Saturday, July 25, 2015

Interesting photos, Episode 3

In an effort to clear out some of the backlogged photos waiting to make it onto my blog, I'm going to go ahead and slip in another post. Again, this is a Vietnam-themed edition. 

An M274 Mule inside a Huey? Seems odd not to sling it below the chopper if you're transporting the Mule. Also seems an awfully awkward load that's probably near the Huey's lift limit. No Chinook handy?

A Marine LVTE-1. The engineering version of the LVTP-5. 

The Australian M113A1 FSV was very effective against the NVA. Not so much against enemy swimming pools. I suspect this is actually the prototype being tested for water-tightness. See the deck plate and turret ring are still unpainted?

The LARC-V five ton amphibious cargo lighter, which served in Vietnam with the U.S. Army's Transport Corps, as well as with the Navy. The first units were purchased in 1958 and the vehicle is still in service with the Navy. Upwards of 600 appear to have been scuttled off the coast of South Vietnam when U.S. forces departed!!

Proof that you can leave the searchlight off of your Vietnam-deployed M48A3 and not be a philistine. This one is also interesting because the M2HB has been removed from the coupla and mounted on a pipe welded to the top. 
 
The Army's LARC-LX (called BARC prior to the nomenclature changes of 1960), a sixty ton amphibious cargo lighter, which was also deployed to Vietnam. Entering service in 1952, it could carry a maximum of 100 tons of cargo or 200 troops. 

And finally a M-49/M-76 Otter amphibious cargo and troop carrier. Used by both the Army and Marines in Vietnam. First deployed in-country in 1965. The odd Pontiac-built vehicle had inflatable tires as road wheels!

That's all until the next post!

4 comments:

  1. Great pics. Seeing all of these amphibs makes me wonder what happened to our capabilities in the 21st Century. It seems we are no longer worried about crisscrossing the numerous rivers and streams of Northern Europe....

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    1. We seem to be very shortsightedly focused on deserts, which have no streams

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  2. The mule being loaded in the Huey... seems a lot like a 1/35 scale diorama rather than a real picture.

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    1. Possible. With the slight blurriness of the photo, it's really hard to say for sure

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