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Neil

Is the Ft McCoy M-1 a possible Pre-production version. Need better turret rear photos, but here is what I have.

SN seems to be 0078, so definitely a very early variant.



Perhaps Joe D has his infamous 'high angle' photos of this tank???

Don

" FSED PV-1 "




Abrams TTB (Tank Test Bed) ( RN J2000C )



Don

MBT 70 (Pilot #6) (SN 6; RN 09A00668)




MBT 70 (Pilot #4 'Pigg') (SN 4; RN 09A00467)




XM 803 (SN # 7; RN 09A00767)



Don

Nice!

- Dontos

Neil

Is the Ft McCoy M-1 a possible Pre-production version. Need better turret rear photos, but here is what I have.

SN seems to be 0078, so definitely a very early variant.



Perhaps Joe D has his infamous 'high angle' photos of this tank???

Don

Don, I'd suspect with that SN it is an LRIP model, and so should be similar to most production Abrams. There were only 15 FSED pilots that had different style turrets (in the rear), so I doubt any of those would be SN 0078...

Neil

Everything I see on the Ft McCoy tank says LRIP to me, except one thing that was a characteristic of the FSED PVs. The production M1s had a rain shield at the top and sides of the mantlet, that covered up some of the mantlet bolt heads. The PVs looked like this Ft McCoy tank (you can see all the bolt heads at the sides). (Actually, I think the PVs had a rain shield as well, but it was smaller than the production one and showed more of the bolt heads - or maybe this was something that was fitted later to some PVs - "PV1" at Knox has one.)

Maybe that's just missing on this tank - all else looks production model.

Geoff Walden

Geoff,
Have you had any luck finding that old info on FSED PVs?

Neil

Neil,
Yes, I did find some of it, but I've got to find a chance to transcribe it - also need to scan something I found in the files on the PVs, dated April 1977.

Geoff

Awaiting with much anticipation

Neil

Great!