Any tankers or anyone who knows what the setup was for the M60A1 tanks used in Korea during August 1976?
I have a M60A1 I want to do up as one of the tanks from C Co 1/72d AR during Operation Paul Bunyan.

Thanks for any help

From all I have read, there were no tanks as part of Task Force Vierra, the joint US/ROK convoy that went into the JSA to cut down the tree and provide security. The only armored vehicle on the convoy was one M728 CEV with its main gun trained on Freedom Bridge to drop it if the N. Koreans started coming across.

The 1st Tank M60A1s that were in Korea at the time would have been standard M60A1s in MERDC Winter Verdant camo.

Here are a few pics of 72d AR M60A1s in Korea during Team Spirit '78 in MERDC. Team Spirit was usually held in March. Shortly after the '78 exercise (June/July '78), the 2ID began receiving new M48A5 tanks to replace their older M60A1s. As a side note, 2ID was the only active duty US Army unit to receive M48A5s. All other units receiving them were Army National Guard and Army Reserve units.

Cool photos, the sand color looks almost hand painted. I was in 1/31, and we went North with a company of tanks from Camp Casey on tree day. I just can't recall how the tanks were setup. Which is sad because their motor pool was across the street from our company street.

Hmm... Interesting. This is a little off topic, but it still involves M60s--- By the time I got to Tongduchon in 1987, all the M48A5s had been handed over to the Koreans and replaced with M60A1s (maybe A3s?) I was not an armor officer then, having transferred from Armor to Chemical branch in 1980, but I had responsibility for the fielding of M8 chemical alarms to 2ID and mounting said alarms on armored vehicles. M8 alarms had an americium radioactive source for the chemical detection process. One of the M60A1 crew members forgot to install the alarm in it's bracket in the summer of 87' and it fell off the fender and another tank ran over it in the Battalion motor pool. I had to lead a decon team in the cleanup effort, thankfully, the steel casing for the radioactive source didn't break, but we couldn't move anything in the motor pool for several hours, and had to hold all the personnel for medical testing to prove there was no radioactive leak. The crewman in the incident had picked up the shattered M8 components with their bare hands, then eaten an MRE lunch in the motor pool before realizing the M8 alarm had a radioactive warning label. Mass panic then ensued when an alert NCO found out what they had done! By the way, the photo caption regarding KATUSA's (Korean Augmentees to the US Army) crewing an M60A1 is not quite correct-- there were no tank or vehicle crews manned entirely by KATUSA crews. KATUSAs were college students and grads with English language skills, who performed as translators for the US Army in Korea. They were serving their 2 year mandatory service commitments to the ROK Army, but we're not officially allowed to drive or TC vehicles (at least while I was there over 2 long tours in ROK) because of the SOFA agreements with the ROK.
VR Russ

I was in a weapons platoon, and it was my first duty station so any restrictions on the KATUSAs were unknown to me, as best I can remember. We had three in our plt, two in the TOW section, and one in the mortar section. I always thought the KATUSA program was a way to keep manning up in the units. From the Korea War were they were used as porters, and later squad members. With the year rotation they helped keep our numbers up. But even though they were promoted in the RoK system I never was aware of a KT in charge of a vehicle, gun, team. I don't think it could work in any country to have a foreign national being in charge of troops from another country.

When I was over in 91-92 we had several "tuties" in our company. They lived in our barracks and most worked in supply because they couldn't get the clearances to work with us. There were a couple who did get the clearances and they were ok ops wise but since we were a joint US/ROK mission and the ROK soldiers didn't get along with the KATUSA's our tuties stayed with the HQ element. I asked one of the ROK corporals on my team (guy had been in college, took time out so he could do his service before going back and spoke perfect english) what the deal was between the ROKs and the KATUSA's and he said the most KATUSA's were from wealthy families who bought their way into the KATUSA program and they thought they were too good to serve in the ROK. I did notice that our KATUSA's, most spoke excellent english, were insubordinate, disrespectful and had a lot of contempt for U.S. soldiers. I got in arguments with them all the time for not doing their part of barracks cleanup and they thought that it was beneath them to mop a latrine and that was what the U.S. privates were for even tho they were just privates and PFC's. At the time I was over there there were anti-american demonstrations almost every week in Seoul and other major cities. Because of the violence our base C.O. made the Ville off limits for a while so we were stuck on base unless we took a bus to Osan. Didn't have much respect for them. Tho watching them get drunk and try to ride the buffers was pretty funny.

That's correct. The sand and black were commonly hand painted because the average joe wasn't that skilled with the spray gun. Depending on availability, the other color (here, field drab) was sometimes brushed on as well. It wasn't more often than not that there was a lot of "user discretion" in how closely the official patterns were followed. I think the TM allowed for 2 inch variance, but you can find some with complete disregard for the the manual.

