They were armored against .30 cal. A .50 cal/12.7mm would penetrate, but that’s the trade off for having a lightweight vehicle. It was only designed for small arms protection and artillery fragmentation protection.
As an APC, they were not intended to be assaulting when they were first designed. The M113 replaced the M59 APC, which also was only designed for small arms and artillery protection. This amount of protection or less than this was normal in troop carriers designed earlier than the M113. When you go back to WW2, most troop carriers had laughable amounts of comparative armor.
M113s had a Suffering From Success issue that as very good and modular APCs, they were used in what would later be recognized as an IFV role. Instead of being battle taxis that moved troops up while protecting them from artillery fragments and scattered small arms, the M113s were commonly used as assault vehicles, essentially doing the role just like a WW1 tank. The problems with using them in this way resulted some of the design considerations of the Bradley.
I haven’t specifically seen stories of bullets bouncing
around multiple times inside. Maybe it happened, but documentation of it both happening and documentation that such a thing was more common than a freak occurrence would be something to find.
Riding on top of M113s, just like riding on top of many other vehicles happened/happens for a lot of reasons.
They were armored against .30 cal. A .50 cal/12.7mm would penetrate, but that’s the trade off for having a lightweight vehicle. It was only designed for small arms protection and artillery fragmentation protection.
As an APC, they were not intended to be assaulting when they were first designed. The M113 replaced the M59 APC, which also was only designed for small arms and artillery protection. This amount of protection or less than this was normal in troop carriers designed earlier than the M113. When you go back to WW2, most troop carriers had laughable amounts of comparative armor.
M113s had a Suffering From Success issue that as very good and modular APCs, they were used in what would later be recognized as an IFV role. Instead of being battle taxis that moved troops up while protecting them from artillery fragments and scattered small arms, the M113s were commonly used as assault vehicles, essentially doing the role just like a WW1 tank. The problems with using them in this way resulted some of the design considerations of the Bradley.
I haven’t specifically seen stories of bullets bouncing around multiple times inside. Maybe it happened, but documentation of it both happening and documentation that such a thing was more common than a freak occurrence would be something to find.
Riding on top of M113s, just like riding on top of many other vehicles happened/happens for a lot of reasons.