M50/M50a1 Ontos: Self-Propelled Multiple 106 MM Recoilless Rifle Doyle David

Specifikacia M50/M50a1 Ontos: Self-Propelled Multiple 106 MM Recoilless Rifle Doyle David

Designed to counter the threat of a massed Soviet armored assault, the M50 Ontos showed its merit in the jungles and streets of Vietnam. Ontos grew out of Project Vista, the secret study of possible improvements to NATO defenses. Project Vista identified the need for an inexpensive, heavily armed "something" to thwart waves of Soviet armor. Armed with six powerful recoilless rifles, the diminutive M50 was given the name "Ontos," an Army mistranslation of Greek for "the Thing." Initially, the Army felt that the Allis-Chalmers T165E1 (later standardized as the M50) was the thing to fill the recommendation of Project Vista. Ultimately, and after some controversy, the Army lost interest in the vehicle, but the United States Marine Corps believed in the vehicle and in 1955 the M50 entered production. While the Corps first used the Ontos in Santo Domingo in 1965, it would rise to fame in