Com-Central.net

Thanks,

The best indicator is the Driver's hatch,

IR tanks used the M24 viewer which had a Letterbox turntable opening in the hatch.
IR Hatch
The Passive tanks had a newer redesigned hatch with fixed opening and a pivoting cover.
Passive Hatch
A converted hatch would have the IR turntable removed and an adapter with the newer opening welded in place.
Converted Hatch

Piney made a very good M60 ID hand out available in the download section if you haven't already got it.

M60 ID hand out

Joe D

Thanks for that - I'd forgotten about the M60 doc so I've grabbed a copy. Unfortunately, I don't imagine I'll have time to complete the checklist but I'll take as many pictures of the key features as I can.

I'm back from Bovington - it went well, I got walkarounds of most of the vehicles there. However, there's a new hall, 'The Tank Story', which has many of the interesting vehicles and it's not due to open until early next year, so I had to make do with telephoto pictures from a gallery. Also, as always, much of the collection was off site for restoration or just storage.

- Joe_D

Trevor,

I know of all the really special vehicles there, to ask for some decent shots of their M60A1 and a serial/ registration number confirmation might sound a bit like going to Paris just to eat at McDonalds. But I have to ask.

Should have been made as a RISE/IR but I'm sure She was upgraded to RISE/Passive if the tank came from war stocks in Germany.

SN and RN should be 8971 and JJ0128 IAW their Website.

Joe D

I'm afraid I saw no 'official' M60 anywhere in the museum at all.

I did spot the following in a reserve collection area, though - could it be?



I'm afraid that's the best picture I could get.

That one appears to be an M60A3,

The shroud on the gun is what makes me think so. Rear hull looks like the later two piece casting too.

There is a chance that either,

1) Someone stuck a thermal shroud on her (Not likely,)

2) The museum has one of the rebuilt M60A3's that retained the original A1 number and misidentified her as an A1 (Not likely)

3) They have an M60A3 and M60A1 (This I can believe)

This picture is supposedly of the M60A1 from Bovington

M60A1

This is of an M60A3 from the East England Tank Museum, could this be the same one in your photo? (Isn't that located in Bovington?)

M60A3

She is listed as SN 540, an early M60A3 built new, not a rebuild from an A1.

Thanks for trying, can be very frustrating to go somewhere and find the displays are not open or available. At least it's in your back yard and you didn't have to travel far. Now I have possibly another tank to add to my list .

Joe D

East England Tank Museum is currently closed, but is based some distance from Bovington (which is South West England). Similarly although Bovington is only about 200 miles from my home - which I know can be considered the back yard in the US! - since we travelled on a Friday evening skirting around London, it actually took six hours driving!

Anyway, I'm planning to revisit early next year, and as a Friend of the Museum I'm hoping to get better access to the storage areas. I'll make sure I look out for M60s of any kind.

BTW, is your interest just M60s? I.e. not M48s or earlier?

Primarily M60's,

But M48's, 47's, 46's and M26's are all favorites too, in that order. I have a small reference library on M48's but that's mostly because the A3 and A5 models were basically M60's components using M48 Hull and Turret castings.

I am compiling an M60 GPS coordinate list. All my stuff is in metric instead of Degrees and Minutes. As I confirm these locations I am converting them. I hope to complete it soon. I can post it if anyone is interested.

we travelled on a Friday evening skirting around London, it actually took six hours driving!

I always forget the distance to time ratio in Europe compared to the US. Especially here in the "Fly Over" part of the country where the roads are wide open. My last assignment had me commuting about 800 miles a week, coming home on weekends. Would cover the near 400 miles one way in a little over 5 and 1/2 hours. Being retired now I might put 100 miles a month on my car. My poor car now must feel neglected .

Joe D

- Joe_D

My last assignment had me commuting about 800 miles a week, coming home on weekends. Would cover the near 400 miles one way in a little over 5 and 1/2 hours.

That drive to Ft McCoy was an amazingly boring ride (logged 4 round trips). Ft Bragg (1 round trip) & Camp Shelby (4 round trips) were equally boring. Ft Drum (2 round trips) was a little less boring, a few scenic sights along the way. By far the worst was Ft Riley. (Thankfully only 1 round trip logged there).

Since I drove the large 'box' truck for 4 1/2 years while in 'The Renegades', I rarely enjoyed the comfort of 'the vans'. Guess I should have gotten that CDL,....oh well.

Being retired now I might put 100 miles a month on my car. My poor car now must feel neglected

My dilemma also. Except my 20 hp tractor gets more daily work outs, doing a whole lot of nothing.....


Don

Cheers, Joe, I'll bear in mind about the other vehicles. I'd be interested in working together on a list of preserved examples - I'll drop you a PM with some ideas.

