Tag Archives: M151

Urgent Fury at 40: The Guns of Grenada

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Without diving too much into the background, the Caribbean Island nation of Grenada had its elected government overthrown by a Marxist-Communist coup in 1979 and suspended the constitution. In just a couple of years, Grenada was hosting nearly 700 Cuban engineers who were building a giant airstrip– though long enough to host Soviet bombers– while smaller groups of Soviets, Libyan, North Korean, East German, and Bulgarians had taken up residence. Meanwhile, the local Grenadian military was greatly expanded and armed with Warsaw Pact weaponry.

Things came to a head in October 1983 when the Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, was overthrown by a military junta and executed. The military council instituted a national “shoot on sight” curfew.

With 600 American medical students attending classes on the island caught in the middle of the crisis, and Grenada’s neighbors asking for U.S. assistance, the Reagan administration mounted Operation Urgent Fury to invade the island with “D-day” set for Oct. 25, 1983, some 40 years ago this week.

The American units tasked with the operation included the reinforced 2nd Battalion/8th Marines of the 22d Marine Amphibious Unit, the ready brigade of the 82d Airborne Division, and two Ranger battalions. A small force of Navy SEALs performed beach reconnaissance for the Marines and took control of the island’s radio station. Meanwhile, the Navy supplied 22 ships including an aircraft carrier and an amphibious assault group. The Americans were joined by some 350 peacekeepers drawn from six assorted allied Caribbean nations.

While it may seem like the operation would be a cakewalk, planning for the invasion estimated that the combined Cuban engineer battalion and the Grenadian People’s Revolutionary Army, when fully mobilized, were equivalent to 10 infantry battalions backed by armored vehicles while just four light American battalions– the Rangers, Marines, and one battalion of paratroopers– would be able to land on Oct. 25, the first day, meaning they expected to be outnumbered.

It wasn’t until Oct. 28, when the Americans and the Eastern Caribbean Peace Force counted seven (ish) battalions on the ground by which time the Cubans and PRA had laid down their arms.

Three battalions of paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division– the “All Americans” of 2/325th Inf, 2/505th Inf, and 1/508th Inf–would land in Grenada, although by helicopter and airlift, not via parachute. As a rapid deployment force, they were equipped with lots of new gear including the Army’s new M81 woodland camouflage BDUniforms and Kevlar PASGT helmets and vests. They were typically armed with M-16A1s, M-60 machine guns, and M-21 sniper rifles. (All photos: National Archives)

The Rangers of the 1st and 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, accompanied by 35 Delta Force operators, would conduct a combat parachute jump at Point Salines, Grenada, to capture the island’s airport. They were more distinctive from the other American forces on the island due to their old-school OG-107 olive drab fatigues and M1 steel pot helmets, whenever they weren’t wearing patrol caps.

The Marines of the 22nd MAU typically wore the older ERDL style of leaf camouflage uniform with M1 helmets. As you can see, the Corps had more of a shoestring budget with the radio operator in the center having a sling made from a length of rope. Also, you gotta love the ciggy in the hand of the radio operator to the left and the double pistol magazine pouches on the Marine to the right. Across the board, American forces used the M1911 as a sidearm as the Beretta M9 would not be adopted until 1985.

More in my column at Guns.com.

The Glory of the Devils’ TOW-MUTTs

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While the U.S. Army started to field the TOW anti-tank system in the Fulda Gap in the late 1960s, the Marines, with their oddball M50 Ontos vehicle that packed a half-dozen M40 106mm recoilless rifles, took the latter to Southeast Asia with them as Charlie didn’t have very many tanks at the time.

However, things soon changed.

The South Vietnamese Marines used jeep-mounted TOW teams to good effect in the bitter end of the war in that country against NVA armor in 1972.

Meanwhile, the Devils were left with a more improv way to get around with their anti-armor support weapons.

Circa 1969,”Rough Going: Leathernecks of the 1st Marine Division’s 1st Marine Regiment find the going rough in ‘Dodge City’ as they attempt to maneuver a ‘mechanical mule’ bearing 106mm recoilless rifle across rugged terrain. The Marines are participating along with the Vietnamese Army elements and Vietnamese rangers and Korean Marines in Operation Pipestone Canyon, in the Dodge City-Go Noi Island area 12 miles south of Da Nang (official USMC photo by Sergeant A. V. Huffman).”

With the Ontos put to pasture in the early 1970s, the Marines eventually went TOW, mounted on the downright ugly (and downright dangerous to its passengers) Ford M151 MUTT, the same combo used by the Army in its “leg” infantry units at the time.

DF-ST-86-07566

Those chocolate chips! “U.S. Marines drive an M-151 Light Utility Vehicle from a Utility Landing Craft (LCU) to shore during the multinational joint service Exercise BRIGHT STAR’85. The vehicle is armed with a BGM71 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missile launcher,” 8/1/1985 NARA 330-CFD-DF-ST-86-07566

The first TOW “platoons” envisioned by the Marines for attachment to infantry battalions in the late 1970s were actually almost the size of companies, equipped with 37 M151s, 24 launchers, 69 enlisted men and one officer.

Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, fire a jeep-mounted tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) heavy anti-tank weapon during Combined Arms exercises Five and Six. Wires used to guide the TOW missile can be seen extending from the barrel of the weapon, 5/1/1983 NARA 330-CFD-DM-ST-83-09020

Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, fire a jeep-mounted tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) heavy anti-tank weapon during Combined Arms exercises Five and Six. Wires used to guide the TOW missile can be seen extending from the barrel of the weapon, 5/1/1983 NARA 330-CFD-DM-ST-83-09020

A typical six-Marine TOW squad had three M151s, two of which had launchers and the third used as spare missile carrier. The squad packed 16 missiles, two in each of the launcher-vehicles’ racks, six in the racks on the missile carrier, and six on a trailer pulled by the carrier. In a pinch, should one or even two of the vehicles go down, the third could be used to evac the squad’s Marines, provided they were so inclined to hold the hell on and leave a bunch of gear behind.

Still, the ability for a half-dozen Marines in three jeeps to zap as many as a dozen of the bad guy’s armored vehicles from a distance of 3,000m then scoot away led the Corps to pronounce a TOW squad as “the world’s largest distributor of tank parts,” in the early 1980s.

A Marine looks through the sight of a tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missile launcher mounted on an M151 light utility vehicle, 1/1/1988 NARA 330-CFD-DM-SN-88-09381

The Marines kept the TOW-MUTTS in operation though the Reagan years, eventually replacing them with HMMWV-TOWs by 1989. But that is a different story.