A number of improvised armour designs were used by the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua between October 1977 and July 1979.

MASAYA 1977

On October 17, 1977 the guerrillas of Masaya attacked the National Guard compound in that town as part of the first general insurrection. There would be a total of three before the Somoza dynasty was overthrown. Serious planning didn't start until August of that year. The guerrilla force available for the attack was small, so the element of surprise was a must. From the very beginning there was consensus on the idea that surprise could be obtained by carrying the assault team in a tarp covered cargo truck that would ram through the front gate. However, it was feared that the assault team would never make it out of the truck as they would be very vulnerable to fire in the unprotected bed.

The solution was to somehow provide protection for the assault team. The planners decided that they could stack flat rock used in Nicaragua to line rain gutters up around the bed, and that this would provide enough protection to allow the team to survive the initial penetration and a place from where they could fight or lay down a base of fire. In essence, the guerrillas had designed an armoured personnel carrier. The guerrillas bought the rock and shipped it to a farm just outside Masaya belonging to the family of one of the assault team. They then rented a truck telling the owner/driver a story that they were going to move furniture from their farm to a beach house. Deciding to take advantage of the trip to spend time at the beach, the man brought along his whole family. They were much chagrined when they discovered that they were going to have to be held prisoner at the farm, instead of enjoying a day at the beach, until the operation was over. The guerrillas drove into Masaya in a column of three vehicles. Two of the vehicles broke off and deposited teams that set up in the church bordering the park that was adjacent to the main guard barracks. From the tower the guerrillas could look down into the barracks to provide support fire to the assault team. The assault team truck turned onto the street that ran parallel to the front gate of the barracks. When they reached the corner of a building that opened up on the park they were surprised to see the guard troops all lined up in the park with their vehicles preparing to go on a major patrol.

The guard had gotten wind that something was up. When the guerrillas were in front of the barracks gate, one of the guerrillas in the cab threw a grenade and jumped out of the truck into the park firing. Instead of turning the truck to ram the gate, the driver stopped the vehicle and jumped out himself. The guerrillas inside the truck did not dismount, but began firing from inside. The piled stone worked fine stopping all incoming fire, until the guard brought up a .50 caliber machine-gun. The heavy bullets began penetrating the walls, throwing shards of stone bouncing around the interior. The nine guerrillas in the bed quickly abandoned the vehicle, taking advantage of the cover provided by the nearby buildings. Some guerrillas escaped unscathed, and some who were wounded also managed to make a getaway with the aid of the crowd that had gathered.

Two guerrillas were wounded in the legs and unable to move. At the end of the battle they were captured and executed by the angry guardsmen. The guerrilla who ran into the park was also killed, in combat.

MASAYA 1978

Based on this experience, during the September 1978 insurrection in Masaya, a truck lined with sandbags, mounting a M3 .50 caliber machine-gun was used to support a guerrilla assault that successfully overran the police sub-station in the Monimbo neighbourhood of Masaya, and later used to support the siege of the main Masaya guard barracks. The Masaya barracks came within a hair's breath of being overrun by the guerrillas, but was relieved at the last minute by a guard column led by a Sherman tank and Staghound armoured cars.

The Southern Front May-July 1979

The most extensive use of guerrilla improvised armor however, was on the southern front. The guerrillas concentrated their attack on the most direct route to Managua, along the narrow neck of land between Lake Managua and the Pacific Ocean, the war became conventional. This is due to the terrain, which is limited in area, relatively sparse in vegetation and dotted by relatively gentle hills. Because of the necessarily conventional nature of the fighting on this front, the guerrillas armed themselves with artillery, mortars, heavy machine-guns and vehicle transport.

They were able to do this through the poorly veiled enthusiastic collaboration of the Costa Rican administration of President Rodrigo Carazo and weapons supplied by Cuba, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica. The commander of the Southern Front was Eden Pastora known as Commander Zero. One of Pastora's closest collaborators was Pepe Figueres, Costa Rica's most distinguished ex-president who had led his own revolution in 1948. A long time enemy of Somoza's Figueres saw that the Sandinistas could win, and did everything he could to help them. He turned his private 1948 arsenal over to Pastora and helped advise and plan operations. He also helped the Sandinistas build an armoured vehicle. Thinking that it might come in handy, Figueres took the chassis of a light truck, stripped it and built up an armoured body. To determine the armor thickness, they used the M1 Garand as a standard. This they figured, was the most powerful of the common weapons used by the Somoza guard. They experimented with different thicknesses of mild steel until it could resist repeated Garand rounds, and still be light enough for the chassis to support it. Two layers of plate was found to be adequate.

The resulting vehicle was armed with a .50 caliber M3 machine-gun in a rotating turret and two .30 caliber machine-guns in the body. It was loaded aboard a covered cargo truck and snuck up to the border. Here it was given to one of the international brigades that included Argentines. On a visit to the front Pepe Figueres tested the armament by firing the weapons from within the vehicles. He did not say whether this was done in combat or not. He did say that the .50 caliber gun was adequately mounted as it hardly vibrated at all. He asked a female Argentine guerrilla who was an art student to give it a name. She painted "Batallon Ayacucho 17" on it. Ayacucho was the last battle led by Simon Bolivar of South America's war of liberation from Spain. The combat record of Batallon Ayacucho 17 is not specifically known. However it survived the war and was on display at the Museum of the Revolution two years later when the photos accompanying this article were taken.

