I know that alot has been dicussed before, but I want to know if any M60's were used by the USMC during Desrt Storm and if any units were upgraded to M1's at that time. Also which version of the M60 and M1 were used by the Marins at that time.

Thanks for any info and pictures if you have them.

Mark

Here are some ODS M60's (I'll let the ID to the experts ) :









More on Primeportal :
http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/greg_smith/m60a1_rise_era/

H.P.

Here is a link to a bunch of Desert Storm M60 tanks.

edit: looks like I took too long to type my reply, Frenchy beat me to the prime portal link.

FYI, the Tamiya M60A1 RISE kit has the decals for "American Express" as depicted in the link.

If you can find one, Verlinden Publications WarMachines No 13 Military Photo File "On the Road to Kuwait, Marines in the Gulf" is an excellent reference full of color photos of USMC M60s. The captions identify the tanks as M60s and M60A1s, but I am no M60 expert so can't offer any assistance to specificities between variants.

Talking about the Abrams, according to this article :

https://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm

the USMC fielded 16 M1A1's and 60 M1A1 HA's(Heavy Armor) borrowed from the Army, during the Gulf War. These tanks were employed by the 2d Tank Battalion and elements of 4th Tank Battalion. The 60 borrowed tanks were returned to the US Army after Desert Storm.

Here's one of the Marines Abrams in ODS :



H.P.

One of the photo captions above refers to it as an M60A3, but it's clear there's no thermal sleeve on the barrel. These are really A1s with various technology updates and reactive armor.

At the time ODS started, both the USMC and US Army were fielding M1A1s. The Army was pretty much complete and fielded the last ones in Saudi Arabia. The USMC was in the process of fielding and training its west coast Bns at Twenty Nine Palms. These are the units that received the Army M1A1s on loan. The USMC also had a Bn of M60A3 TTS tanks handed down from the US Army. I believe these were mixed in with USMC M60A1 RISE tanks to give a better night-fighting capability. Lastly, 2nd "Tiger" BDE, 2 AR from the US Army with all M1A1s was chopped to the Marines to support them as well.

for more 1nfo on USMC M-60. check out this link
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/5591&page=1

Thank you all for the replies and info. I have learned alot about what I wanted to know.

Mark

See if you can get a hold of Mike Mummey, he's one of the USMC tank experts here, i believe he might have some info on some M60A3 that the USMC borrowed from the US Army.

The Marines used the M60A1 rise, the turret on the M60A0 was essentully a m48 turret with a slightyl different bustel the Marines never used that varient of the m60

The marines never used the M60A3 that us strictly a US army varient they did borrow M1A1 abrams from the US ARMY and that was due to concerns that the 105 mm gun could not kill a T72

Nick,
Per Mike Mummey, someone that I will seek out when I have a question about USMC Armor, the Marines received 5-9 M60A3s that were originally deployed over to Saudi as part of the the 197th Infantry Brigade's Cavalry Troop (maybe D-4 Cav?). The intent was to give the Marine tankers some additional night fighting capabilities with the TTS but the tanks were rather raggety and small numbers if any made the trek north.

If Mike sees this posting, he will probably give the whole story, as I have probably skipped or omitted some of the finer points.

John