Specifications

History

Acquired as a transfer of equipment from Camp Roberts, our M60A was trucked in on 30 May 2003 and placed on a specially-prepared reinforced concrete pad.

The M60 is an American second-generation main battle tank (MBT). It was officially standardized as the Tank, Combat, Full Tracked: 105-mm Gun, M60 in March 1959. Although developed from the M48 Patton, the M60 tank series was never officially christened as a Patton tank. The US Army considered it a “product-improved descendant” of the Patton tank’s design. The design similarities are evident comparing the original version of the M60 and the M48A2. It has been sometimes informally grouped as a member of the Patton tank family. The United States fully committed to the MBT doctrine in 1963, when the Marine Corps retired the last (M103) heavy tank battalion. The M60 tank series became America’s primary main battle tank during the Cold War.Over 15,000 M60s were built by Chrysler. Hull production ended in 1983, but 5,400 older models were converted to the M60A3 variant ending in 1990.

The original variant of the M60 series ultimately was produced as a quick fix engineering (QFE) upgrade of the M48 due to the Soviet Union’s tank advancements of the late 1950s and the delays from developing the silicas armor and an improved turret design. The M60 mounted a 105 mm M68 main gun with the bore evacuator mounted towards the middle of the tube carrying 57 rounds in the clamshell shaped turret style of the M48. Nine rounds were stowed in the left side of the turret bustle behind the loader.

The remaining rounds were stored inside safe containers on the hull floor. A new short receiver coaxial machine gun was designed for the M60 tank. This was the 7.62mm M73/T197E2 which replaced the .30 caliber M37 used on the M48A2. It had 2,000 rounds of ammunition. They had a reputation for jamming. After working to correct this, they were redesignated as the M73A1 in 1970.

The electronics package on the M60 was essentially the same as used on the M48A2C including an improved turret control system and an all-metric measurement M16 Fire Control System (FCS), The M16 FCS consists of a new M10 ballistic drive and mechanical M16E1 gun data computer which integrated barrel temperature data[54] with an M17 coincidence range finder. The rangefinder is a double image coincidence image instrument used as the ranging device of the gunner’s primary direct sighting and fire control system. The gunner is provided with an M31E1 day periscope with a magnification of x8 and an M105D day telescopic sight with a magnification of x8 and a field of view of 7.5 degrees.

The M60A3 version of the M60-series had the same mobility, performance, and weapons systems as the M60A1 RISE and RISE Passive tanks and incorporated all of their engineering upgrades, improvements and capabilities. In addition, the armor protection for the turret was increased to 330 mm on the gun mantle and to 276 mm on the turret face.

The electronics and fire control systems were greatly improved. The turret’s hydraulic fluid was replaced with a non-flammable one. This updated turret configuration was mated to the M60A1 RISE hull using the AVDS-1790-2D RISE engine and CD-850-6A transmission along with a Halon fire suppression system.[90] It was designated as the Tank, Combat, Full Tracked: 105-mm Gun, M60A3.

The M60A3 tank was built in two configurations. The earlier version, sometimes referred to as the M60A3 Passive, uses the same passive gunner’s sight as the A1 RISE Passive and the latest version has a Tank Thermal Sight (TTS). The M60A1, RISE, and RISE Passive tanks used a coincidence rangefinder and the mechanical M19 ballistic computer. The M60A3 uses a laser based rangefinder and the solid state M21 ballistic computer.