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How dose the M114 compare the M113 Lynx CR used by the Canadians?

One belongs to the immediate family of one of the most successful and enduring AFV's ever conceived, with good mobility, reliability, and flexibility.

The other one....doesn't.

Apart from a short service life (even the M551, a vehicle that in one role, replaced it, compared favorably with regard to this) it had difficulty with frontal obstacles due to overhang.

LTC Burton S. Boudinot told me privately that he had to take 10 vehicles if he needed to count on having six, so unreliable was it. He was very harsh on it in other ways as well. LTC Boudinot was instrumental in evaluations and fielding of both the M114 and M551 and he was not satisfied with either. He commented that his candor regarding the limitations of the M114 in all likelyhood negatively impacted his career.

There's no question there was a role for such a vehicle, but the execution was something else. Roy will probably be a bit more generous in his assessment.

I wish the Product Improved M113AI or Dutch YPR 965 had been given a shot here(less the cumbersome separate weapon station/TC position that was proposed originally). It ain't no Bradley, but then again, they're still in service.

Hi J! Hi Folks!

"The Lingle", the world's greatest Scout track, HAS NO EQUAL!

A long time ago in another life time, knowing the Army wanted to replace the M-114, I for one was hoping they would buy the Lynx or as FMC called it back then the M-113 & 1/2. The Lynx is just a little bit bigger than the M-114, but I think it was still a very good size for an armored scout vehicle. Unlike the M-114 which would stick it's nose into an embankment. The track to hull layout of the Lynx is the same as the standard M-113. I think that any place a standard M-113 could go, a Lynx could also go.

The Lynx mounted the same turret found on the M-114A1, the XM-26 with a M2 HB TT .50 cal. That means it could have been upgraded with the XM-27 powered turret with the M-139 20mm autocannon.

During one Reforger Operation, my scout section jumped a pair of Canadian Lynxs. That was the one and only time I have ever seen one close up. The crew was French Canadian and none of them spoke English so we couldn't asked them any questions about their vehicles.

I think the US Army missed a very good opportunity when they didn't buy the Lynx. Canada bought 174 (starting in May 1968) and Holland bought another 250 (starting in September 1966). FMC did all the development work on their own (first prototype completed in 1963) so there was almost no cost to the US Army. Something like when Bell helicopter took a litter carrying troop carrier and slimed it down leaving room for a crew of two setting one behind the other and offered it to the Army as a weapons carrier! Ask any wingie fan how well that idea worked out!

The cancelled ASRV (XM800 T & W) program didn't even start until October 15th of 1971 when a Request for Proposal was issued. I think that long before that, the M-114 could have been replaced by the Lynx. Even if the Army still ran the ASRV project and still cancelled it when they did, it's possible that the Lynx might still be carring Scouts around today. Possible they would have never ended up with the M3 CFV. I wonder if the turret from a Bradley would fit the turret ring on a Lynx? How's that for a twisted idea?

Bottom Line, give me a choice between a M-114 or a Lynx, I would take the Lynx! After all it is a M-113! When it comes to AFVs, they don't come any better than FMC's M-113 Family of Vehicles! In time (latter part of the 1970s), what did Scouts end up with? Fill size M-113 APCs!

I get the feeling that the US Army has a major problem with 'nothing is good enough' and in the end Scouts have ended up with one bad scout vehicle after another.

When it comes to those individauls who effectived the use of the M-114 in service with the US Army, the ONLY MAN who was able to do the right thing, was General Abrams as Chief of Staff of Army when he went before Congress to request special funds to buy M-113A1s to replace all the M-114s. The problems with the M-114 should have never got that far.

My 2 cents on Lynx vis 'The Worlds Greatest Scout Vehicle Ever'!
Sgt, Scouts Out! Hell, now I need a beer!

