I found this at a Truck Stop at the I-20 exit for Bishopville, SC.

Appears to be a modified M-60 with a 120mm main gun, T-156 tracks?, bar armor on the turret, side skirts, modified Commander's Cupola, and large metal box shapes on the rear fenders with 3 sets of camera lenses or sensors in recesses.

Anybody have any info? The truck cab was marked "US Department of Defense, For Official Use Only", so I think it's not just a manufacturer's prototype.





Look closely under the hull just inside the tracks & roadwheels where there are some interesting shapes/brackets that are odd:








And it's NOT a movie prop.

[Edit] Sighted about 6:00 pm on 23SEP11.

hay jeff when did you see this ??? this is sweet do you have any more pic
dave nice to see that the goverment rip off I'm idea !!!!!!
dave

Hello, Dave.

I saw this Friday evening around 6 pm.

Yeah, there are some interesting modifications on this bad little boy. I couldn't get any more pics due to dead batteries!

Hopefully someone like Mike Mummey or Frenchy or Gino or John Charvat can enlighten us.

jeff do you think it is for export ?? i thought that we went over to all m1 and retierd the m60 ???

Looks like a lot of work to go through, but that this might be an M60A3 VISMOD of some sort is another theory.

This might be the Raytheon upgrade for the Jordanian M-60 fleet. New gun, new sensors and fire on the move ability. Some sources say that as many as 300 tanks are to be upgraded and another mentions that Saudi Arabia is looking at this option for their M-60. Just do a Google for "Raytheon M-60" and you get quite a few articles.

Cheers,
Jan

But then why was it being transported on an US Army / US DoD truck if it's a Raytheon upgrade? A manufacturer should contract this with a commercial heavy transporter or utilize their in-house assets.

I'm not saying that it can't be the upgrade, though.

And from what I saw in person, this would be a very extensive VISMOD since everything looked real/functional, and then agian what is the vehicle it's supposed to represent?

I saw this travelling east on I-20 just a couple hours earlier, so my guess it's being transported to somewhere up the east coast, along I-95 from NC on up, maybe.

My theory is a tank prototype meant for MOUT (Urban) combat instead of full Force on Force combat. It's smaller, lighter, and less expensive than a top of the line M1A1 AIM or a M1A2 SEP that you also have to add TUSK components to. Could be the USMC is at it again.

Jeff-- nice pictures. I believe you saw the Raytheon modified M60 done for the Jordanians with probably a lot of our tax money behind it. I would further speculate that it was either en route to Charleston for shipment (not likely) or Aberdeen for testing (more likely). As a piece of military hardware, it is not unusual for the trailer to be a "US Army" commercial trailer.
My two cents
DJ

Whoever it's meant for, they sure didn't cover it up so it's no "big secret."

Wasn't the jordanian M-60 supposed to be upgraded with a french 120mm L50 smoothbore gun? The pictures show the M256.

The US was marketing the so-called M-60 - 2000 to Turkey amongst others but I have no idea what it looks like!!!! Except it has a 120mm...

It is not the M60 2000. That is a totally rebuilt M60 with an Abrams turret on top. The rear deck is rebuilt as well to be more survivable like an Abrams too.




I'm not sure what this one is. By my understanding, the Raytheon Jordanian upgrade is just for the fire control systems on their existing 105mm gunned M60A3 tanks, not upgrading to 120mm guns.

Weren't the US supplying m60's to the Afghan army? could it be something to do with that??

SIPRI reported that the Greek government was looking to supply 13 M60A3s to the ANA in 2007. I have seen no photographic evidence to confirm this.

Howdy Jeff, new one to me. Very extensive upgrade, wow!
Outta here, Mike sends . . .

Very intrigueing vehicle you stumbled across there. I would certainly love to learn more about it.

I would have to agree that it does not appear to be VISMOD vehicle. Everything looks to 'operational' to be a VISMOD vehicle. Just my .02 cents.

Just look at the photos. It IS the M60 2000




Turkish M60A3s are going to be upgraded to M60T niveau. The vehicles are called "Sabra" then. 1000 hp engine, license production of an israeli 120mm smoothbore gun, integrated 60mm mortar, CITV and lots of other goodies. Lots of israeli technology (IMI has a big hand in that buisness of course).

They look nothing alike to me. The track, hull, turret, and gun tube are totally different. The only similarity I see is that they both started out as M60s.

It was a misunderstanding. I meant the pictures posted by Gino (M60 with Abrams turret).

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/5591&page=1

I've no idea what it is either (I stopped reading Jane's IDR magazine at the library years ago...).

I could only guess...

