Hi, in reviewing the last, up gunned version of this tank, I see there are several variations of turret MG mounts. One has the 50 mounted on a pole in front of the low cupola (was this the same urdan cupola used by the israelis on the Magach 3 BTW?), with a smaller MG (M60?) mounted on a pole in front of the loaders hatch. Then there's another variant with MGs mounted on pintle mounts closer to the hatches, which I guess makes the MGs more useful. The mount for the loaders mg is more to the port side of the turret than in front of the hatch.

Could someone who knows the vehicle give me a quick and dirty explanation on when this was done? And if it was just done for foreign variants or also for US vehicles? Thanks.

(I know the Magach 3 had the air cooled browning mounted on the urdan cupola, and later a mantlet mounted 50.)

I think that Israel converted their M48 tanks first and later the US did their upgrades.The US tanks were converted circa 1978-79. Most A5s went to the Guard and Reserves but some were sent to South Korea for the regular Army. I think that Lebanon eventually got some too.

The standard A5 had M60D mgs for the TC and loader and the low profile cupola. I don't know if the Israeli and US low profile cupolas were exactly the same or not. The loaders mg had two posts on the turret roof so that it could be placed to the front or to the side of the hatch. The standard set up for the TC mg was a scissor mount welded to the cupola to the right of front center. The M48A5 tanks in South Korea had a caliber 0.50 mounted, but I don't know if this was roof mounted or mounted on the cupola.

There were some non-standard A5s with the regular old M48 cupola with the riser and at least one with the regular cupola and no riser.

The M48A5 was an upgrade of M48A3 tanks based on the Israeli experiences in the Sinai in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The M48A5 tanks were up gunned with the M68 105mm main gun, for the most part had the M1 Cupola removed and a lower profile Urdan Cupola added, which was very similar in appearance to the original Chrysler cupola found on M48s and had an additional M60D machine gun added for the loader, to allow more firepower to suppress anti-tank missile teams after the missile was fired.

Specifically, there ended up being two external machine gun configurations for the M48A5. The first was the Tank Commander had a.50 Caliber M2 Machine Gun, either in a M1 Cupola (early M48A5s) or in a flexible mounting that used a mount, similar to the one found on a M113, that was mounted on the Urdan Cupola - this configuration was used in Korea for the tanks of 1st and 2nd Bns, 72nd Armor. The second TC Configuration used M60D machine gun. mounted on the adjustable Israeli "scissor" mount on the Urdan cupola. The loader's M60D could be mounted in a socket forward of the loader's hatch or to the left on a second socket.

Of note, the loader's M60D lived on in Korea, when 1-72 and 2-72 Armor swapped out their M48A5 in 1984, the units insisted that the sockets were moved to their new M60A3 tanks and the M60Ds retained to provide extra firepower for the tanks.

HTH

John

I guess that two of the same answers are better than none...

It's all in the timing.

How about a set of photos too? A Norwegian M48A5 but it has the M60 mounts and the low profile cupola.

http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/erik_torp/m48a5/

Very helpful, thanks! Did the US M48A5 have the armoured air cleaner boxes too?

The US A5s can be seen with both types of top mount air cleaners.

Someone with more knowledge might be able to explain the differences in the turret & cupola base rings. Could this be a difference between the initial M48 and the M48A1 turrets?

You're right and in 2008 they were still in active duty



Olivier