I was wondering if there are any 1960's era M60A1s on display anywhere at museums, VFW posts etc. Trampling around the web shows many M60 slicks, updated M60A1s and M60A3s but I was hoping to find an M60A1 before the turret castings were updated. I realize it would be a rare beast as it would have had to somehow miss the M60A1 updates and the M60A3 conversion. On a related note, does anyone have any closeup shots of the turret front/mantlet area of an original M60A1? The best I've found so far is a shot on wiki of a tank in Egypt. I have the Osprey, Squadron and Hunnicutt books but none have the closeups I'm looking for.

Thanks,
Nick

Try primeportal.com awesome site.

The Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, TX has an M60A1 but I have no idea if it's exactly what you are looking for. Check out the slideshow here:
http://www.texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/exhibits/outdisplay/index.htm

Paul

Nick,

I'll have to check to see if they are the correct version, but we have several M60 tanks on display at various SC Army National Guard armories. If we have one, I can get you detail images of an M60A1. Just let me know...

Thanks for the speedy replies. I did wade through primeportal.net and didn't find quite what I was looking for. Did find plenty of other good stuff though.

Paul: It does look like the M60A1 in the collection is in a reasonably original, non-updated state.

I've included a few photos to show what I'm looking for. Basically I'm trying to find out a little more about what the cheek armor is covering up. The first photo is a crop of the turret front of an unmodified M60A1 in Egypt I think. It's a good shot because it also shows what's hiding under the mantlet cover. The second shot shows a close up of a reinforced turret. The third is the photo shown on the TMFM website, it looks to me like it might have an original turret. The reason for my interest is I'm itching to backdate ESCI's M60A1 to its original 1960's configuration. Thought I should do a little research before whipping out the razor saw.





Thanks for the help,
Nick

Is this what you are looking for?

There are still a few A1s sprinkled about the installation. I can check next week if you are not in a hurry. You're right that it would have had to been a rare tank that did not get recycled or updated into RISE/Passive or AOS at the very least.

You're hoping to find an example of a tank that was "frozen" in the 1960s but used operationally into the 1990s. I wish you have good luck. I'll see what I can find.

Your best bet for a kit is to find the original Tamiya M60A1 kit (before the retool into the M60A3TTS and the subsequent reissue as the USMC w/ERA).

I have three different M60's parked near me. Two are similar, and one for sure is a later version. Next time I'm down south I will take a look to see what they are.
gary

Hi,
The reinforcement isn't covering up anything but what was percieved as a shot trap (a place where it was easy/easier to penetrate the turret armor,due to being thinner or in this case where the gun trunnion(?) is mounted.many tanks have a wider mantlet to cover this area) I believe this was due to info from the Israelis based on combat experience.I stand to be corrected on this,but this was info I was given. Sabot? Anyone? As Sabot stated it would be hard to find a M-60 not modified like this. Hope this helps.
Jake

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I think I have a handle on what I need to do to the ESCI turret to get rid of the added turret ring and cheek armor. Any clear photos or links to photos of the turret front of an original M60A1 turret would still be much appreciated.

After climbing on the M60A3 at the local VFW I've also decided that the welded steel bar the mantlet cover bolts to is not quite prominent enough on the ESCI turret so I'll be able to take care of that mod too. I'll post some WIP photos once I get farther.

Nick

Hi, Nick. I hope I'm not too late to be of any help, but I know the Cantigny First Division Museum in Wheaton, IL has an M60 variant in their tank park. I'll ask for more details about it, and if it will help, I can take all the closeup pictures you like and send them along. I have two weeks left of my internship there before I head back to Florida. Also check out the Army Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis, VA and the Aberdeen Proving Ground Museum in MD. Happy hunting!

John A.

Thanks again for all the help, I think I have the M60A1/A3 turret sorted out. All it took was looking at hundreds of M60A1s and A3s online (mostly A3s) and taking a closer look at Hunnicutt's Patton, SS M60 in action, AFV Profile 24 and several other older armor books.

I went in thinking that any M60A1 built in the 1960's would have a cleanly cast turret in the cheek/chin area on either side of the mantlet, that anything looking like an external reinforcement would have happened after 1973. What I found was that even the first M60A1 turrets had what looked like added reinforcement in these areas (a triangular patch on the right and a larger, more filled in triangular patch on the left). M60A3s having the undercut turret ring armor do not appear to have had any cheek/chin armor added, the cheek/chin looks identical to the 1960's era M60A1s. Tanks with up-armored turret rings do have changes in the cheek/chin armor, primarily on the right hand side (the left looks very similar to the older turrets). The 1/35 ESCI/AMT/Italeri/Revell kits don't match any of the cheek/chin armor configurations I had found. I've got some shaping to do, just not as much as I had originally thought.

Nick