US Army in 1975 (No Vietnam)

[uk 75]

If the US had not become bogged down in the Vietnam war and continued instead to concentrate on its primary Cold War role of defending Germany would we have seen the following developed further.

Main Battle tank

MBT 70 was principally a victim of its own complexity and the poor weapons system (Shillelagh). However, with time and money on their hands and the Russians having invaded Czechosolvakia in 1968 maybe it could have been brought into service.

MICV

Again, although MICV 70 was expensive, it could, like the similarly costly German Marder, have been made to work.

AA system

A lot of effort had already been spent on the Mauler system. Another possible recovered system.

SPG

A successor for M109 (XM 179?) was planned but had to be axed because of the lingering costs of Vietnam.

Although expensive and perhaps difficult to operate, a force in US Seventh Army made up of this equipment might have given the Soviets sleepless nights.

UK 75

 

[Ranger6]

Interesting post UK75, you raise a good point about what could have been if the US Army wasn't bogged down (physically and financially) in Vietnam. That said, let's keep in mind that two of the systems you mention, the upgraded MBT and the MICV, did in fact come into service -- as the M-1 Abrams and the M-2 Bradley. Granted, the actual production models did not "look" like their progenitors and it would certainly have been nice to have them in service earlier (around the time of the great "tank crisis" in 1973/74 for example), but I don't think their would have been any major difference in what we got and what we would have gotten.

As to the Mauler, my understanding is that the problem was with the missile, not with the mount (a modified M-113).. After all, the US has had a tortured history of trying to develop self-propleeld air defense systems that aren't deadly to enemy aircraft (i.e., DIVADS).

Ta for now!

 

[Pioneer]

And more than likely the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne combat helicopter

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Ranger6]

I don't know about the Cheyenne, Pioneer -- seems to me it would have been the same kind of boondoggle (overly complicated and unable to fulfill its mission profile) as the later Comanche helicopter (cancelled by Donald Rumsfeld). Clearly, the Army needed and would have still needed a purpose built attack helicopter, if there had been no Viet Nam war. Presumably that means we would have gotten the Apache (or something like it) sooner and with a greater time to mature its weapons and avionics.

Ranger6

 

[Skybolt]

Agreed. The AAFSS competition was initiated when during large airborne operations in Vietnam the Army discovered that the Chinooks carrying troops outraced the armed Huey that escorted them. Hence the high speed request for the AAFSS, and things like the capability to fire off-course (the swiveling gunner station on the Cheyenne) with the gun. One possible alternate w/o Vietnam (in the sense, w/o a large scale war in Vietnam) could have been an heavily armored recon heli, useful both in COIN and in an European theater of war.

 

[Cobrapilot]

Cheyenne was way ahead of its time, but the weapons system videos I have seen all showed a very workable and accurate system. The pusher prop was a success, but the one cloud hanging over the program was the 1/2P hop. It is a bit disconcerting to have a main rotor system that wants to come visit the pilots inside about neck high... other than that I would have loved flying it. Given another 6 months time, they would have figured out how to eliminate (or avoid) the 1/2P hop as well.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Given another 6 months time, they would have figured out how to eliminate (or avoid) the 1/2P hop as well.

Agreed, though politics (and more than a bit of short sightedness) arguably had more to do with the cancellation.

 

[Pioneer]

On the other side of the coin, I guess there's many a systems and doctrine that were a positive from the US militaries perceptive of Viet Nam:

-PGM's;
-tactical reconnaissance aircraft and sensor development;
-the doctrine of over reliance on beyond visual AAM's and elimination of gun/cannon on fighter's was wrong;
-the development of a seriouserious appreciation of SEAD, technology, sensors and weapons to suppress and destroy air defence systems;
-modern carrier operations and doctrine;
-the appreciation and establishment of dissimulated air combat training and doctrine;
-Special Forces;
-and I guess the biggest learning outcome - never underestimate your opponent or their resolve!!! [well I guess the US military did forget this in the long run - Mogadishu, Afghanistan, Iraq, ......]

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Archibald]

"Nuclear energy depot" carries on after 1966 and "save the day" in October 1973 - after pioneering the use of ammonia and methanol in IC engines.

One can dream, no ?

 

[riggerrob]

Cheyenne was way ahead of its time, but the weapons system videos I have seen all showed a very workable and accurate system. The pusher prop was a success, but the one cloud hanging over the program was the 1/2P hop. It is a bit disconcerting to have a main rotor system that wants to come visit the pilots inside about neck high... other than that I would have loved flying it. Given another 6 months time, they would have figured out how to eliminate (or avoid) the 1/2P hop as well.

UH-60 solved the problem of "canopy shaving" by installing a taller main rotor mast.

