My responses are subject to correction by John Charvat..........I am sure I will get nailed for something

My understanding is that there were two seats for the commander. One was a lower one which he used when he observed through his scopes and aimed and fired the cupola machine gun. The upper seat was mounted on a swing out arm from the underside of the turret in such a way that when it was swung out, it placed him in a position to have his torso exposed from the top of the cupola for observation.

Was the cupola capable of power rotation or was it just hand cranked?

Could the commander rotate the cupola when he was "turned out" and seated on the swing out seat attached to the underside of the turret?

Was there any requirement for the cupola and the turret to be aligned before the commander could turn out and take position on that swing out seat or could he sit on that seat, with his torso exposed above the cupola no matter what the alignment of the cupola and the main turret?

Could the commander occupy that upper seat and rotate the cupola a full 360 degrees?

John, what does that M60A3 TTS TM cover?

The M60 cupola had a traverse lock but if memory serves no alignment lock with the maingun. We did have the search light guard so we didn't shoot the light or gun tube but otherwise we lined them up by eye. The TC did all his main gun work from the range finder. The cupola MG was very accurate if boresighted and zeroed. But it would be really difficult to engage any targets to the right or rear without moving the turret too much in the way. On table VIII all 50cal targets were on the right.

Tom

I Agree with all comments. If you were not a TC, the Cupola seems like an OK piece of equipment. The reality was in a perfect world you had 185 rounds and you were done. If the ammo feed tray wasn't in good shape it jammed the weapon before you were done. Clearing a jam was also a pain.The issue of reloading under fire never seamed like a good idea.It was a P.I.A to load in a hurry and your attention would be distracted from the battlefield. i never liked the design of the cupola. I liked the M48A5's cupola much better.

Nothing wrong with the 48A5 it was the first tank I TCed. Shooting the M60D was a blast. We actually reorged to Div 86 with 48s. 50th Armored Div long gone now. I actually liked the M85 but it was finicky. Loading the banana box was a b*tch. Clearing a jam would entail depressing the gun and opening the covers. Not a job under fire. It was bad enough doing on the range. Better hope you got the job done with the 185 in the tray.


Tom

The Shermans were abit before my time. I enlisted at 17 as an 11D and my first turreted track was a M551A1. My reference to the black tankers beret didn't give it away. I retired as an M1 tank platoon sergeant once the Jersey guard lost all it's tanks. I wasn't going to trade an M1 for a Humvee.
At one time New Jersey had more tanks then Canada.

To return to the topic the M60A3 was my favorite tank the cupola M85 was much more accurate then the M2 on the M1. We used to engage and were expected to hit single infantry targets.

Tom