Despite the accumulation of relatively large stocks of A.F.Vs. by the various Latin American nations, these armoured forces were destined not to be turned against one another in conventional wars, but to be used, for the most part, in internal security work, combating everything from civil unrest in the cities to guerrilla forces in the countryside. One of the first and historically most important counter-insurgency wars to be fought in Post-World War Latin America was the Cuban Revolution.

Cuban Revolution

In 1956 a handful of rebels, led by Fidel Castro, landed in Oriente Province and made their way to the Sierra Maestra Mountains from where they launched a guerrilla campaign against the government. At that time the armoured forces available to the Dictator Fulgencio Batista consisted of twelve or more M-3A1 light tanks and a number of M-3A1 scout cars, M-8 and T-17 armoured cars (the later purchased in 1957 from Nicaragua, which, in turn received their supply from Israel!).

In February of 1957 this force was supplemented by ten Sherman tanks from the U.S. with which Batista was able to form the "March 10th" Tank Regiment (Zaloga 1982, p.32; English 1984, p.202). With the imposition of a U.S. arms embargo in the Spring of 1958, Batista attempted to obtain fifteen "Comet" medium tanks from Britain, but these arrived only after he had fled the country (English 1984, p.204).

At the outset of the war the army's plan was to encircle groups of guerillas using converging columns of either infantrymen on foot, troops accompanied by mechanized forces, or a combination of both. The guerrillas usually responded by ambushing these columns, which were slow moving and virtually blind, due to their failure to reconnoiter properly.

Ambush

A typical example involved the army's attempted encirclement of a guerrilla force under Che Guevara on Turquino Peak in July of 1958. A column of four battalions, accompanied by tanks and armoured cars, advanced south from Estrada Palma towards the town of Los Vegas de Jibacoa. While mines and sniper fire served to slow the pace of all four battalions, the lead unit, unaccompanied by A.F.Vs. moved out of reach of the rest of the column and was surrounded by Che's group. The second battalion, assisted by the heavy firepower of its A.F.Vs., was able to rescue this unit, but the column as a whole was now forced to retreat back to Estrada Palma.

Che reacted quickly, mounting an ambush at a small creek over which the column would have to cross on its return. Allowing part of the column to cross over, he launched his attack against the rearguard, which broke and ran. Although the guerrillas were successfully beaten back by a counter-attack, the column was harassed by sniper fire all the way back to its base, being forced to abandon a good deal of equipment, including one tank (Bonachea and San Martin 1974, pp.246-247).

The army had better luck during the Battle of Las Mercedes in late July and early August. A major force of rebels under Castro's personnal command was attacked by Battalion No.l near the towns of Las Mercedes and Sao Grande. Distracted for four hours by his struggle with Battalion No. 1, Castro was taken by suprise when Battalions Nos. 2 and 17 appeared in his rear. Battalion No. 17 was supported by seven Shermans of Compaby "C" of the "March 10TH" Tank Regiment (Bonachea and SAN MARTIN 1974, p.255).

Amazingly, having cornered the main guerrilla force under Castro, instead of administering the "Coup de Grace", Major General Eulogio Cantillo Porras agreed to negotiate, during which time Castro's troops were able to make good their escape! Batista's so called "Summer Offensive" had ended in failure. Along with losing an enormous amount of material, including two tanks, the Cuban Army had lost the initiative so that, from now on, they would be forced to fight a rearguard action that was ultimately doomed.

For his part, Castro now felt strong enough to attempt to capture some of the provincial capitals, particularly the town of Santa Clara, possession of this would effectively severe the island in two. The government, aware of the importance of maintaining control of this town had stationed a large garrison in it, supported by at least ten tanks. Before its fall, Batista attempted to reinforce the garrison by dispatching an armoured train, consisting of eighteen armoured cars with a crew of six hundred troops. But Che Guevara, using a bulldozer, managed to trap the train in the Capiro Hills and captured three of the cars before the crew, abandoned by their commander, agreeded to lay down their arms, these being then used in turn by the rebels in their attack on Santa Clara (Bonachea and San slartin 1974, p.297; Malmassari 1989, p.l75).