 

[Archibald]

They had electronics and mechanical systems on hand to cure that issue by 1972... when the program was canned (facepalm).

I always loved the Cheyenne, so futuristic. It is the B-70 or SR-71 of helicopters.

 

[Pioneer]

Cheyenne was way ahead of its time, but the weapons system videos I have seen all showed a very workable and accurate system. The pusher prop was a success, but the one cloud hanging over the program was the 1/2P hop. It is a bit disconcerting to have a main rotor system that wants to come visit the pilots inside about neck high... other than that I would have loved flying it. Given another 6 months time, they would have figured out how to eliminate (or avoid) the 1/2P hop as well.

UH-60 solved the problem of "canopy shaving" by installing a taller main rotor mast.

Well riggerrob, I'm guessing without the Viet Nam War, the combat lesson learnt with the Bell UH-1 would most likely not even spawned the Operational Requirement, let alone the RfP for the Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS) competition - hence no there would most likely be no UH-60!
I'm thinking the US Army might have ended up content with the likes of Bell Model 212 / UH-1N.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Michel Van]

USA could had the wisdom not to step in that Asia bear trap ? i think not !

The Vietnam war cost ONE trillion US Dollars in today value
They're allot of programs could benefit from that money like more Apollo moon landing and Skylabs.
But Real Politic make this not possible

YF-12 a Mach 3 interceptor USAF wanted 93 of those
but very likely McNamara find another reason to cancel the program do "high cost and little benefit"

MBT 70 and AH-56 Cheyenne would be canceled anyhow
Both were hyper complex systems with to many unproven technology and too much issues

MOL a manned spy sat, suffer from delays and was overrun by technological progress, making it obsolet.

Apollo program was victorious, but dead on arrival with no soviet cosmonaut landing on Moon
They used the build hardware for maybe Apollo 18/19 or two Skylabs

in development of new Aircraft under VFX and F-X program it would be quite different
It's missing combat experience gain in Vietnam War leading to quite different F-15 and F-14
worst case scenario McNamara last act as Secretary of Defense is order to fusion VFX and F-X program
And build one Fighter for USAF and NAVY use, another F-111...

 

[Elan Vital]

If not for Vietnam requiring tanks on the ground and taking so much funding, we would have seen more M48A3 batches and those would have had M68 guns from 1965-on. M48A5 wouldn't exist as a designation but would happen almost a decade earlier.

 

[pathology_doc]

Would we have seen a switch to the M16/5.56mm cartridge, or would the M14 and developments of it have soldiered on for longer than they did?

 

[Cjc]

Given another 6 months time, they would have figured out how to eliminate (or avoid) the 1/2P hop as well.

Agreed, though politics (and more than a bit of short sightedness) arguably had more to do with the cancellation.

They had already fix that before the axe fell, that was always more of a smoke screen to cancel the program for political reasons anyway.

 

[Pioneer]

Would we have seen a switch to the M16/5.56mm cartridge, or would the M14 and developments of it have soldiered on for longer than they did?

I'm thinking without Viet Nam, the U.S. Army and USMC might have adopted the FN-FAL rifle, a much superior rifle than the M14.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Pioneer]

in development of new Aircraft under VFX and F-X program it would be quite different
It's missing combat experience gain in Vietnam War leading to quite different F-15 and F-14

There's a very good chance that the USAF's golden child - the FX program would have continued wrongly on the path of it's original 60,000+ pound MiG-25 Foxbat competitor (which ended up being completely over assessed in terms of it's flight and manoeuvrability capabilities, as the lack of Viet Nam combat experiance wouldn't have derived the real-world analogy by Col John Boyd, who was able to criticise and rehash the FX specification into to agile 40,000-pound air superiority fighter it became.

And yes, there's a greater chance that the VFX wouldn't have incorporated the manoeuvrability demands which separated it from the TFX/F-111B.


Regards
Pioneer

 

[Scott Kenny]

Would we have seen a switch to the M16/5.56mm cartridge, or would the M14 and developments of it have soldiered on for longer than they did?

I think the M14 still would have been discarded. It just flat had issues.

Not least of which was it trying to replace 4 separate weapons concepts: basic infantry rifle (M1 Garand), LMG (M1918 BAR), SMG (M3 "grease gun"), and PDW (M1 Carbine). Let's address those from last to first:
1) As an M2 Carbine replacement, the M14 was 4lbs heavier when empty, 5lbs heavier loaded. (The M1 Carbine weighs 5lbs empty). The M14 is also some 8" longer than the M2 Carbine. So much for lighter and handier!
2) The M14 is basically uncontrollable in full auto, so it fails as an SMG replacement.
3) The M15E1 had a heavier barrel and bipod compared to the M14, but it was still uncontrollable in full auto. The 20rd magazine meant it couldn't do suppressing fire very well, and it heated up quickly. So it fails as an LMG.
4) The M14 has a wandering zero, and even if you take it out of the wood stock and drop the action into a metal chassis system it needs to be rebedded every 3000 rounds or so. The USMC took about 100 Marines ranging from "still in training" to "fought in WW2 and Korea" and had them qualify with M1 Garands and then with M14s. 90% of the troops qualified with Garands. 60% qualified with M14s.

