The M551 "Sheridan" AR/AAV (Armored Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault Vehicle) was a light tank developed by the United States and named after Civil War General Philip Sheridan. It was designed to be landed by parachute and to swim across rivers. It was armed with the technically advanced but troublesome M81/M81 Modified/M81E1 152 mm gun/launcher, which fired both conventional ammunition and the MGM-51 Shillelagh guided anti-tank missile.
The M551 Sheridan entered service with the United States Army in 1967. At the urging of General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. Commander, Military Assistance Command Vietnam, at the time, the M551 was rushed into combat service in South Vietnam in January 1969. Later that year, M551s were deployed to units in Europe and South Korea. The Sheridan saw extensive combat in the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1973. However, problems with the platform became evident, particularly its poor survivability and reliability.
Based on its experiences in Vietnam, the Army realized the shortcomings of the Sheridan, and after the war ended, began to eliminate the vehicle from its units in 1979. A modest fleet of vehicles remained in the 82nd Airborne Division and the National Guard. Various improvement programs were successfully undertaken to improve the Sheridan's reliability. Problems persisted with the 152 mm gun/launcher, and various efforts explored to replace it with a more conventional model. The Sheridan went on to serve in the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War. The Army sought to replace the Sheridan with the M8 Armored Gun System, but this was canceled in 1996, late in its development. The Sheridan was retired without a designated replacement in 1996. The Army acquired the M1128 mobile gun system to fulfill a similar requirement, but this was retired in 2022 due to operational issues and rising maintenance costs. The Army's last known light tank acquisition program was the Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) also known as the M10 Booker, which was canceled in 2025.
A large number of Sheridans were retained in service at the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California and as Armor Officer Basic training at Armor Training Center, then located at Fort Knox, Kentucky. They worked as simulated Soviet armored opposition force (OPFOR) to train U.S. military units on simulated tank-on-tank armored combat to test on combat effectiveness in a desert environment. They were retired from the NTC in 2003.
Development In the immediate post-World War II era, the U.S. Army introduced the M41 Walker Bulldog into service to fill the role of a light tank. The lifespan of the M41 was fairly short. At 25 tons it was considered too heavy to be a true light tank, and had a rather short cruising range. Plans were started to build an even lighter replacement mounting the same gun, the T71 and T92. The T92 appeared to be the more promising of the two. As the prototypes were entering testing, information about the new Soviet PT-76 light tank became available. The PT-76 was amphibious, and soon there were demands that any U.S. light tank should be able to swim as well. The T92 could not be easily refitted for this role, so the Army canceled the program in 1958.
In January 1959, the first concept studies were initiated for the armored reconnaissance/airborne assault vehicle that would replace both the M41 and M56 Scorpion self-propelled gun. By October 1959, 12 proposals had been received by the Ordnance Tank Automotive Command. Two proposals were downselected in December: One from Cadillac Motor Car Division of General Motors Corporation, and a joint venture of AAI Corporation and Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company. Mockups of both proposals were evaluated in May 1960.
The AAI candidate had three crewmen, and weighed the closest to the 10-ton weight limit specified in the requirements. The Cadillac design was only slightly heavier, with four crew. The four-man turret of the Cadillac proposal was considered more effective than the three-man turret proposed by AAI. The weight limit was reset at 15 tons. In June 1960, Cadillac Motor Car Division signed a contract to develop their concept further, which was designated as the AR/AAV XM551. In August 1961, the Secretary of the Army approved the name "Sheridan," after Major General Philip Sheridan.
A test bed underwent operations at Cleveland Tank Plant in December 1961. The decision to use the 152 mm caliber XM81 gun-launcher instead of a more conventional gun was driven by the desire to save weight. The XM81 weighed about half as much as the 105 mm caliber M68, and could fire both conventional and missile rounds. Testing of the XM81 began at Erie Army Depot in late 1961.
By 1962, the Army realized that the MGM-51 Shillelagh missile system would not immediately be ready for the Sheridan, and so considered several alternative gun systems. These including conventional 76 mm, 90 mm and 105 mm options, as well as missile systems such as ENTAC and TOW. In March 1967, a 105 mm howitzer XM103E7 and then a 76 mm gun was installed in the turret of an M551 at Rock Island Arsenal. Neither configuration was adopted. The Army ultimately decided to arm the Sheridan with just 152 mm conventional rounds until the Shillelagh was more mature.
The first of 12 pilots was delivered in June 1962. Pilots 1–3 comprised the first generation. With the second-generation pilots 4–6, the band track was replaced with single-pin, link type tracks. An XM551 test bed turret with gun-launcher was mated to an M41 chassis, which began firing tests in August 1962 at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The third generation of pilots, starting with pilot 7, eliminated the water jet propulsion. Pilots 9–11 were delivered in 1964, and pilot 12 was delivered in February 1965.
