Lima tank factory

I can remember going to the field at Ft. McClellan, located next to the town of Anniston, for NBC school. This was around 1978/79 and there were fields with hundreds of M48 tanks sitting in them that the Anniston Depot had upgraded to M-60 standards. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War the Israeli's were surprised by the Egyptian's use of the Russian Sagger AT missile. The Israeli's started the war with 150 M60 tanks in it's armored forces among other types. Due to tank heavy losses from the Egyptian anti-tank missiles, the overall deteriorating war situation and hints from Israel that they were preparing to use nuclear weapons, the US instituted a massive resupply effort of munitions and equipment to Israel. Israel ended the conflict with 300 M-60's in their fleet. This transfer of tanks left US forces in Europe with a critical shortage in tanks. It was decided to upgrade the M-48 to M-60 standards (M48A5) as a stopgap measure until new production of the M-60 could make up the deficit. Anniston did much of the work and around 2,000 M-48's were upgraded.

 

That upgrading included putting the latest turret for the M-60 on the M-48 as I recall.

 

So the 48 upgraded to A5 variant - was it just the M60 turret that was slapped on, or were there other modifications?

Found that the 48 did not fare so well in the Indo-Pakistan war of 65...At the Battle of Asal Uttar, Pakistan lost 100 M48's. Doubt there were Sagggers then, so maybe the tank was a bit of a lemon?

 

To quote Admiral Akbar..."It's a trap!"

Charging across flooded fields with Indian armor to the left, right, and front, is not an inherently wise idea.

Not that it makes a difference, only about 3/4ths of the 100 Paki tanks lost were Pattons(72), the rest were M-24 Chaffees and M-4 Shermans. Roughly, 40% of the Pattons were captured in running condition, having bogged down in the flood fields. Still, poor Paki tactics at the Battle of Asal Uttar does not mean that the M-48 was necessarily a lemon. If you recall, the German Tiger's first outing, in terrain not suited for any tank, was a poorly planned debacle.

 

The M48A5 was upgunned from the M41/87 90mm gun to the same 105mm M68 gun used on the M60 (and early M1 Abrams). They were given either the AVDS 1790 2C/2D or AVDS 1790 Red Seal Engines, both rated at 750hp, depending on when the upgrade occured (both engines were also used in the M60A3). New sensors and sights and various other M60 components including many suspension parts and the tracks were upgraded to, ammunition stowage increased by 11 rounds and on later conversions the M1 cupola was replaced by a newer, low profile, Israeli designed commanders cupola. As for the turret very few had the M60 turret installed. Original plans were for excess M60 turrets from the M60A2 conversion to be used, but this plan was dropped after several prototypes had been completed. The original M-60's turrent was very similar to the M48's, it was the A1 and A3 that had the longer, needle nosed turret. 2,069 were eventually converted.