It's actually the USAF that first bought the AR15/M16 in US military service. Their airfield guards, the Security Police, needed to replace their M2 carbines. Gene Stoner ended up demonstrating the AR15 to General LeMay personally, and LeMay fell in love with the little Armalite. Lightweight (6.5lbs), accurate even in full auto due to the inline stock, and good magazine capacity (30rd magazines were standard for the USAF).

 

[BlackBat242]

And more than likely the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne combat helicopter

Regards
Pioneer

I don't know about the Cheyenne, Pioneer -- seems to me it would have been the same kind of boondoggle (overly complicated and unable to fulfill its mission profile) as the later Comanche helicopter (cancelled by Donald Rumsfeld). Clearly, the Army needed and would have still needed a purpose built attack helicopter, if there had been no Viet Nam war. Presumably that means we would have gotten the Apache (or something like it) sooner and with a greater time to mature its weapons and avionics.

Ranger6

Agreed. The AAFSS competition was initiated when during large airborne operations in Vietnam the Army discovered that the Chinooks carrying troops outraced the armed Huey that escorted them. Hence the high speed request for the AAFSS, and things like the capability to fire off-course (the swiveling gunner station on the Cheyenne) with the gun. One possible alternate w/o Vietnam (in the sense, w/o a large scale war in Vietnam) could have been an heavily armored recon heli, useful both in COIN and in an European theater of war.

Well riggerrob, I'm guessing without the Viet Nam War, the combat lesson learnt with the Bell UH-1 would most likely not even spawned the Operational Requirement, let alone the RfP for the Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System (UTTAS) competition - hence no there would most likely be no UH-60!
I'm thinking the US Army might have ended up content with the likes of Bell Model 212 / UH-1N.

Regards
Pioneer

Well, the US military had NO brief for a dedicated attack helo before Vietnam - they hadn't even armed transport helos yet.

It was as a result of the first use of helos in the MAC-V days (1961-62) that field-modified UH-1s (HU-1s at the time) became the first armed support helos in the US military.

Bell had been exploring the concept since the late 1950s, paying attention to the French having armed helos during the Algerian war (eerily similar to the later Vietnam war), and when reports came back of the field-armed UH-1s, Bell developed a mockup of a dedicated gunship helo (D-225) that was very similar to the eventual AH-1. Bell showed this to the Army in June 1962, convincing the Army to fund a development prototype in Dec 1962. When this (the Sioux Scout) flew in July 1963, the army then launched the AAFSS competition that produced the AH-56.

Even with this, Bell had to use its own funds to create the first AH-1 demonstrator (Model 209), starting in January 1965 and culminating on 7 September 1965 with its first flight in front of 20 surprised US Army officials (like the rest of the Army they were completely unaware of what Bell was doing). The Army then sent a Request For Proposal to 5 companies (including Bell) for a dedicated attack helo - with its head start, Bell won in April 1966, and the first AH-1Gs were delivered in June 1967, arriving in Vietnam on 30 August 1967.


Without combat experience in Vietnam, how long would it take the US Army to even formulate the need for a dedicated armed helo... or would they, like the British (armed Lynx), Germans (Bo-105) and French (Alouette II/III & Gazelle), simply arm Hueys with guns, rockets, and anti-tank missiles throughout the 1960s?

Would there be a different "low-intensity conflict" to show the need for a dedicated design? Or would the AAFSS competition simply never occur?

 

[Scott Kenny]

Without combat experience in Vietnam, how long would it take the US Army to even formulate the need for a dedicated armed helo... or would they, like the British (armed Lynx), Germans (Bo-105) and French (Alouette II/III & Gazelle), simply arm Hueys with guns, rockets, and anti-tank missiles throughout the 1960s?

Would there be a different "low-intensity conflict" to show the need for a dedicated design? Or would the AAFSS competition simply never occur?

Without being directly involved in a shooting war, I don't think the US Army would have recognized the need for a dedicated armed helo. I believe they would have stayed with Huey gunships. (And I've read some complaints from armed helo crews in Vietnam that said the effective part of the armed helos was the door gunners, not whatever you gave to the pilot to shoot)

So the AAFSS competition never would have happened.