Will the M113 ever die?
First reaching IOC in 1960 (!) and seeing inaugural combat use in Vietnam just two years later, the 12-ton aluminum-hulled M113 is a Cold War stalwart.
11th ACR M113 in Vietnam, in its ACAV configuration
U.S. Army M-113 near the destroyed Panamanian Defense Force headquarters, Operation Just Cause, 21 December 1989
While “officially” replaced in front-line service with the U.S. Army by the Bradley and Stryker, the Pentagon only stopped buying the APC in 2007 and moved to phase it out in ancillary service (mortar carriers, ambulances, cargo carriers, smoke makers, OPFORs, etc.) with the very M113-ish but Bradley-derived BAE AMPV, a move that won’t materialize until the late 2020s.
These 11th ACR VIZ-MOD’ed OPFOR vehicles at the NTC aboard Fort Irwin started life as M113s.
Besides Vietnam, Panama, Desert Storm/Shield, Bosnia, and OIF/OEF, the M113 has proven itself in Ukraine, which has received over 500 of these surplus APCs in numerous variants from NATO as military aid, making it a common and unlikely favorite of the forces there.
It is considered reliable and fast, at least when compared to legacy Soviet-era MT/GT platforms.
Rafael is currently offering a series of upgrades for the old track, including new powerpacks, Trophy Active Protection Systems, Spike anti-tank guided missiles, Sampson Remote Weapon Stations, and advanced modular armor kits.
With some 80,000 of these durable machines produced over the past 65 years, and with them in service with 50~ countries around the globe, odds are they may outlive us all ,and the last M113 driver is yet to be born.