In my post the other day about a journalist getting to drive an M551 Sheridan, SFC Dunlap mentioned the old M114 Armored Recon Vehicle.
I should mention that both the Sheridan and the M114 have been fairly extensively covered here. Both are interesting, if not terribly successful, vehicles.
They’d be a blast to own privately, but weren’t terribly successful as fielded equipment.
I covered the development of the Sheridan here.
Craig had a good series on the M114 here, and another post here. There’s some link rot for the pictures, but the story still stands.
I also had a post on the Sheridan’s replacement at NTC here. Look closely, I’m on a pic on that post.
When I was a company comamnder my First Sergeant had been an 11D, the old Infantry Scout MOS before it was merged into 19D. He used to tell me horror stories about being a driver and gunner on the M114.
We used to have one as the static display vehicle in front of our battalion HQ at FT Stewart. He always believed a chariot was a better weapon system to display than the M114!
As an old (analog ballistic computer) tanker, I get more than a little ‘cheesed’ when some nimrod calls the M551 a tank. (had the R8 ASI back in the day)