Com-Central.net

Checked out the M60 at the Mississippi ARNG Armory, Detachment 1, 1387th Quartermaster Company, in Rolling Fork on the way to Louisiana yesterday,

SN 156, RN 9B3269.

Rolling Fork MS

Location: 32.900320, -90.874755


What's interesting is the TACOM register lists an M60 SN 156 at Six Lakes MI.

Another one with the original air cleaners! These seem pretty rare. Nice shot.

Gary

Gary,

What's really cool is she had been in service a very long time and kept the old first GEN air cleaners. I surmised this since she was equipped with an M68A1 tube (M1) with the bevel and cut for an MRS. Wouldn't be surprised if she was finally retired whenever the 155th AR BDE got their M60A3's (Late 80's early 90's), giving her a service life of close to 30 years with no major upgrades .

Ya think Uncle Sam got his moneys worth with her???

BTW, She was assigned to 1-108 Cavalry.

Were you wandering around in public with that long pole of yours?

As for the upgrade history, how does a centrally controlled fighting vehicle escape all the important changes? I'd expect there would be a scheduled recall and rolling replacement procedure to keep these things evenly distributed across the fleet. Or is my innocence showing?

Good question,

From 1986-87 I was in an M60A1 tank platoon at Fort Riley KS. Of our 5 tanks (We had the CO's tank assigned for maintenance and admin) not one was outfitted the same, ran from an A1 AOS to A1RISE/Passive and all in between with different mods. Oldest having an 1790-A engine, newest having a C with VDES air cleaners. Two had grenade launchers installed and we had VSS-1, 2 and 3 searchlights with either IR or Passive sights. Used to do the passive shuffle during gunnery, handing the gunner's sight from tank to tank at night, since there were only 4 or 5 passive tanks in the company. This was an Active duty unit in the 1st ID.

Was told that we were last on funds list and were due for M1's, so money wasn't to be spent on old tanks. They did swap to M1's fall of '87. Only thing I could guess as to why we had such a diversity of models was as the old M60s wore out, caught fire, or destroyed in accidents over time, they were floated out. Replacement tanks that came in were newer models or came from units who transitioned to M1's since that's all that was available. Some of our tanks in the Battalion had old Fort Hood bumper numbers.

Guard tanks are maintained and owned by the state, so it's up to them what to spend on them. The state gets X amount of federal funding a year to maintain whatever forces they have. How the state disperses the funds is their business. Since most of their tanks sit idle in MATES sites, it's real easy to skip upgrades (as long as they are not safety related) and use the funds elswhere. "If it ain't broke, don't spend money on it"