The United States had already been involved in low-key activities in Vietnam since 1950. By the early 1960s, involvement was ramping up and full military combat deployments were taking place beginning in 1965. The HAWK missile system was therefore deployed to the region to protect allied ground interests from incoming low-level enemy air attacks. However, the HAWK proved to have a weakness against such targets at that range and the M42 was therefore reactivated and deployed during the Vietnam War to shore up air defense limitations. These M42s - upgraded with new engines to become the M42A1 - were assigned to three battalions belonging to the Air Defense Artillery detachment. At some point during its career, the M42 came to known as the "Duster" by American servicemen.
The Duster system provided little useful air defense service in the early going as the massed threat from low-flying North Vietnamese aircraft was not to be. Spares were hard to come by and maintenance requirements proved high for the aging weapon. Consequently, M42s were committed more and more to the ground support role where their dual rapid-firing 40mm cannons could be brought to bear against a dug in enemy or against troop concentrations and soft-skinned vehicles. In fact, Dusters proved quite exceptional in the role and went on to provide armed escort to convoys as well as guard American bases from air or ground assault from North Vietnamese elements. After the last M42 teams left Vietnam proper, Dusters stocked the ranks of the US National Guard until the type was formally and finally retired from operational service in 1988.
Key variants of the M42 family line included the original production M42 followed by the upgraded M42A1 which was nothing more than an M42 with an AOSI-89505 series 500 horsepower engine (among other subtle refinements). "Type 64" was a designation used by the Taiwanese Army for a light tank that melded the open-topped turrets of obsolete World War 2-era M18 "Hellcat" tank destroyers with existing hulls of M42s. Similarly, Venezuela developed an indigenous self-propelled anti-aircraft system by fitting existing M42A1 turrets with French AMX-13M51 light tank tracked hulls to create the AMX-13/M41E1 "Rafaga".
While the M42 was never a unanimous export success, she did find a home outside of the American military for she went on to stock the inventories of the West German, Greek and Japanese armies as well as those of Lebanon, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Jordan, Venezuela and Pakistan. Pakistan may still maintain some 100 examples in active service.
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