Tractor "Tank"

On at least one occasion the rebels made use of an improvised A.F.V. Prior to the fall of Santa Clara, a guerrilla column under Camilo Cienfuegos encountered unusually stiff resistance from an army unit in the town of Yaguajay. On the 26th December the sympathetic workers at the Narcisa sugar mill helped the rebels construct a primative tank, mounting a .50 calibre machine gun on a large tractor encasing it in iron plates.

The following night an assault was attempted, but the "tank" was damaged and forced to withdraw. When the unit finally surrendered on the night of the 30th it was due to lack of food, water and ammunition, rather than through any fear of the rebel "tank" (Bonachea and San Martin 1974, p.295).

Towards the end Castro met with Major General Cantillo and suggested an anti-Batista alliance inwhich he would supply Castro with A.F.Vs. with which he could form a mechanized column and reach Havana before Batista fled the country. Major General Cantillo turned the offer down, but ironically, the "March 10th" Tank Regiment was dispatched to the airport outside of the capital on New Years Eve, not to prevent Batista from escaping, but to protect him during his departure.

The following day four tanks were sent to quell the rioting in Havana, this had broken out when news of Batista's departure became known, but, midway to their destination, their crews abandoned them and went home (Bonachea and San Martin 1974, pp.315-316). Equally symbolic was the rebel's use of captured tanks during their triumphal ride into the Capital.

Tank vs. Tank at the Bay of Pigs

It was inevitable, given the climate of the Cold War, that once Castro entered the Soviet orbit, the U.S. would seek to overthrow him. Oddly enough, this would lead to one of the few tank vs. tank encounters in Latin American history. The C.I.A. helped assemble a small Cuban Army in exile, the "Brigada Asalto 2506 (the brigade decided on the number 2506 in honour of their first death, Carlos (Carlyle) Rafael Santana who had died on an early training exercise in Guatemala, Haynes Johnson's "The Bay of Pigs", 1964, pp.47 & 56.), of which the 4th Battalion was designated the heavy weapons unit and equipped with five M-41 "Walker Bulldog" light tanks.

On the 15th April the four LCVS (landing craft vehicles and personnel), transporting the M-41s, departed the LSD (landing ship dock) "San Marcos" and made their way to "Blue Beach~ at the seaside town of Giron, east of the Bahia de Cochines or rather the say of Pigs (Wyden 1979, p.216). They were then sent to the town of San slast north of Giron, in order to defend the beach-head from the expected counter-attacks (Wyden 1979, p.257). The C.I.A. had estimated that Castro's armoured forces consisted of merely a small number of IS-3 "Stalin" heavy tanks and a few surviving M-3A1 light and M-4 mediums. Unfortunately for the Brigade, between 1959 and 1960 Castro had received delivery from Czechoslovakia of four T-54 and thirty six T-34/85 medium tanks, a similar number of SU-100 assault guns (turretless A.F.Vs. with a fixed gun in the hull), and sixty armoured personnel carriers (Zaloga 1984-A, p.33; English 1984, p.205).

It took time for Castro to mobilize his forces and, even on the way to the front, the pace of his mechanized columns was slowed by the strafing and bombing of the exile air force which, during one sortie, claimed to have destroyed no less than seven tanks (Wyden 1979, p.221). Fortunately for the Brigade the terrain surrounding their beach-head was well suited for defence against mechanized forces, as it could only be approached through a series of dirt paths flanked by swampland.

The Battle of the Rotunda

The first major clash between tanks occured during the "Battle of the Rotunda" which raged around a traffic circle on the outskirts of the town of Playa Larga, the anchor of the exile's left flank. Initially Castro wanted the commander of his tanks to use the back roads to bypass Playa Larga and threaten the town of Giron, but the commander was not as familiar with the area as Castro (Wyden 1979, p.258).

