In Cuba, the use of armoured vehicles by the rebels began during the last few months of the revolution, when the guerrillas were on the verge of success. Here, both home-made and captured vehicles were put to use.

GUISA

During late November 1958, the guerrillas laid siege to Guisa. On November 20 at 8:30AM a guerrilla force ambushed an enemy patrol between Bayamo and Guisa. At 10:30AM reinforcements with T-17 Staghounds charged up the road. They were driven back by 2:00PM and one of their Staghounds was destroyed by a mine at 4:00PM. On November 21, reinforcements supported by a Sherman tank broke through to reinforce the garrison at Guisa. On the 23rd the army again tried to send forces up the road and were repulsed. On November 25 they sent a whole battalion preceeded by two Staghounds up the road from Bayamo to Guisa.

A mile and a quarter up the road the guerrillas sprung a heavy ambush. The lead Staghound was immobilised by a mine. Guerrillas poured fire down onto the column from both sides of the road. By 6:00PM the soldiers had abandoned all of the trucks and were concentrated around the two Staghounds. At 10:00PM the guerrillas launched a mortar barrage on the battalion, while other guerrillas dug an anti-tank ditch across their rear where the remains of Staghound that was destroyed on the 20th lay. Now the two Staghounds and the soldiers were trapped. All of the 26th, the guerrillas laid siege to this column.

At dawn on the 27th two battalions led by Sherman tanks broke through the guerrilla ring. They fought all day and finally at 6PM withdrew. The Shermans with their treads were able to cross the anti-tank ditch, but the armoured cars could not. One vehicle was towed out by a Sherman, but another was abandoned intact. In addition to the abandoned Staghound, the guerrillas captured large amounts of weapons, ammunition and equipment. The Staghound was quickly made ready and driven up to Guisa. At 2:20AM on the 29th the vehicle and two squads of guerrillas drove right up to the gates.

A guard on the roof manning a .30 caliber machine-gun yelled to 1st Lt. Reinaldo Blanco that the tanks had made it through the guerrilla ambush. Lt. Blanco had heard nothing on the radio about the tanks making it through, so he went up on the roof to take a look. The vehicle slowed down, but continued to advance. Blanco yelled for the Staghound to stop and identify itself. The vehicle continued to advance. Blanco ordered his machine-gunner to prepare to open fire, but the machine-gunner argued back that it was a government vehicle. The Staghound stopped in front of the Esso station about fifty meters away and began turning its turret toward the barracks.

Blanco realised that vehicle must have been captured by the rebels at the ambush he had listened to over the radio. He yelled at his machine-gunner to open fire. The armoured car fired first and the soldiers took cover inside the concrete walls of the barracks. The Staghound fired round after round of 37mm cannon fire into the walls of the compound. Lt. Blanco realised that the guerrillas were firing high explosive shells and not armoured piercing, or the walls would have been penetrated. Unfortunately for the garrison, the one bazooka it possessed was in need of repair, so all they could do was hunker down and wait. The Staghound fired 50 rounds at the garrison, and when its ammunition was depleted, the vehicle made a wide turn to leave but ran into a ditch and got stuck. Lt. Blanco ordered his men to open fire with the machine-guns and one soldier to fire rifle grenades from his M-1 rifle at the tires of the vehicle. The grenadier made two direct hits which stopped the motor. The guerrilla crew was still intact and continued firing the vehicles machine-guns until they were out of ammunition. The three guerrillas inside then climbed out and withdrew. The soldiers fired furiously at the emerging guerrillas.

The first guerrilla out seemed like he was hit, a second seemed to escape unscathed. And the final guerrilla popped his head out of the turret hatch and started wrestling with the anti-aircraft machine-gun mounted outside the hatch. About thirty soldiers fired at him, seemingly without effect. The guerrilla in question was the guerrilla lieutenant Alfonso Prieto who managed to take the gun with him, and was wounded in the process of removing the gun from the turret. He managed to crawl with his gun back to friendly lines.

That day three enemy columns advanced on Guisa from Bayamo, Santa Rita and El Corojo. By 4PM when the columns failed to break through, the Guisa garrison abandoned the compound and left town. They abandoned large quantities of equipment and weapons.

YAGUAJAY

As the revolution was coming to its successful conclusion in the last days of December 1958 the army garrison of Yaguajay refused to surrender. This was holding up Camilo Cienfuegos in his mission to advance from Las Villas province toward Havana.

The main problem was that the guerrillas just did not have any weapons powerful enough to force the garrison out of its fortified building. Two rebels approached Camilo Cienfuegos with a solution. They proposed converting a caterpillar tractor into an armoured vehicle. This would allow the rebels to get right up to the garrison walls without being exposed. Camilo enthusiastically accepted the idea as he was seeking a way to burn the garrison and force the occupants to surrender. They were proving particularly stubborn under the command of Captain Alfredo Abon-Ly, a Chinese-Cuban that everybody called El Chino Ly.