In the 1960s the Army was also developing the MBT-70 main battle tank with West Germany. The U.S. Army no longer used the heavy, medium, and light tank classifications. In 1960, with the deactivation of its last heavy tank battalion (which used the M103 heavy tank), and the fielding of the new M60 series tank, the U.S. Army had adopted a main battle tank (MBT) doctrine; a single tank filling all combat roles. The U.S. Army still retained the M41 Walker Bulldog light tank in the Army National Guard, but other than the units undergoing the transitional process, the regular army consisted of MBTs. Fearing Congress would balk at funding two developmental tank programs, the Army chose to designate the Sheridan as an armored reconnaissance vehicle rather than a light tank. The Army also believed "tank" too much evoked the main battle tank, a different role altogether, so the new project was instead officially classified as an "Armored Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault Vehicle."
Production
In April 1965 the Army awarded a four-year $114.5 million contract to the Allison division of General Motors (GM) for the production of the M109 howitzer and the XM551 General Sheridan. Limited production was approved in May, and then classified as "Standard A" in May 1966. Production took place at the Cleveland Army Tank Automotive Plant. The first two production units were delivered to the Army in July. During development, the Marine Corps evaluated the Sheridan as a possible replacement for the M50 Ontos. The Corps determined that the Sheridan would be too costly.
The Sheridan entered service in June 1967 with 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor Regiment at Fort Riley. 2,426 Sheridans were planned. In the end, 1,662 Sheridans were built between 1966 and November 1970. The total cost of the M551 program was $1.3 billion.
The M81 gun had problems with cracks developing near the breech after repeated firing, a problem that was later tracked to the "key" on the missiles that ran in a slot cut into the barrel. Most field units were modified to help address the problem, but later the modified M81E1 was introduced with a shallower slot, along with a matching modification to the missile, that cured the problem.
In March 1969, after the Army invoked secrecy in declining to disclose program costs, a Government Accounting Office (GAO) official said that development costs had reached $1.3 billion. Congressman Samuel S. Stratton criticized Army officials for the program's high costs, and accused officials of concealing cost figures to cover up for their own "bumbling ineptness". A GAO report leaked in May 1969 revealed the Army had fast-tracked the program to avoid budgetary scrutiny, despite indications by May 1966 that the tank's caseless ammunition was prone to cooking off. The problem had since then been resolved by a compressed-air system that forced hot ammunition residue from the breech, the Army told Congress. The Army said the Sheridan had performed well enough that it was planning to send hundreds more. A Congressional report in July 1969 identified $1.2 billion wasted on the M60 and Sheridan. The report attributed several Vietnam War casualties to Sheridan design faults, and said that the tank had been wholly unready for combat there "without extensive and costly retrofits."
In 1971, Frankford Arsenal awarded Hughes Aircraft Corporation a contract to begin producing the AN/VVG-1 laser rangefinder for the M551A1 upgrade.
Service history Vietnam War
The U.S. Army staff in Washington had been recommending since 1966 to the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, General Westmoreland, that the Sheridan should be deployed there. Since the main gun ammunition was not available, he argued that it was simply a $300,000 machine gun platform. By 1968, the new, or soon to be, U.S. commander in South Vietnam, General Creighton Abrams, had been notified that the 152 mm rounds were now available for the Sheridan. However, as General Abrams began to make preparations for the equipping of U.S. cavalry squadrons for the vehicle, the affected squadrons expressed their concerns that the new aluminum tanks were not only highly vulnerable to mines and anti-tank rocket fire, but they would not be as capable of "jungle busting" as the M48A3 medium tanks.
In late 1968, General Abrams met with Colonel George S. Patton IV – the son of World War II General Patton – commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (11th ACR), the only full regiment of cavalry in South Vietnam. When Abrams mentioned the cavalry's concerns over the new vehicle, Patton recommended that the Sheridans be combat tested by a divisional cavalry squadron as well as a squadron from his own regiment, as the squadrons had completely different missions.
First deployment
The first Sheridans arrived in South Vietnam in January 1969 and were accompanied by their factory representatives, instructors and evaluators as the new vehicles were issued to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, and the 1st Squadron of the 11th ACR. By the end of 1970, there were more than 200 Sheridans in South Vietnam. They stayed in the field until the last U.S. armored cavalry unit, the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment prepared for re-deployment back to the United States in April 1972. By the end of its combat debut in 1972, the Sheridan had seen extensive action in the Vietnam War, being assigned to nearly all armored cavalry squadrons involved in that conflict.
In 1969, armored cavalry units (minus the 11th ACR, which retained its M48 tank companies) began replacing their M48 Patton tanks, which were normally transferred to the Army of South Vietnam. The opinions of crews on Vietnam-era M551s were mixed at best and assessments from senior commanders were often negative. This was due largely to the high loss rate of Sheridans and casualty rates among crews. Landmines and RPGs that would damage an M48 Patton tank, tended to destroy a Sheridan and either kill or wound most of its crew.