M50 Ontos

## Crew

* Commander
* Driver

The **M50 Ontos** is a Tier 4 special premium Tank Destroyer under Oscar Faraday's dealership.

## History

Class: Self-Propelled Recoilless Gun Carrier

Developed: 1952

Service: 1956-1970

Vehicles Built: 321

Operators: USA

The Ontos ("Thing" in Greek) is a self-propelled recoilless gun carrier and one of the most iconic American vehicles of the Vietnam War. The original Ontos was developed as an alternative to the M56 Scorpion airborne self-propelled gun. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the U.S. military recognized the need for a light, mobile tank killer that would be able to traverse even rough terrain to ambush the enemy as well as to be deployed via parachute drops from a cargo plane, arriving on the ground practically combat-ready. The Scorpion would, however, suffer from poor stability and negligible crew protection.

The Ontos was born of the same mindset but had several key differences, the most notable being the fact that the standard rifled gun was replaced by a set of recoilless ones, which allowed the diminutive vehicle to carry incredible firepower. The vehicle also had its downsides and the U.S. Army rejected it only for the U.S. Marine Corps to pick up the tab and order some 300 vehicles delivered between 1956 and 1957.

The Ontos saw action several times before it was deployed in Vietnam. In one of the weirdest tank actions of post-war history, an Ontos knocked out a Swedish WW2 era Landsverk L-60 tank during the 1965 American intervention in the Dominican Republic. With the exception of one or two events, it was never really used as an anti-tank vehicle during the Vietnam War – instead, it was deployed as heavy fire support to various marine infantry units. It excelled in urban combat – a single salvo could level an entire building and the Vietnamese quickly learned to fear it. In other cases, it was essentially used as artillery, firing indirectly at long ranges and bombarding the enemy into submission. The canister rounds were especially devastating against charging Viet Cong troops with a single Ontos being capable of literally shredding sometimes dozens of enemies at once with one salvo. The HE rounds, on the other hand, turned out to be very effective against improvised entrenched positions in the jungle.

However, due to the lack of spare parts and general maintenance issues, the Ontos starting to disappear from the battlefields in 1968 and very few of these vehicles survived the Vietnam War. It was officially phased out in 1973 and the last unit to feature an operational Ontos was likely the Guantanamo Bay garrison that had one working vehicle in 1980.

## Vehicle Traits

* Stealthy: This vehicle does not lose any camouflage when moving at any speed, which is handy primarily for scouting.
* HESH Rounds: This vehicle can fire special Squash Head rounds. These are extremely effective against angled armor that is typical for Soviet tanks.
* Off-Road Capability: This vehicle has increased maneuverability in rough terrain and on soft surfaces that would normally slow a tank down.

## Upgrades

### Armor

M50 Ontos Stock Armor
 This vehicle's light armor offers basic protection from autocannons and machineguns.

### Weapon

**Stats:**

* **Magazine Type**: Clip
* **Magazine Size**: 6
* **Reload within Magazine**: 1.82 s
* **Burst Fire Rate**: 33.00 rd/min
* **Depression/Elevation**: -10.0° / 20.0°

## Abilities

**Description:**This ability allows you to fall back quickly by temporarily improving your camouflage factor and acceleration. However, it also reduces your vision range and reload speed.

## Footnotes

1. ↑ 18 mm at 100m;
15 mm at 1000m
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Loading Assistant and Improved sights are mutually exclusive; equipping one upgrade will unequip the other.

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