Patrolling through the Vietnam jungle in a tank wasn’t as safe as one might think. For instance, the enemy can hear you across a great distance and has time to prepare a welcoming committee upon your arrival. Other things that we might not have considered are discussed in this new post. Check it out…

By RJ Holland taken from Quora

Jungle combat was extremely dangerous. Many times you couldn’t see past the front of your tank. Anything could be out there waiting and many times it was. Our tanks, the M48A3 Patton tank could take a lot of crap from RPG rounds, stick grenades, and small arms fire. What gave our tanks a hard time sometimes were tank traps. Large, square holes dug in the ground and covered. Very hard to see, very hard to get out of. The L or U shaped ambushes were not a welcome thing either. But with the help of other tanks ‘scratching your back’ with small arms fire to kill the VC soldiers that had climbed onto the tank and after some desperate fighting, we usually got out of those ambushes. The grunts out in the open had it much worse. The VC usually chooses when and where to fight you. The slimy, sticky Vietnam muck, especially during the monsoon season was hell to get around in.

Anything can happen in the jungle. When you are driving your tank and crunching trees, branches, and anything else that gets in your way, it’s pretty stressful because you cannot see six feet in front of you. You are ordered to ‘button up.’ That’s really two orders for it means to close your hatch and lock the latch and that has been drummed unto you since Advanced at Fort Meade, for Blackhorse troopers anyway.

If we were lucky, we would have the engineers with us with their big dozers and their Rome plows. But they were busy most of the time so our A3s had blades that could be attached to the front of our tanks too plow a path through the jungle for the infantry.

There were lots of dangers in the jungle, from hidden punji sticks to hidden snakes. Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. Viet Cong guerrillas would often carry Bamboo Pit Vipers in their packs to (hopefully) kill anyone who searched through them.

The cartridge trap. This trap was an awful one because it was very difficult to detect. A cartridge – a round of ammunition – would be set into a piece of bamboo and lowered into a shallow hole in the ground. At the bottom of the bamboo was a board and a nail. The regular weight of someone walking on the cartridge would drive the nail into the primer, turning the nail into a firing pin and firing the bullet upward through the unsuspecting victim’s foot.

Another tripwire trap was the Mace. Once the wire was triggered, a 24-inch metal or wooden ball with spikes welded onto it, weighing 40 pounds or more, would swing down from a tree, sending anyone in its path straight to Valhalla.

A tiger trap was similar to the mace, in that a tripwire would undo the catch on a rope. Only instead of a swinging ball, the death from above took the form of a man-sized plank weighted with bricks and full of barbed metal spikes quickly falling to earth on someone’s forehead.

At any time, the enemy could jump out at you from spider holes, do some damage and disappear in seconds.

The driver actually had the most dangerous position in the tank. The driver was surrounded with extra ammo rounds for the tank’s cannon. The hatch was a little more difficult to open than the other hatches on the turret and had to be raised and swung to the right. If something in combat jammed the hatch or was lying near it so it couldn’t be opened all the way, the driver was pinned inside and burned to death then blown to hell from the exploding tank rounds inside. One ace up his sleeve was an escape hatch on the floor which was usually covered with flak vests to dampen mine explosions. If he was quick enough to fling them out of the way, grab his Car 15, and open that hatch, with a little luck he could live to fight another day.

We were issued the old M3 grease gun but later scrounged Car 15s, a much better weapon that was shorter than the M16. Took a 29-round mag, standard for US weapons. I also wore my shoulder holster for my 1911 .45 over my flack vest. A little cumbersome but if I had to get out in a hurry, I’d have my vest and my beautiful Colt. Besides, Mama made me promise to be careful and take care of myself.

Our tanks had the armor to withstand RPG hits, especially when we added Pierced Steel planks and spare track blocks on the outside of the tank. The outside bustle rack behind the turret was loaded with spare Mg ammo, c ration boxes and our duffel bags to further protect us from RPG rounds. When the round hit any of these things they would take the blast of the round and not the actual tank. For the 90 cannon, we mostly used canister and HE in Vietnam. Also Beehive, a shell packed with steel flechettes when available.

However, the M113 ACAVS could not survive RPGs as well as our tanks. RPGs usually tore through their thin armor and the result was not pretty. The crew was usually burned alive. I lost one of my best friends that way. He was driving an ACAV close to us and I saw it hit and explode with a tremendous flash. Didn’t have a chance. I could do nothing but keep driving my A3. The despair and loss overwhelmed me but I had to keep working. I can still see it today. Mine clearing, convoy duty, thunder runs and troop support ops were not without their own dangerous hazards.

There are other segments of being a tanker that are dangerous and have little to do with combat such as smashing your teeth, nose or breaking a jaw against the edge of the hatch, crushed hands and fingers and a simple thing like traversing a turret can end up with a mangled arm or leg. And oh yeah, back spasms. Tankers should be built like The Hulk, smaller versions though. A tanker’s life is mostly maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.

One hour of tank operation is equal to about three hours of maintenance. At least it used to be in 1968 and I’m sure it hasn’t changed all that much. I’m not even counting loading ammo and supplies. You are always working with very heavy solid steel items; lifting, handling, fixing, pushing, and pulling. A tanker’s life is backbreaking work and living in a greasy, loud, smokey, scorching hot kidney crunching world is not easy, but someone has to do it.

The jungle? It wasn’t only the human enemy you had to worry about. The incessant mosquitoes, hordes of ants, scorpions, 15-inch centipedes, huge snakes that could easily swallow a man, and the two-step snake. Let him bite you then after taking two steps, you were dead, or so they said. And let’s not forget the ‘wait a minute vine’, that lovely thick vine with the big, sticky barbs that have pulled tankmen out of their hatches. That’s what you have to live through in the jungles of Vietnam during the war.

However, your fellow crewmen are living it with you, and your brothers, and the humor and closeness get you through it. Now, next time you pass an armor crewman, maybe you’ll look at him a little differently and more respectfully knowing the dangers he also goes through when he’s not in combat.

*****

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