Guess #1:
Harking to the past above thread where someone said that the M60s they got in the 1991 Gulf War were brand new from the late 1960s, I'm wondering if this is a yanked-off USMC prepositioned M60 aboard a ship, modified and updated, and now being sent back to the ship. I mean what ever happened to all those M60s floating aboard those ships? Were they sold to foreign nations and replaced with all M1s to float aboard ship? As the thread above said, the USMC borrows off the Army to transport its armor. If so, could be for the ANA if the U.S. Mil. still has a lot of these.

Guess #2:
I don't know if it's for the ANA or Jordian or Turkish Army. I am skeptical on the later two because where are the turret attachment points for ERA or add-on armor? There isn't any. And with slatarmor, seems destined to go mostly to Afghanistan (no port so C-17 or C-5 it in). Could be for the ANA or Iraqi Army. I'm kind of thinking the modifications were done "in house" for the U.S. Military or ANA.

Guess #3:
Notice the II3 number on the top left hull? Is that 2nd Armored and as such, is this M60 going to Ft. Benning, Georgia? Perhaps the M60 MOUT idea isn't so far off.

Are those storage bins on top of the TC armored cupola? Wouldn't that restrict the TC's vision blocks? I still see the .50cal barrel if you look closely.

I'm kind of wondering if there's some robotics involved. Note the antennae on the roof and the cameras on the rear hull and the styrofoam and tape cover up something next to the driver's compartment.

When I saw this earlier it was traveling east on I-20 towards Myrtle Beach, so it was going exactly opposite of Ft. Stewart, GA.




I'm not so sure it would restrict vision to the side, but it would up. Looking at closeups of the cupola, I see a bracket under where the M85 barrel would be, but no evidence of an installed M85.



The box to the left of where the M85 barrel would be appears to be covered up light/camera/laser or somesuch?



This setup reminds me of the .50 cal M2 mounted over the 120mm on an Abrams TUSK system or especially a CROWs setup. It almost seems the new box on the cupola is an ammo feed tray since it has an open slot at the top end..








The covered "box" reminds me of a BFT antenna used on current Abrams, but I would think it would have interference located on the hull under the turret/gun overhang.





Another item I noticed after I got home and looked at the pictures on my pc are these hydraulic looking flanges and brackets under the hull inside of the roadwheels:



I know the bracket circled on the right is the Road Wheel Arm Mounting Bracket, but the circled items on the right are quite odd to me. I have an itchy feeling they might connect to the heavy brackets inside the side skirts and are a used to "flex" the armored skirts out to an angled position from vertical to help with deflecting RPGs and such.

I'm sure glad I stopped and took pictures of this conundrum.

WOw, its certainly an interesting upgrade to the 60. I would like to know more. I almost didnt recognize the basic m-60 shape under all the add ons.

Great find. Im sure homeland security will be visiting you shortly. LOL LOL LOL

Bill

"Could be for the ANA or Iraqi Army" the Iraqi Army already has the M1A1M and considering their current state of security, it seems that this M60 would not be for them. As for the ANA.. looks too adavanced and expensive for them,ironic concidering it's an M60 ,but 120mm shells are expensive! The track guards are also fully composite which would make it better then the side skirts on the M1. It shares alot of components the m1 has, the tracks, sprockets, wind sensor,main gun which would allow this M60 to serve quite nicley aside M1s or in place of them.

By the way, considering the size of modern APSs, wouldn't those boxes be a bit large for just camaras and hardkill units? Seems more likely that those are APU and Air Conditioning units. Considering how the new AC units on the Bradley look, it would suggest so.

Naw, i have a clearance, besides it's not like it was covered. Maybe they wre thinking to hide it in plain sight?!?

The more I look at it, the more I think "VISMOD".

For one thing, is modifying the M60 turret to take an M256 a simple "drop fit" task? Given the appearance of every other 120mm upgrade for the M60, I'm tempted to say "no". Yet this has a normally shaped M60 turret with an M256 barrel sticking out of it. An M256 barrel that doesn't so much appear to have a cover on it as a solid end.

Then there's the bar armor which appears to cover roughly 180 degrees at the rear of the turret. Which is pretty much what you'd do if you wanted to duplicate the looks of the M1's side and rear baskets on a more rounded turret, like that of the M60.

Then there's the big boxes at the rear. Big mysterious boxes with some sort of optical sensors. Big boxes that in profile give a pretty good likeness to the raised rear deck of an Abrams. The sensors? Well, if getting a bead on the rear quadrant of an M1 (which is supposed to be a known weak spot?) constitutes a kill in an exercise, you'd want sensors to detect this event, placed roughly where they are on the boxes.

Then there's the skirts. Again they're shaped to accentuate an Abrams-like profile, right down to the way they're shaped around the sprocket area.

I'd loved to find out that I'm wrong and that this is something extremely exciting but this looks to me like somebody has done a pretty good job of making an M60 look like an M1, rather than updating an M60 to modern MBT standards.

Al