Retirement Dates for certain US Army vehicles

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ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM
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Retirement Dates for certain US Army vehicles

Post by ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM »

Does anybody happen to know when the following vehicles went out of service with the Army or the Guard ?
1) M-48A5 (I know the SCARNG 218th Infantry Brigade their last AT with them in the summer of 87. Did the 50th AD or others use them after that ?)
2) M-110A2
3) Chapparal - (The 265th ADA out of FLA switched over to Avenger around 97-98)
4) M-163 Vulcan-(24th ID brought em back from ODS and sometime around 93-94 they were gone)
5) M-106A2- (Did the four deuce hang around long after ODS?)
6) M-901 ITV (Active Duty) (24th ID deactivated all the Echo Companies in their mech battalions around 94. How long did the ITV stay in active duty service after ODS? Guard mech bns kept them in the 113 battalions up until recently.)
7)M-578 ARV(Active Duty) (The Guard had them in use until just recently, but I have not seen one used by a RA unit in a while.)
8)M-101A1 105mm Howitzer (Last RA unit to have them was the 6th ID up in Alaska. Does the Guard still use them?)
9) M-114A2 155mm Towed Howitzer

Thanks

ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM
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Post by ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM »

I am sure there was chaos at Ft Mac(FORSCOM) regarding that proposal as well. In order to get a sizable corps artillery contingent to the ROK, you would have had to clean out Fort Sill and/or activate some Guard artillery brigades. That would have been utter chaos, because some of those battalions at Sill were under NETT for Paladin and ATACMS at the time. To make matters worse, Joint Forge was ramping up and there was a need for TAB in Bosnia.(which had to draw Q-37 batteries from the Guard). On top of all that, TRADOC and III Corps were doing the Force XXI evals as well, so you had a mishmash of folks and stuff being moved around. I guess the easiest thing they did was send the 6th Air Cav Brigade and the Patriot Battalion over there to hedge up 2nd ID until we sent the payoff to Kim Jong Il.
XVIII Corps had an artillery brigade, but it was all 155mm Towed and it was tasked to support the 82nd, the 101st and the 10th Mountain. V Corps had one artillery brigade with one MLRS Bn and thats it. So I guess Ft Sill would have been it.
BTW.....when did 2nd ID switch from the M-198 to the M-109 in its DS FA Bn's?

ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM
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Post by ROGER_HOUSTON2EMC-ENG.COM »

That goes along with what a friend of mine told me a few years ago. In 1990, he was assigned to HQ XVIII ABN Corps Artillery. When Desert Shield went up, he and his group were the planning staff for Corps Fires and mission deplyment. In addition to the brigade at Bragg, they pulled brigades from Sill for Desert Dragon. The first thing they did was attach a Lance Battalion to the 212th FA Brigade for deep interdiction fires . Warning Orders went out from FORSCOM for movement and deployment and all of a sudden CENTCOM and 3rd Army went ballistic . Sending a Lance unit indicated we were ready to go nuke and that would jeopardize our presence in Saudi with the other Arab allies was the line from CENTCOM and State Dept. So the Lance Bn WO was stood down. Never mind the 8inch and 155 bns shot nuke rounds as well.
I think it was a big mistake to retire the 8 inch . I know the MLRS and HIMARS are better systems, but for just pure old destructive power, that old 8 inch HE round was awesome.
If we just could have kept em in the Guard, at least .

Rounds Complete. Cease Fire.

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Post by Brigade Commander »

This might be the place to ask this. When a Mech Bn was upgraded from M-113's to M-2's did the battalion retain the M-901 ITV Anti-tank company? I've seen pictures of them deployed in GW-I in the desert but what I can't tell is whether they were still part of the Mech Bn or just separate companies swept up in the rush to air- / sea-lift anything that could form a screen during the early days.
"It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the road and, if you do not keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."

Bilbo Baggins to Frodo Baggins.

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