Tag Archives: Cadillac tank

Tin-clad porpoises

Posted on by Leave a comment

Some 75 years ago this week, IC-92646, an M8 Greyhound armored car of “Groupement Sizaire”, fords a river near Mao Khe in French Indochina, sometime between 31 March and 5 April 1951. Note on the front of the hull the anchor insignia of the French army’s colonial troops, a badge that earned such men the nickname “Marsouins” or porpoises.

ECPAD Réf. : TONK 51-37D R7

Colonel Robert Sizaire’s scratch Mobile Group (groupe de mobile, or GM) was formed in late January 1951 and was a two-battalion experimental blend of light infantry and light armor, with the former carried via halftracks and the latter built around 18-ton M-24 Chaffee (the French used  1,250 of the little “Cadillac tanks” in the 1950s-60s) and Greyhounds.

Crossing a bamboo bridge by the first elements of the “Sizaire” group armed with M24/29 FM LMG and MAS 36 rifles. Note the “Chapeau de Brousse” bush hats.

The M-24 Chaffee “Angouleme” of Group Sizaire, with riders from the 6th BPC (paras) and local Thai partisans (beret) differentiated from the bush-hatted tankers and grenadiers.

This could almost pass for Italy in 1944. However, it is the square at Sept Pagodes (now Phả Lại part of Hải Dương Province, in Vietnam’s Red River Delta) where the members of the “Sizaire” group are gathered, circa March 1951. Note six M-24 Chaffees, at least 13 M3 Half-Tracks, two Jeeps, and a GMC CCKW “Deuce-and-a-Half” 2.5-ton  6×6 truck

The Sizaire Group, combined with the 6th BPC (6th Colonial Parachute Battalion), platoon of the RICM (Colonial Infantry Regiment of Morocco), a company of African riflemen (from 30e Bataillon de marche de tirailleurs sénégalais), and Lt Nghiem Xuan Toan’s Tho partisan company, successfully defended the isolated Mao Khe and Ben Tam outposts on Provincial Route 18 (PR 18), between Bac Ninh and Hong Hai against a determined attack by the Viet Minh TD (Trung Doan) 36 and 209 regiments in between 29 March and 5 April– later reinforced by elements of three divisions– with the tanks being crucial in the counter-attack that broke the back of Giap’s guys.

Advance of M24 Chaffee tanks from the “Sizaire Group” towards Mao Khe across the Tonkin landscape. In the foreground, the M24 Chaffee “Metz” tank, bearing the number 5 on its turret.

Mao Khe with a knocked-out Sizaire Group Greyhound after the fighting.

The fighters of Dong Trieu (these are the first elements of the “Sizaire” group), the day after a night of fighting. In the background, a damaged watchtower. Note the bush hats, MAT-49s, and M1 Carbines.

While successful, the poor road network made even light armor problematic in Indochina– a boogeyman of later suffered by American/ARVN M-48s and M-113s– and Sizaire’s unit was soon broken apart and sent its separate way.

The M24 Chaffee “Angoulême” tank (registration number IC-93003) fell into the water when the scrap metal bridge collapsed.

The column of M24 Chaffee tanks, under the command of Colonel Sizaire, is stopped in April 1951. In the foreground, an M24 Chaffee tank is stuck in the mud, seen from above; it bears the number 6 on the turret; in the background, the M24 Chaffee tank registered IC-93016 and bearing the number 12 on the turret.

Who was Sizaire?

Colonel Sizaire at the wheel of a jeep, March 1951. His passenger is General de Lattre de Tassigny, at the time the French commander in Indochina. Note that Sizaire’s cap has the colonial troops’ anchor.

Born in 1904 in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Sizaire’s father, Emile Vital Pascal Sizaire, was a literature professor in his 40s who left his position at the university to meet his death as a field officer at Verdun in 1916. Does it get any more old republic?

Our younger Sizaire went on to make the military his career. Enlisting as a volunteer in 1922, he fought against the Rif in Morocco, within a unit of Senegalese riflemen (23e RIC). Passing through Saint-Maixent in 1926, he served in a variety of positions in the colonial forces, taking his bride,  Lucienne, while stationed in Bamako (French Sudan) in 1931, before assignments in Algeria (1932) and Indochina (1935).

A junior officer during the Battle for France, leading a company of the 12th RTS (12e Regiment de Tirailleurs Senegalais), he was redeployed to Dakar and finally to Morocco under Vichy orders. Post Torch in November 1942, he cast his lot with De Gaulle and, as a battalion commander (Chef de Battalion) with colonials of the 4th RTS participated in the liberation of Corsica (Operation Vesuvius) in September 1943, the capture of the Italian island Elba in June 1944 (Operation Brassard)– his battalion capturing Monte Tambonne and the German batteries at Aquabonna– and the August 1944 Dragoon Landings which led to the liberation of Toulon and Southern France that August, picking up an American DSC in the process. After the Battle of Colmar in 1945, he finished WWII as the second in command of the 21e RIC (the old 4th RTS), standing on German soil.