Generally I use decimal GPS co-ordinates too (like for the US vehicles I visited in August, e.g. at Easton) partly because it's easiest to record in the PTC database and partly because that seems the preferred format if you want to make them into a satnav POI file.

I've achieved another personal milestone with the website, incorporating automatic Google mapping for all vehicle locations with co-ordinates. In parallel I've been working on adding Kubinka, the first section from Preserved Tanks in Russia, in order to show it off and that's now done - some 254 tanks. It is by far the most complete Kubinka list on the 'Net, just as the original book was the most complete in print - a labour of love for myself, Jim Kinnear, and our contributors:

Kubinka

Sad to say many of the vehicles in the reserve areas have been removed since so I plan at some point to put together an update (with help from anyone on this forum who would like to contribute). In the meantime, I'll start adding the other chapters as soon as I can spare the time (Moscow museums, the rest of Russia, then Ukraine, Belarus, etc).

I've also updated the entries for Easton and Rochester to the new format - I confess I'm still impressed with Google Maps being able to show individual tanks!

M42, Easton

T-72, Rochester

Maybe one day we'll be able to watch tanks arriving or being removed via Google Maps!

I've now added a third Solitary Vehicle from my US trip, the M60A3 at Bath, PA:

www.preservedtanks.com...2&Select=4

A quick question, initially for Joe, what do the last 3 numbers listed here signify? Do they tell us anything useful about this M60A3 or are they just reference numbers for the series?:

www.preservedtanks.com...hotoID=733

Hello Trevor

If you are referring to the plaque, the numbers are useful when ordering parts, replacement, or manuals.

NOUN MODEL LIN NSN

TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A1R*.........V13101.....2350-00-116-9765
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A3.............V13101.....2350-00-148-6548
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60 ................V13101.....2350-00-678-5773
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A1.............V13101.....2350-00-756-8497
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A1AOS**...V13101.....2350-01-058-9487
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A1RP***....V13101.....2350-01-059-1503
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A3TTS**** T13169.....2350-01-061-2306
TANK COMBAT FT 105MM.....M60A2.............V13270.....2350-00-930-3590

* RISE (Reliability Improved Select Equipment)
** Add On Stabilization
*** RISE Passive
**** Tank Thermal Sight

LIN Line Item Number, used for tracking, inventory, work orders, or supply actions. My experience with them was during property book inventory for the commander. Notice the LIN is the same for all M60's except the A2 and A3 TTS. That’s because they are considered a suitable replacement for each other. Even the M48A5 had the same LIN. My Platoon in Kansas had AOS, RISE, and RISE Passives all at the same time.

NSN National Stock Number, this is what you use to identify an item. Everything from a bolt to a Helicopter has an NSN. The older system used FSN’s (Federal Stock Numbers)

When ordering manuals, these correspond to the models.

9-2350-215 Series.....M60 and M60A1, or M60A1 and M60A1 AOS *
9-2350-232 Series......M60A1E1, M60A1E2, and M60A2
9-2350-253 Series......M60A3 and M60A3 TTS
9-2350-257 Series......M60A1 RISE and RISE Passive
9-2350-260 Series .....M60

*The original M60 manuals eventually were changed enough that they were issued their own series in the 80's, with the 215 series relegated to the early M60A1's. Much like the M1A1 with all the changes has gone from 9-2350-264 to 9-2350-367 Series.

I think someone just wanted to add some interesting tidbits on the marker.

Joe D

BTW, That's number one of potentially 1000 M60's preserved out there

So, if I decode it correctly:

LIN V13101 - given it's an M60A3, this tells us it's not an M60A3TTS
9-2350-253 - same

So, nothing new there. As you say, they probably wanted just to write up some impressive numbers.

- Joe_D

BTW, That's number one of potentially 1000 M60's preserved out there

I've never been put off by a challenge! I'm currently reviewing what I've got on M60's around the world. Most are in the US, of course, (and I know you've got your eye on those) but I've certainly got pictures of a fair few in Canada, Israel, Egypt and elsewhere.

Trevor,

The sign is wrong, this tank is an M60A3 TTS. The sight housing is for the TTS, the searchlight receptacle is capped, and she was made in Anniston, and a later one at that. Whoever the good intentioned person was probably didn't look down the Fed Log listing far enough and stopped at M60A3. Should read LIN T13169.

Joe

Understood, thanks for that.

Having done the work (described in the mile of tanks thread) to get all of APG online I've added it as a public page on my website.

To help me work out the lat/long for the various locations around APG I've created a web page that helps you find out a lat/long for any location. It's available for anyone to use here:

www.preservedtanks.com/Mapping.aspx

All I ask is that if you use it, you post the lat/long that you found on this forum and mention you used the tool so I can track its usage - plus any feedback for changes and improvements would be much appreciated.