Around midnight the vanguard of Castro's force of twenty tanks, three "Stalin" heavy tanks (Zaloga believes these to be mis-identified SU-lOOs), approached the rotunda (Zaloga 1984-B, p.33). The opposing tanks exchanged fire at ranges of less than twenty yards, but it was the exile infantry, armed with recoil-less anti-tank guns, who forced the enemy A.F.Vs. to halt. While the recoil-less guns failed to penetrate their armour, they frightened the crews of the first two tanks to such a degree that they abandoned their vehicles. The remaining tank, however, made its way around its comrades and resumed the advance.

The closest M-41, having expended its ammunition, was forced to ram the enemy vehicle, which itself was too close to use its gun. The spectators likened the struggle of the two tanks to a wrestling match between "prehistoric monsters" The barrel of the gun on the Castro tank was snapped in half and further damage may have forced it to withdraw (Wyden 1979, pp.272-273; Zaloga 1984-8, p.33.).

Castro's tanks had better luck around San Blas, where they managed to deploy in a line and pour fire into the exile's positions (included among their numbers was at least one ex-Batista M-4 Sherman) (Zaloga 1982, p.32). Eventually the exiles were forced to abandon both Playa Larga and San Blas. Their retreat from the latter was so confused that when the last forty defenders attempted to escape by using an enemy truck, one of the M-41s shot it out from under them (Wyden 1979, p.277)!

Last Stand of Giron

The final tank engagement occured during the "Last Stand of Giron". The 2nd and 6th Battalions of the Brigade, equipped with seven bazookas and supported by three tanks, established a defensive position along a curve in the road leading from Playa Larga. The bazookas knocked out a column of three tanks and a BTR-152 armoured personnel carrier, while a subsequent infantry assault was repelled by fire from the M-41s {Wyden 1979, p.281; Zaloga 1984-B, pp.33-34).

When another Castro tank appeared, it took cover behind its wrecked comrades and managed to hit the middle M-41. As the blazing tank threatened the other two on either sides of itself, the driver of one of these neighboring tanks, "Little Egg" Alvarez, jumped into the burning vehicle, drove it to the rear and extinguished the fire, for which he was promoted to Captain on the battlefield.

Following this incident, "G" Company of the 2nd Battalion successfully counter-attacked the Castro forces, but, advancing too far, found themselves cut off and had to be rescued by one of the remaining tanks (Wyden 1979, p.282). By now the beach-head had contracted to almost nothing and, with their ammunition virtually gone, the Brigade was forced to split up and make its escape any way it could. The tanks were left on the beach, scuttled by their crews, Captain Alvarez even booby trapping his vehicle (Wyden 1979, pp.285-286; Zaloga 1984-B, p.34).

Had Washington wished to intervene directly, further tank fighting would have resulted, as a U.S. Marine Corps task force was stationed off the Bay of Pigs equipped with two landing ship tanks (LST) full of armoured vehicles (Wyden 1979, p.276). This would have represented a minor skirmish, however, compared with the potential battles which would have resulted from the invasion mapped out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962.

At the U.S. Marine Corps base of Guantanamo, on Cuba itself, a large number of troops were amassed, supported by one hundred and fifty five tanks Soviet estimates, at that time, of one hundred and fifty were on the mark). The main invasion force would have included the 1st Armoured Division, which had been transported by no less than 38 trains from Fort Hood, Texas, to Fort Stewart, Georgia on the 22nd of October 1962 {Brugioni 1992, pp.96-97). The mission of the 1st Armoured Division was to land west of Havana, with the assistance of the 101st Airborne Division, and to proceed south to the missile sites at San Cristobal and San Antonio de los Banos. From there they would link up with a Marine Beach-head east of Havana, thus encircling the capital and strike out to the east to capture the missile sites of Sagua la Grande and Remedios (Brugioni 1992, p.98).

