In a nuclear battlefield, the concentration of forces into a spearhead would present a perfect target for the employment of tactical nuclear weapons. A single well-placed weapon could break up the attacking forces before they even had time to properly prepare, causing enough casualties to make them ineffective even in the defence.

This is the type of equipment it was expected an infantryman attacking an irradiated zone might need to push forwards after the employment of a tactical nuke on an enemy formation.

https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/army-soldier-future-1959-video/

Jeep mounted Davy Crockett tactical nuke:

  • rockSlayer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    11 months ago

    1959 concept: perfect for short engagements in decent weather in North Africa and Europe

    Vietnam: Xin chào

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      It makes sense. Every major war the US had been involved in was either that, or an island hopping campaign and we’d decimated the Japanese. This was around the end of the chinese civil war. We expected Germany to start some shit again or war with Russia. Maybe China. The fact that we’d spend decades fighting in every tropical rainforest was a surprise

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        11 months ago

        I get what you mean, but in 1959 we had already been in Vietnam for 5 years, and had plenty of knowledge about the shortcomings of the garand. Then we just, made the same fucking mistake with the M14. Not to mention how poorly it handles in even small amounts of mud and dirt

        • baldingpudenda@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          11 months ago

          I was gonna say. Keep your M14. Gimme a stock for the 1911 or whatever pistol they were using back then and and somewhere to place a bayonet. At least I’ll know it will fire when needed.

      • FireTower@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        Also we’d just fought in Korea which had lots of cold weather combat. You might appreciate those nylon layers in the cold.

    • SSTF@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Really, this setup was made with radioactively contaminated (RIP Germany) environments in mind.

      Take away the radiation protection elements and the M14 (the biggest unforced small arms error in US history), and what you are left with is the idea of a soldier wearing body armor, with a radio, with night vision, with thermal vision. That’s pretty much where things lead, it just needed decades for the technology to catch up.