Does anyone know of any M-114 kit on the market - now or in the past? There’s one on display a few towns over and my family used to drive past it a lot. I tried to find out about it at the time, but that was back in the 70’s, and all I could learn (if it is true) was that it was meant to replace the M-113 but it was too small inside and couldn’t accomodate the same number of soldiers as the M-113 (and they had to duck because of the lower roof). Another story I was told was that it was designed as an export version of the M-113 for the Vietnamese army, since their soldiers were not as tall as ours, hence the lower profile.
There’s still not a lot of info on the web about it, so I’m still stuck with my curiosity and some old stories that may or may not be true. The M-114 is still there, but it’s at a pretty busy point in a main road and there is no place to stop and get out to take a look at it.
Accurate Armour makes a M114 kit which is listed on their website (Accurate-armour.com)for 51.05 lbs I’m pretty sure the M114 was made before the m113, and used for recon until completly replaced by the M113 as it is quite abit smaller than the M113 when seen parked next to each other. I’m sure others others will have more info.
The M114 was not liked by it’s users in RVN as I was told many times over. It also was not able to take a mine as well as the M113 (you’d be surprised as to how well an M113 would take an 81mm mortar round or even a 105 round turned into a mine). Usually the only folks that were stuck with them were the recon tracks, and yet most of them used M113’s instead. Most M114’s that I saw were turned over to the South Vietnamese units. Once they were CBL’d they never were replaced with another one.
I can tell you from first hand experience it was a recon vehicle. I trained in them at Ft. Knox in '72.
Can’t remember a lot but believe that the M 114 was armed with a 50 calibre mg with a manual turret. The M 114 A1 was armed the same way but had a power turret and the M 114 A1E1 was armed with a 20MM gun. Side armor was about 1/2 inch thick and it was powered with a Chevy 283 engine.
I think it was a 3 man crew, consisting of a driver, gunner and commander and might have been able to carry about 2 to 4 additional personnel.
That’s the best my memory can do, so I’ll wait and see how many corrections are made to what I posted.
The above posts are correct. It was a recon vehicle intended for use by ACR and Div CAV Squadrons. It was not liked and quickly replaced for teh above reasons.
The AA ones are nice. They make the standard M114 w/.50 cal and the M114A1 with 20mm turret. They come withfull interiors as well.