Armoured Personnel Carrier - History

History

The genesis of the armoured personnel carrier concept was the armoured warfare of World War I. On the Western Front in the later stage of the war, Allied tanks could break through the enemy trench line but the infantry following the tanks (needed to take and hold the ground gained) were easily stopped or delayed by small arms fire and artillery. Infantry progress was also impeded by obstacles such as barbed wire, anti-personnel mines and broken terrain (such as the shell cratered battlefields of the Western Front). The breakthrough tanks were then isolated and destroyed and reinforcements plugged the hole in the trench line. Small scale deployment of armoured infantry transports occurred during the war (the Mark V* tank was designed with a small troop compartment and the Mark IX tank of 1918 was purpose built to transport infantry) but did not impact the course of the war.

During World War II, half-tracks such as the American M3 and the German SdKfz 251 played a role similar to the armoured personnel carriers that were developed later on. Another forerunner to the APC during this time was the fully tracked British Universal Carrier. Often, APCs were simply armoured cars with the capacity for carrying troops, but they evolved into purpose-built vehicles to suit the demands of motorised warfare from World War II.

In 1944, the commander of II Canadian Corps, General Guy Simonds, ordered the conversion of 72 United States-produced M7 Priest self-propelled howitzers to personnel carriers. They were, at the time, being replaced by the British Ordnance QF 25 pounder, and no future plans had been drawn up for them. The howitzer was removed, and the resulting hole was plugged with whatever steel was available. The vehicle was called Kangaroo, after the codename of the workshop which did the conversion. Later in the war Canadian-built Ram tanks were used as a basis for the majority of conversions, as they were replaced by US Sherman tanks, and the original Kangaroos were converted back to self-propelled howitzers and returned to American forces.

After the war, different specialised APCs were developed. The United States developed a series of tracked vehicles, culminating in the M113 "box on tracks", of which 80,000 were made. The Soviet Union developed the Cold War BTR-40, BTR-152, BTR-60, BTR-70, BTR-80 and BTR-90 into a series of 8-wheeled APC.

Although the M113 was designed as an APC, it was among the first to be used in battle in the Vietnam War in the early 1960s when South Vietnamese ARVN troops fought while mounted against irregular Viet Cong (VC) forces that were typically only armed with small arms. After the Battle of Ap Bac showed that the exposed machine gun was vulnerable to enemy fire, they were fitted with the ACAV armour kit which protected the main machine gun and added shields for two additional gunners. As the war went on VC and NVA forces received the RPG-2 man-portable recoilless rifle in bulk. When hitting the M113, the RPG-2 warhead would cause internal spalling, injuring or killing the occupants. Because of this, American troops took to riding into battle on top of their M113s, negating the armour value.

The infantry fighting vehicle is a development of the armoured personnel carrier concept. On the typically fluid and chaotic battlefield, any available armour will be thrown into direct battle if main battle tanks aren't immediately available (some armour is better than no armour). This insight (along with the proliferation of effective man-portable anti-tank weapons) led to the development of the infantry fighting. In addition to the task of carrying infantry to battle safely they are more heavily armed and armoured and are designed for direct combat, making for a more flexible vehicle.