M60 Main Battle Tank in Action
David Doyle’s latest book continues to expand on Squadron Signal’s long standing In Action series that initiated back in 1971. This is a completely updated and expanded edition over Squadron’s earlier Armor in Action number 23, a 50-pager on the Patton by Jim Mesko that was published in 1987. This 2017 release is essentially a new book, encompassing 80 pages.
After many years of being published in enthusiast publications focused on military vehicle restorations, David Doyle ‘graduated’ to full-fledged books in 2003. His first book was a hefty 512 page history of US military vehicles. He has now had more than 100 books published in military vehicles, aviation and naval topics. David and his wife Denise have amassed a collection of ten Vietnam era military vehicles that he still displays at shows. In June 2015, Doyle was honored with the Military Vehicle Preservation Association’s Bart Vanderveen Award, given in recognition of "...the individual who has contributed the most to the historic preservation of military vehicles worldwide." Be sure to check out David’s website at DavidDoyleBooks.com where you can see and buy all his books that are still available at a discounted price off MSRP.
This book follows the normal format of the current 80-page In Action series, detailing the development and service history of the M60 Main Battle Tank. This is expanded from Squadron’s previous standard 60 page version of their In Action format and it is packed with large, clear photographs. The front cover features a color photograph of M60, 9B3090, in profile. The rear cover features a color photograph of a M60A1. I counted 226 well captioned photographs; 156 in color and 70 in black and white. There were nineteen black and white drawings by Vincenzo Auletta depicting the variants.
The M60 Main Battle Tank’s origin is from an incident in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution when a Soviet T-54A was driven onto the grounds of the British Embassy. Upon British inspection it was discovered that the T-54A’s 100 mm gun and armor totally outclassed anything the British had. This intelligence was shared with the United States where the US Army began looking at upgrading their M48 Patton main battle tank to meet this new threat. Delays in the US Army’s T95 main battle tank program that was to replace the M48 ran into development issues and budget constraints, leading to a more modest program to update the existing M48 with upgraded armor and a British 105mm gun. Over 15,000 M60 tanks were manufactured from 1959 through 1987 and remained in US Army service until replaced by the M1 Abrams. Eighteen M60A3s remained in service with the US Army until 2005. Israel retired their last M60 in 2014, but the M60 remains in service with many services around the world.
David Doyle starts off with the development of the M60, beginning with some clear profiles of the four ‘pilot’ vehicles. The development of each version is addressed with text, vintage photographs, and drawings. A specification table helps to compare the M60, M60A1, M60A2, M60A3 variants.
The Table of Contents is as follows:
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction [Page 8]
- M60 Development (Line Drawings)
- M60A1
- M60A2
- M60A3 [Page 25]
- M60AVLB
- M728
- Field Use [Page 41, 53]
- General Data [Table]
I found some very interesting photographs on an evaluation M60 fitted with underwater fording equipment (Page 8) along with a bulldozer blade. Additional photos of an M60s fording a river in the Mojave Desert (yes, there really is a river in the Mojave Desert) are interesting as they have Willys M38A1 jeeps strapped to their rear deck. Another set of color photographs shows off the M179 Telfare. This essentially was a special mount holding a M2 .50*caliber machine gun to the main barrel aimed at simulating the ballistics of the main gun at a cheaper cost. For you Scandinavian fans there is even a M60A1 with white paint splotched over the base green paint to act as camouflage on a 1983 training exercise.
This is a gorgeous soft-bound book and is well worth the money. David Doyle provides lots of detailed photographs with detailed captions. I’ve always enjoyed Squadron’s In Action format as their line drawings focus on the differences from variant to variant, making it easy to spot the different versions in the period black and white or color photographs. You can find a video highlight of the books contents at M60 Main Battle Tank In Action.
Highly recommended!
My thanks to David Doyle Books at (DavidDoyleBooks.com ) and IPMS/USA for the chance to review this great book.
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