It was as a colonel commanding the 21e RIC that he arrived in Indochina in April 1946, joining the fight against the Viet Minh. Once the 21e RIC was sent back “home” to Africa, Sizaire remained in-country as colonel of the newly arrived 3e RIC. Sent back to France in 1949, he flew back to Indochina to join his “Marsouins” in late January 1951, setting up his Groupement Sizaire as detailed above.

He went on to become the French commander in Laos (commandant les Forces du Laos) until January 1953.

Then came a brigadier’s star and command in Brazzaville for the next four years, where he helped stand up the army of the newly independent Congo. After serving as the commandant of the NATO Defense College in 1959, Lt. Gen. (Général de corps d’armée des troupes coloniales) Sizaire was moved to the retired list in 1964 after helping create and equip the Cameroonian Army. He held numerous decorations, including two Croix de Guerre, and was a Grand Officier of the Légion d’Honneur

He then spent a decade as mayor of Cayeux-sur-Mer. He passed in Picardy on a Saturday in the summer of 1975, aged 71, leaving behind three children and a host of grandchildren.

Le Char Chaffee

Posted on by One comment

U.S. Light Tank, M24 entered production in 1943 with Cadillac and Massey-Harris with the tractor firm making 1,139 at its Racine, Wisconsin facility (a former Nash-Kelvinator plant!) and another 3,592 hulls coming direct from Cadillac’s Detroit factory, with lots of sub-components supplied by Oldsmobile.

They were an excellent light tank for the era, hitting the scales at 20 tons (which was still much larger than a 15-ton circa 1941 M3 Stuart that it would doctrinally replace) while carrying an effective 75mm M6 main gun, up to 38mm of armor (which was actually lighter in spots than the Stuart but better than nothing) and could hit speeds of up to 35 mph on good roads and with good tracks/wheels.

Fort Hood, a good example in size between an M24 Chaffee light tank, M4A3E8 Easy Eight Sherman medium tank, and M26 Pershing heavy tank, all shown with deep wading equipment

It came rather late to WWII and only started reaching the ETO in November 1944, not making much of a difference. In U.S. service, however, it did see much more action in the first days of Korea, as we have covered in the past.

Where the M-24 really shined, in terms of military history, is in rebuilding Allied tank forces post-war, and it saw something like 28 different operators including Norway who used them until the end of the Cold War, only retiring their Cadillac-Massey light tanks in 1993!

NM-116: Norwegian M24 Chaffe repurposed as a tank destroyer

In fact, that is where the “Chaffee” designation comes from on the tank, issued by the British who were fond of naming Lend-Leased Yank tanks for generals.

However, while countries as wide-reaching as Ethiopia, Chile, and Denmark would use the humble little Chaffee, no one used as many as the French, who picked up no less than 1,250 M-24s in the late 1940s to early 1950s– a full one out of every four built.

These tanks saw lots of serious use in Indochina from 1947-54 in French hands, where the small (compared to a main battle tank) was ideal from primitive roads and bridges.

26 March 1951 Indochine française. French and Vietnamese soldiers catching a ride on the M24 Chaffee “Metz”. Réf. : TONK 51-37C R13 Guy Defives; Paul Corcuff/ECPAD/Defence

Ten were even flown, disassembled into components, into Dien Bien Phu where they served as mobile artillery for the embattled garrison, reportedly firing in excess of 15,000 shells during the siege.

French Foreign Legionnaires working on US-supplied M24 Chaffee tanks at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina. They would suffer repeated massed bazooka and recoilless rifle attacks and somehow endure. 

Once the French left, the NVA and ARVN had so many third-hand Chaffees inherited that they continued to use them well into the 1960s, with the South Vietnamese replacing theirs with U.S.-supplied M-41A3 Walker Bulldogs and Uncle Ho’s tankers graduating to Soviet-supplied PT-76 light tanks with the latter first seeing combat against the Lang Vei Special Forces camp on 6/7 February 1968.

Two M24 Chaffee tanks of the People’s Army of Vietnam, which had been captured from French forces, at a military parade in Hanoi, 1955.

M24 Chaffee light tanks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) prior to the commencement of operations in the Iron Triangle, Oct 1965. Binh Duong Province, Ben Cat. Tom Gosper photo via the AWM. P11006.017

The ARVN also transferred many semi-working M24s to the VNAF, the South Vietnamese airforce, for use in static roles by their local security police, which continued well into the 1970s. 

M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese Air Force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon.

Some fought to the bitter end, pressed into service in a losing battle against impossible odds.

M41 Bulldog and M24 Chaffee light tanks of the ARVN after being destroyed by North Vietnamese T-54 on the outskirts of Saigon, during the 1975 Spring Offensive

As for the French, they kept a few M-24s in their inventory where some saw combat in Algeria as late as 1962, but by that time had moved to replace them with more than 3,500 domestically-produced air-portable AMX-13, which remained in service with the Republic into the 1980s and is still seen in many third world environments as another 3,500 were exported to French allies– a true successor for the M24.