As an old M60A1/A3 tank commander, I'm finally happy that the M60 Main Battle Tank is getting the respect she rightfully deserves!!

From AFV's release of an early version of the M60A1, to Academy's M60A2 and now, Dragon's M60A2, followed by a late version of a "straight" M60 from Dragon in early 2016... I have a gut feeling that Dragon will also be the first to issue a new tooling of the M60A1 RISE Passive or a M60A3 TTS before AFV or anybody else!!

The M60 series of main battle tanks were critical in the defense of Europe during the Cold War, but never got the "love" that the Leopard series did. But she, a M60A3, could still hold its own against a T-72. Back in the early 80s while stationed in Germany, we were told that the Soviets would send in their T-55s and T-62s first and save their T-64s and T-72s for their breakout push after "thinning out" American, West German, British and Canadian armored forces... I'm grateful that this nightmare never came true since I'm sure that it would have led to the release of tactical nuclear weapons, followed by strategic nuclear missiles and nobody could have won in that scenario.

ANYWAY!! The M60 did her part in keeping the peace and now getting the respect in the modelling world!!

"Steel Pots" off to Tamiya since they did a good job with their first 1/35th scale M60A1 kit from the mid 70s to their 1/35th scale M60A3 release from the late 80s, but they are now showing their age, as well as the Academy copy... Never owned the Esci/Ertl kits, but heard it was better in several ways, like the correct height of the suspension system.

...Still waiting for somebody to release an injected molded plastic kit of the M114 Reconnaissance Carrier and an early/mid 80s M48A5 MBT to round out the 70s/80s Cold War period of American armored vehicles.

As an old M60 tanker, gotta agree. The M60 series was sadly neglected for too long.

And I'd like a M114 in plastic, too.

Joe

As a dino tanker myself I have to agree. I'm going to wait for AFVs 60 collection though. Their A1 is awesome and the most accurate. Academy is based on the old tamiya 60 and the M103 has turned me off Dragon. I started on M551s and ended on slick M1s both of those tracks need some love too.

I have several of AFVs Centurions and the consistent quality has me hooked. They get fidelly at times but are worth it.

Tom

And the workhorse of the grunts the m-113

There will be many more vehicles from the M60 family coming out. You might wait before purchasing the first kit to hit the internet. You may regret your choice.

Care to expand on that?

Really want a good M60, and even if Dragon has one announced, the quality of their work lately has left a little lacking. Anything firm from AFV that you can speak of?

Looking forward to an M60. It will be built as A-32, 2/68 Armor USA9B4646 "Abortion". Don't ask me how I remember that, because I sure don't remember the info on the other vehicles I was on.

I was poking around in my stash the other day, about as close to actual modeling as I've come in the last couple of months (my God, has it been that long?) and I have a butt-load of M60 kits and AM, all Academy/Tamiya/Esci stuff and AM to fit, but I did splurge on a recent trip to Vegas and bought the AFV Club kit. Wow, what a gem. It's time, methinks, to get modeling.
And as a side note, the HobbyTown USA on Sahara is not to be missed if one finds oneself with time and spare cash while there. They have AM stuff, for armor, in stock.

Mine was M60 9B3862, B-25, 2/70th Armor. Never did name her.

Joe

Two years after this post, and we still lack an accurate M60.
I'm working on the Dragon kit, and it is the worst M60/M60A1 hull I have ever seen. Whatever they did to the front of the hull in trying to convert it from the M48 left it so inaccurate, I'm almost unable to express my feelings about it. They should be ashamed of themselves for bringing it to market.

The turret is clearly based on their M48 turret, with half-hearted attempts to convert it to an M60 type. Too bad they didn't have the CMD turret to turn to for reference.

It seems like AFV could have made provision for alternate locations for the front return roller, perhaps an insert in the lower hull for both round and oval escape hatches, and a few other details, an accurate turret, and we'd have had a GREAT M60.

Maybe next year.

And the Dragon slick 60 is a step up from the M60A2 with some errors tweaked.

Maybe it'll be like their Sherman V firefly which too three tries to get right or their Nashorn that took three tries. People forget their misses. How many different versions of the Sherman split cupola did they do before getting it totally right? Took competition from Tasca for that.

Got tired of waiting on AFV Club to do the straight M60 so I bought Dragons to have one in collection.

As always happens.. as soon as you go to extensive lengths to do a conversion, they start to come out with the kit out if the box.

Here’s my converted Taymia M60A1 with lots of $ in aftermarket conversion...



Ya... I know the port side air filter shouldn’t habve the clips for the manual fuel transfer pump...