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Old 07-24-2011, 07:46 AM
dragoon500ly dragoon500ly is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: East Tennessee, USA
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Good work! Always look forward to your articles.

But I got to flame you on this one James, US Army Korea used the M-60A3 tank during the 1980s, they were one of the last units to convert over to the IPM-1 right around 1989-90 time frame.

When I was serving my last hitch as an instructor at Ft Knox, there was a
M-60A3 company (the only one on base) that was training National Guardsmen and Korean-bound tankers.

Most active duty M-60A1s had been converted/replaced to the A3 configuation (in Germany at least) right around 1982-83. A lot of the tank commanders were less than impressed with the IPM-1 TC position, the powered coupla has a major PITA and the position of the TCs sight came in for a lot of criticism.

On the M-60A3, there is a long tube extension that brings the gunner's night sight picture to roughly knee level, the TC could angle his eyepiece up and be able to keep his head out of the hatch to keep an eye on things and then slightly back and down to see what his gunner was looking at. On the Abrams you had to drop down completely and look through your extension sight...you had the choice of leaving the hatch open and unoccupied or of closing the hatch, and then reopening the hatch with every movement. Not a problem in peacetime, but a great way to encourage an infantryman with a satchel charge during war.
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