- Doug_Kibbey

LTC Burton S. Boudinot told me privately that he had to take 10 vehicles if he needed to count on having six, so unreliable was it. He was very harsh on it in other ways as well. LTC Boudinot was instrumental in evaluations and fielding of both the M114 and M551 and he was not satisfied with either. He commented that his candor regarding the limitations of the M114 in all likelyhood negatively impacted his career.

Was Boudinot Hall (at Fort Knox) named after him?

Neil

In my limited track time, almost exclusively in Lynxes, I would have to agree that it is THE go-anywhere delinquent little hellraising brother of the M113 family. Same engine, same gearing, lower height, lighter weight and shorter trackbase than an M113. Except for snow and forests, the Lynx was the cat's axe for mobility.

However, every Lynx crewmember had to live out of his pockets because after loading all the kit the staff thought was required in a recce C/S, there was bugger all room left over.

JP Morgan did an excellant article on 3RCR Recce Pl Lynxes for George's AFV News about 10 yrs ago. Worth digging out just for reference sake.

Hi Folks!

- Doug_Kibbey

LTC Burton S. Boudinot told me privately that he had to take 10 vehicles if he needed to count on having six, so unreliable was it.

Six! He still had six?

That reminded me on one of the Reforgers I was in as part of an infantry battalion scout platoon with nine M-114s and a M-113.

Out of the four vehicles in my section, mine was the only one that made it out and back to base under it's own power. My driver did break some of the steering linkage on day one of the wargame. It took him about an hour to take some parts from other linkage so we could get back in the game.
The other section leader also lost all of his other vehicles with his vehicle dying on the way back to the assemble area after the wargame had ended.
The platoon leader lost his somewhere during the 10 days, and he ended up using the platoon sergrant's M-113.

So after ten days, a platoon of nine M-114s and one M-113 had ONE M-114 and the one and only M-113 for a total of two vehicles.
O! Buy the way, we all looked at that M-113 as a pile of junk! But that pile of junk was almost always running!

When I was at Ft. Bliss, B Troop, 1st Sqdn, of the 3rd ACR was called out on a no notice deployment to Hollaman Air Force Base with a road march down throught White Sands National Moument, across the White Sands Missile Range down into the northern range area of Ft. Bliss. The troop had three M-114A2 per platoon with the Heaquarters GSR section having two more. When we crossed the line of departure to conduct an area recon mission, out of 11 M-114A2s, one from the GSR section, crossed the LD.

At that time a Cavalry Troop had three platoons with ten vehicles each for a total of 30 AFVs.

Out of nine Sheridans, one crossed the LD.
One M-114A2 crossed the LD.
The 1st Sgt's M-151A2 crossed the LD.
Seven other vehicles also crossed the LD that day. All of them were M-113s. APCs, TOW and 4.2 mortar carriers.

Out of 30 platoon vehicles, we lost 22 of them on that road march. Many of those M-113s were considered junk piles. But they were the primary suriving vehicles as we crossed that LD that day.

Six? He still had six?
Doug, are you sure LTC Boudinot wasn't using 'new' math to count his vehicles?
Sgt, Scouts Out! Now I need another beer!

I have photos of a 114 beside a Lynx deep in my basement...Will dig them out and post them. We gained the 114 from one of our training areas. It was air dropped in , landed in the woods and forgot about , until after being chased by the bad guys on "ex "we came across it .My unit brought it back to base , and we had it in the vehicle line up for awhile then it was gone .If I remember is was also next to one of our regular 113's....Will have to dig up the photos..............................:)

- Neil_Baumgardner

Was Boudinot Hall (at Fort Knox) named after him?

Neil

His father, who retired as a MG. Died in late '45, buried in Arlington:

www.arlingtoncemetery....udinot.htm

Plans & Training Officer, AFRTC, Ft. Knox 1940-42
Commanding Officer, 32nd Armored Regiment 1942-44
Commander, Combat Command "B", 3rd Armored Division 1944-45
Commanding General, 7th Armored Division 1945