Mastranaza M-114 SPAA

     Notes: This odd vehicle has an interesting history.  In 1978, El Salvador took delivery of 27 used Woodmaster tractors – essentially M-114s stripped of their armor and rebuilt as agricultural tractors.  Mastranza in El Salvador immediately got to work on them, re-plating them and otherwise trying to get into working order.  They produced three variants: an APC (which US officials at first mistook for an M-113, as the El Salvadoran APC looks quite similar at first glance), a sort of gun carrier with a turret armed with several machineguns pointing in several directions, and the AAA vehicle.  It is believed that no more than four of these vehicles have been built.

     The biggest problem that Mastranza had was the engines.  The Woodmaster does not have the same engine as the M-114 – it used a different engine, a Chevy V-8 gasoline engine that produces 160 horsepower.  The gasoline engines were limited in range, unreliable, prone to breakdowns, and tended to overheat when used in their new role in armored vehicles.  Within a year, Mastranza replaced those engines with 134-horsepower LDT-465IC V-6 diesels adapted from M-35 2.5-ton trucks.  Though the range was improved, speed was decreased, the engines are considerably heavier than the gas engines, and the engines still regularly overheated.  This means that the M-114 SPAA (I don’t really know what else to call it) is primarily a reaction or static support weapon rather than being able to keep up with most vehicle convoys to support them in a dynamic roles.

     The M-114 SPAA has faces built up with thin armor plate; they are sloped on both the front and sides.  There are seats for the driver and commander at the front; these have slits with windows at the front and hatches above them.  At the rear is what looks like a ridiculously-large turret, housing a Yugoslavian-built M-55A2 triple-20mm autocannon system (which uses three M-52 autocannons); this system uses manual traverse and elevation.  The turret has no back at all.