbers of "silent warriors" out in the bush where it's not practical to recover for scrap.

If you Google Earth for Da Nang,you'll find a big pile of fast movers scattered about one end of abandoned. Among them I think I can make out some F-4's, F-5's and lots of old Russian or Chinese fighters.

113 & 48: (The 113 had been armed with 106mm RR on right side at one time)

113, 41 & V100

88,42,48,113,41 (there is also, out of view, an M107 SP).