An International TD-14-A, a 14 ton, 54 horse power tractor was found. This was covered with a variety of 12mm soft steel plates, especially the cabin and the motor. The combination was found to be vulnerable to fire from an M-1 Garand, so additional plates were welded on, and the space between filled with sandbags and sand. A hole was made in the floor to allow the crew to escape if the vehicle was immobilised. The vehicle was armed with a home-made flame thrower that fired a gas/oil mixture out to about 10 meters. Because of this, it was christened "Dragon I." "Dragon" because its principle weapon was a home-made flame-thrower and "I" because Cienfuegos planned to build more.

On December 26, 1958, the Dragon I went into action with a crew of three who in addition to the flame thrower carried two San Cristobal carbines and an M-1 Garand. At 4AM the mechanical beast lumbered toward the garrison. The noise it produced confusion and panic among the Batista garrison, and in the resulting stupor, the garrison ceased all fire, as they attempted to figure out what was coming towards them in the darkness. Inside the garrison, a guard shouted to Abon-Ly that something was coming. The captain jumped up and peered out a window.

He heard the rumbling of the engine, which sounded to him like a heavy truck. However, in the early morning darkness he could not make out the form of what was advancing toward his garrison. Because of this, the Dragon I was able to approach to within a few feet of the fort and fire the flame-thrower. However, the flame thrower malfunctioned, and only a weak spurt of flame came out, which did not reach the target. However, this spurt, weak though it was, terrified a number of the soldiers who cried out monstruo, monstruo! (monster, monster!) Abon-Ly calmed his men down by telling them it was a machine and to listen for the engine. When this happened, the garrison came alive and rifle and machine-gun fire rained down on the armoured tractor, forcing it to retreat.

The rest of the 26th, modifications were made according to the recommendations of the crew. The main improvement consisted of a cap of wire mesh that was placed over the whole vehicle so grenades would bounce off the vehicle. At 5PM the vehicle was moved in preparation for the next days action. As it was moving along the road, a Batista plane strafed and bombed it, without causing any damage.

At 4AM on the 27th, the Dragon I again attacked the garrison. At 200 meters, the garrison opened fire with a concentrated volley of rifle and machine-gun fire. This became more intense as the vehicle got closer to the walls. However, the bullets failed to penetrate the armor. The tractor got within a couple of dozen meters from the main gate and opened fire. However, the flames did not quite reach the emplacements. Inside Captain Abon-Ly ordered a soldier to get the garrisons bazooka. It had one rocket remaining. The man loaded the rocket and moved into a dark corner of the garrisons front porch. Abon-Ly told his man to only fire when he gave the order as they could not waste the shot. The Dragon I crept forward. It was so dark that only when the vehicle fired the flame-thrower could the soldiers see where it was. When it was at about thirty feet away, Abon-Ly yelled at his gunner to fire as loud as he could. The rocket streaked out to its target and hit the Dragon I on the upper right front of the vehicle. The impact made a hole in the metal and sandbags about two feet wide. However, the warhead failed to explode and it fell uselessly to the ground with a thud. Abon-Ly cursed the old and defective ammunition he'd been issued, but could hear the rebel crew shouting retreat, retreat! from within the vehicle. The impact shook the crew up and stalled the Dragon I's motor. The missile had hit the plate over the radiator, penetrated it, and blown away two sandbags and an exhaust pipe.

For a moment the vehicle stopped as the crew recovered from the impact. The driver got the motor going and was able to extract the vehicle under fire. When they had gone a few meters, the crew heard a familiar voice through the escape hole underneath. It was Camilo Cienfuegos, who had crawled out of his trench into the open to check to see if everyone was all right. The vehicle was taken back and repaired that same day.

The next day, Dragon I went into combat for the last time. The flame-thrower no longer worked, so in the darkness of the morning the vehicle moved to within 50 meters of the base and drove back and forth as the crew fired their weapons.

The base finally surrendered on December 31, when it ran out of food, ammunition, water and learned that they had no hope of outside assistance.

MAFFO

On December 31, 1958, Columns 1 and 3 intensified their attack on Maffo. A captured Staghound, a 37mm cannon and an 81mm mortar were brought up to pound the enemy into submission. Finally at 5:30PM the last holdouts surrendered.

Insurgent Armor in Latin America

Insurgent Armor: Introduction
Insurgent Armor: Costa Rica 1948
Insurgent Armor: Cuba 1958
Insurgent Armor: Dominican Republic 1965
Insurgent Armor: Chile 1973
Insurgent Armor: Nicaragua 1978-1979
Insurgent Armor: El Salvador 1981-1989
Insurgent Armor: Colombia 1993-1998