In May 1979, a motorised column of Sandinistas under Eden Pastora crossed the border and took El Naranjo and then El Ostional. Their objective was to take Rivas, the capital of this region of Nicaragua by an old back road that led through hilly terrain. They got bogged down taking hills from the guard at El Ostional. The guard was able to rapidly bring in troops, artillery, aircraft and even gun boats on Lake Nicaragua. Furthermore it rained for days, making the guerrillas even more miserable. Eden Pastora decided to attempt a withdrawal and attack by another way. The withdrawal was poorly co-ordinated and was discovered by the guard who rapidly poured every bit of firepower they could down on the guerrillas. The withdrawal turned into a rout, and dozens of guerrillas were killed and wounded. Among the captured booty were two vehicles, one of them an overturned, home-made armoured jeep of unknown characteristics. The guard thought they had beaten the guerrillas on the southern front, and sent their forces north to deal with fighting. Within several days the guerrillas on the southern front mounted an even larger operation, this time against the border post of Pe¤as Blancas. The guerrillas brought up recoilless rifles and mortars and blasted the guard positions. Then they attacked with infantry and at least three armoured cars similar to Ayacucho 17. Ayacucho 17 may have been among them. The guerrillas caught the guard by surprise and took Pennas Blancas.

Taking advantage of their initiative they then drove on to Sapoa and took it as well. They were stopped short of Rivas by a fortified guard position on Hill 50. This position was just across the Ostallo river that ran perpendicular to the Pan-american highway and dominated the surrounding terrain including the bridge across the river. The guerrillas built a trench line on their side of the river and for the rest of the war both sides settled down to trench warfare, where the greatest enemy was the constant artillery bombardment. The three armoured cars were parked in the motor pool at Pe¤as Blancas for the remainder of the war waiting for a Sandinista breakthrough. When the guard fled on July 19th, Ayacucho 17 formed part of the victorious column of guerrillas that made its way to Managua from the South.

ESTELI July 1979

Finally, the story of improvised guerrilla armor in Nicaragua cannot be told without mentioning the battle for Esteli. In June, guerrillas laid siege to Esteli. By the first week of July they had taken the whole city with the exception of the guard fort. The fort was square with a high wall all the way around and machine-gun towers at each corner. On three sides it was surrounded by open fields that could be swept by the machine-gun towers. Only on the south was it near any houses, and the guard had been wise and taken over the dominating houses in this neighbourhood where they had installed machine-gun positions. Several attempts to approach the fort on one of the less open sides at night had failed with heavy casualties. The only approach was by the south, but the fighting was bitter and costly.

The guerrillas were finally able to wrest the last house from the guard, but now had to cross open space to reach the fort's walls. They couldn't bypass the fort because it dominated the road to Managua, and all major guerrilla forces had been ordered to march on Managua.

Brainstorming, the guerrilla leaders came up with an imaginative plan. They had captured an intact fumigation plan at an airstrip outside of town. A guerrilla trained in explosives said he could modify the plane to carry impact bombs, and another guerrilla was found who had flown crop dusters. In addition, the guerrillas had captured a public works park within which were several bulldozers and tractors. It was planned to bring several of these vehicles up to the perimeter of the fort and drive them through the fort's perimeter wall. The vehicles would be closely followed by infantry that would break through the holes made by the vehicles. To protect the vehicle operators, the drivers were trained to fix the speed and direction of the vehicle and then abandon them and join the infantry coming behind.

Finally, the guerrilla commanders were able to make contact with another guerrilla force and make arrangements to borrow a Chinese 76mm recoilless rifle, a gunner and nine rounds of ammunition. This gun would be set up in the houses on the south side of the fort. The plan was for the plane to bomb the fort in the early darkness of pre-dawn, the gun to take out the machine-gun towers and then for the vehicles and infantry to attack. The attack was to take place on July 15, 1979.

The plane was painted black and red (the Sandinista colors) and modified to carry a rack of 4 impact bombs that could be released from the cockpit. There was a real danger that any jolting or rattling could set the bombs off as well. Without any instruments or maps, the plane was to be guided in by signals on the ground, which would consist of four large bonfires on each of the four sides of the compound. The pilot would release his bombs in the center of the bonfires.

On July 15, everything was made ready, and the plane took off. However, the people in charge of the bonfires had gotten mixed up and had told people to light bonfires all over the city. The confused pilot circled in the dark and then returned to the airstrip. He had been instructed that if for any reason he was forced to abort the mission, that he was to drop the bombs in an empty field and then land. Instead, the man took the risk and landed the plane with the bombs back at the airfield. Fortunately, none exploded. The attack was cancelled. That day, several hours were spent chewing out the people in charge of the bonfires and preparing to try again the next day.

On July 16, the plane took off again. This time the bonfires were correctly placed and the plane came in right on target. Not wanting to miss, the pilot flew in low and released the bombs. Two struck the fort, and two fell outside. Then the intrepid pilot made another pass over the base to see where he had hit. While the machine-gun towers were paying attention to the plane, the recoilless rifle opened up. Missing its first shot, it knocked out a tower with the second. After each shot, the gun had a team of guerrillas that moved it to avoid incoming fire from the fort. The flame and smoke thrown up by the gun gave away the position. After seven shots, the gunner had taken out all four towers and a damaged Staghound armoured car that the guard were using as a pill box. When the firing ceased the vehicles advanced as planned. The drivers locked and abandoned their vehicles and the juggernauts struck the wall and successfully opened several holes. The infantry poured through. Fighting inside the walls lasted several hours as many guardsmen resisted until the bitter end. However, the guerrillas had successfully taken the installation through an imaginative and improvised combined arms attack.

It is known that the Sandinistas captured one or two Staghound armoured cars and used them in combat against the Guard, but few details have been published about their capture and use.

On July 19th, 1979 the revolution triumphed in Nicaragua. The military defeat of the well trained, well armed Somoza guard was complete, and should not be forgotten in the annals of war. For armour and mechanised warfare buffs, improvised and captured armoured vehicles made a small, but significant contribution to this battle.

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