COBI 2236 M113 Armored Infantry Vehicle Tank

The first mass-produced aluminum-hulled armored vehicle was supplied by the US to the South Vietnamese Army in the early 1960s and later became the US Army's most widely used vehicle in the Vietnam War. It was nicknamed 'Green Dragon' by the Viet Cong. The aluminum structure made it light enough to use in difficult terrain and easy to transport. Some 80,000 M113s have been produced and used by more than fifty countries. The Netherlands purchased more than 700 vehicles from the M113 family in the 1960s. From 1967 onwards they entered the ready units, mainly the armored engineers (M113A1) and reconnaissance units.