Just to clarify this a little, KATUSAs were not around during the Korean War-- you're thinking of the Korean Service Corps, or KSCs, better known as the "A Frame Army" during and after the war. These were and are still today Korean civilian workers paid by the US Army to do heavy lifting on the peninsula. They do everything from truck driving and tank repair/rebuild to facility repair and construction. Typically a Battalion of KSCs is assigned to each Support Group in Korea. They are commanded by ROK reserve officer cadre, and are mobilized in time of need, in the meantime they are employed and paid by the US Army. The KSCs are not armed, whereas the KATUSAs are soldiers in the ROK Army but assigned to US forces to serve as translators and liaison troops. As such they can and do bear arms. As for the KATUSA program, Eighth US Army issued strict instructions in the 80s not to use them in doing menial tasks, since many US units had them doing work not in keeping with the original intention of providing translation and interface with the locals.
Now to get "back on track", I believe the M60A1s were withdrawn from service for only a short time in the early 80s to be rebuilt at the Camp Carroll rebuild facility, that must be why the M48A5s were issued for that very short period-- does anyone know if that is correct? I do know the M48A5s were later turned over to the ROK Army before 1987, and sometime after 88' 2ID turned in the M60A1s for the M1, but I don't recall seeing any M60A1s in ROK service while I was there. This is a little fuzzy to me--does anyone know the timeline for sure? I recall seeing the ROK K1 in 1987-88 when we still had M60A1s in the 2ID-- one almost ran me over in Tongduchon in the summer of 1987.
VR Russ

I agree with the RoKs and KTs not getting along. The KTs I was around (76-77) their english was good, but not great. Don't recall any task that they were exempt from except CQ and arms room guard. Relations with the locals-Park Chung Hee was still around so they pretty much kept in line. You read in the papers where RoK deserters would found and the police would just shoot up the house they were hiding in.
As for painting, there were two sources-the motor pool, and Koreans. Most of the 1/4s I think Koreans painted because they were painted camo before any thing else (It was an OD Army when I joined) and when our battalion went camo, not only did they paint the pattern, they painted black lines that separated the colors, kinda have that WW1 thing going. I guess attempting to catch up on what the 31st missed, since they served in Russia during WW1(joke). Hand painting a vehicle like a tank would be fun, I was tasked to paint helmets and etools with a show hand broom (This was of course against everything I had been told in IPMS)chromate green. Now I can't recall when we went camo, if it was before or after since the monsoons hit while all this border stuff was going on.

Some errata:

In regards to KATUSAs:

I think Fehrenbach references KATUSAs in the Korean war, and when I was passing through I distinctly remember seeing references to the mas a wartime thing at the 2 ID museum. Perhaps it was more of a "We will call these borrowed Korean Soldiers KATUSAs" vs "this is the KATUSA program that someone actually planned out"

Circa 2012-late 2015 when I was passing through, KATUSAs filled pretty much any US Army role that could be filled with an E-1 through E-4. They tended to be more common in HQ roles partly because it was easier to train clerks/supply junior enlisted, than it was combat soldiers, but my company had a few KATUSA tankers, all serving as loaders (I think some may have been drivers too, and our sister company had a KATUSA gunner for a time).

Most of them were college students, and many of them were actually fresh back from college in the US to fulfill their national service obligations. On a whole their english was excellent, although you still got the impression one or two of them were KATUSAs because their parents were important vs they were terribly well qualified. Being a KATUSA remained a desirable position largely because US Army discipline and living arrangements were on a whole less restrictive than ROKA, and there was some prestige involved with it. This rubbed some ROKA soldiers the wrong way and there was occasional (but generally rare) friction.

Re: ROK tanks

The ROKA never operated M60s as far as I can tell, they still had limited numbers of M48A5s in service while I was there, then K1s and K1A1s (with K2s being slowly creeping towards operational fielding). I only saw the K1A1s and a small handful of K1s within that formation in person though. The only M60 I saw in country was a gateguard tank at Rodriquez Live Fire Range.

Now I have the TAM M60 (I bought at Camp Casey back in 76) and I looked at the M60 fix it threads, but do any of you know (or have an educated guess) on how low the TAM has to go to be the right height? Problem is the 72d had basic combat loads on their tanks, 105 shells and .50 ammo(As did we on our tracks) so would they be a little lower than the height correction that is often listed?

thanks

Oh their is a korean war film on Prime and another pay service called Cease Fire
https://www.amazon.com/Cease-Fire-Roy-Thompson-Jr/dp/B009G58B8I/ref=sr_1_9?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1468397756&sr=1-9&keywords=korean+war+movies

The claim is it is the good o'l Bearcats up to their tricks again. Anyway it is suppose to be a real Army platoon in Korea in 53. In the platoon is at least one KATUSA as I recall. IMHO the best part is you see them wearing an example of every type of IBA (Flack jacket) worn by the Army in Korea.

There is no issue with the ride height of the Tamiya M60 series. The height is correct for a combat loaded M60A1-A3. The issue is with their M48A3 kits.

Great, thanks

Errata on the errata-- A 1950 KATUSA is indeed not a 2016 Katusa: The concept of the KATUSA program was developed during the Korean War, but never implemented as it is today. In 1950, The term "KATUSA" could apply to any Korean soldier or civilian conscripted to "augment" US forces, and was equally applied to ROKA army units or ROK civilians. The idea came about through an agreement between Sygman Rhee and MacArthur to round out undermanned US forces, and for ROKA training purposes, with the intent of returning borrowed ROKA forces to ROKA control. It did not work well. So, in 1963, by formal agreement with the S. Korean government, the KATUSA program was established to give translation and liaison capability to US units in Korea. The major difference being that KATUSA soldiers individually spend their entire 2-year commitment under command of US officers serving in US units.
The KSCs-- (Korean Service Corps) also had its beginnings during the Korean War (the "A Frame Army")--but was not formalized until after the war. These are Korean civilian workers who do the logistical heavy lifting, operate the transport hubs and man the depots. They are organized in battalions, and mobilized during wartime.
They do the Korea Tank rebuild program, including painting combat vehicles-- hence the sometimes interesting painting patterns you see in the photos in the 70s and 80s.
VR, Russ