M50 Ontos:
My uncle was a two-war Marine, who retired by the time I was of an age to know anything about it. Our familes went camping one time at Quantico; he took us to a garage of some kind where there was an Ontos. Even to a kid, it seemed pretty tiny.
(My memory was jogged by this.)
I’m All About That Base
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3 comments:
Heard about these during my time as a red leg artilleryman. (M109A1-A3 Howitzer) They were a little before my time. I believe ONTOS was Greek for THING. Pretty cool name. If you ever need a multi barreled recoiless rifle, this is available.
I was trained on the M40 106mm "Reckless". The "Pig" mounted six of them. I once watched an Ontos "suppress" a sniper by shooting all six at once and toothpicking a clump of trees just north of Hoi An near the Horseshoe.
Underpowered, underarmored, and couldn't ford a stream, but handy to have nearby, as long as you didn't stand behind one. The giant flashbulb of one firing is why it was deprecated for the antitank mission.
Saw one IIRC at the Ft Knox (KY, home of armor) tank museum years back, which even has a WWI parallelogram tank....museum has changed a lot, but was was fascinating when I saw it, once as a kid, once as a young adult...50 years back
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