Along with the Cuban defenders, the 1st Armoured Division was expecting to clash with four Soviet Mechanized Groups which had been stationed on the island to protect the missile sites. Fortunately, for everyone concerned, the invasion was called off.

US Invasion of Dominican Republic

Three years later, however, the U.S. did participate in an invasion of one of the states located on Cuba's neighboring island. This was the intervention in the Dominican Republic, codenamed "Power Pack". On the 25th of April, 1965, civil war broke out between a fraction known as the "Constitutionalists" and part of the army under General Elias Wessin y Wessin. Gen. Wessin was the commander of the "Centro de Entrenamiente de las Fuerzas Armades" (CEFA), the training centre of the armed forces. As the most reliable troops in the Army, the CEFA contingent was armed with most of the heavy weapons, including all of the Army's tanks.

Although these may have included some of the equipment supplied by the U.S. in the 1940's, a subsequent arms embargo had led the Dominican Army to turn to other suppliers, so that their inventory of A.F.Vs. included the unlikely combination of 20 French AMX-13 light tanks (purchased in 1959) and 20 each of Landsverk L-60 light tanks and Lynx armoured cars from Sweden (purchased earlier in the 1950's), all of which made up the Army's Armoured Battalion (its interesting to note that, because the CEFA was located near an air base, it has often been erroneously reported that the Dominican Air Force was equipped with tanks) (Keegan 1979; English 1984, p.226).

The importance of the Armoured Batttalion to Gen. Wessin is reflected in the statement of Laurence Yates, author of a study on "Power Pack" "His tanks might be capable of overwhelming the rebels, but he could not be sure, and to lose his tanks meant losing his power." (Yates 1988, p.28). Nonetheless, Gen. Wessin was willing to risk it all in a bid for the capital. The CEFA facilities were located at San Isidro, less than ten miles east of Santo Domingo.

On the 27th of April General Wessin's mechanized column had reached the eastern portion of the city and crossed over the Duarte suspension bridge, entering the western half of the capital. Hundreds of "Constitutionalists" were killed in the ensuing battle and it looked as though the civil war was over. But that same day the "Constitutionalists" regrouped and launched a counter-attack.

The tanks, unable to manuevre in the narrow back streets, were showered with "Molotov Cocktails". Gen. Wessin's forces withdrew, leaving behind at least one L-60 light tank in the hands of the "Constitutionalists" (Walsh 1965, p.8; Yates 1988, pp.46-47).

On the 30th April, the U.S. intervened to end the fighting. While the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division secured the eastern side of the city, the 6th U.S. Marine Brigade, supported by a company of M-48 "Patton" medium tanks, was assigned the western portion of the capital. The 3rd Battalion (U.S. Marines} entered their sector behind a column of LVTs (landing vehicles tracked - amphibious armoured personnel carriers), ONTOS (an A.F.V. equipped with six recoilless anti-tank guns and M-48s (Yates 1988, p.82). Resistance, for the most part, was in the form of sniper fire, so that, with strict rules of engagement, the U.S. A.F.Vs. saw little action. However, on the 15th of June the last remaining pocket of "constitutionalists" in the Western half of the city opened fire with everything they had, including their L-60 tank, on the Inter-American Peace Keeping Force (IAPF - made up of contingents from Brazil, Costa Rico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay and the U.S.A.). The U.S. 82nd Airborne returned fire, destroying the enemy tank with their 106mm recoilless anti-tank gun (Yates 1988, pp.122-123, 158-159). Fortunately this was one of the last engagements of the intervention.

Other Installments

Armoured Fighting Vehicles in Latin America: An Introduction: Part 2
Armoured Fighting Vehicles in Latin America: An Introduction: Part 4
Armoured Fighting Vehicles in Latin America: An Introduction: Part 5

Related:

Uruguayan AFVs: 1933-1995
US Army Secret Report: Cuba 1951 Army Effectiveness