How Bad Was The M60A2 Starship?
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
- Just like the M247 Sergeant York, the M60A2 Starship has a reputation as a less than stellar tank. Developed during the 60s and fielded during the 70s, this Cold War main battle tank certainly has its quirks. Today, we'll be seeing just how bad it actually was, in addition to the history behind its development. Featuring a152mm M162 gun launcher, the Starship was to primarily fire MGM-51C Shillelagh anti-tank guided missiles. While the M60 chassis was fairly reliable, the turret and gun proved to be very troublesome, among other things.
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Sources:
AD A087013 - Fielding Army Weapon Systems: Experiences and Lessons Learned
Patton - R.P. Hunnicutt
Sheridan - R.P. Hunnicutt
Tanks: 100 Years of Evolution - Richard Ogorkiewicz
M60A2 - Brett Avants, Christopher Mrosko
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My father was a driver for M60s when he was in the military. He 'barely missed vietnam' so he was in an A1, most likely. He doesn't remember what model he drove, except for the statement of 'Thank god it wasn't that new and shiny nightmare with the missile launcher'.
The M60 is the best looking cold war tank and best looking American tank, period.
Your father was a lucky man driving this beauty :o
@@DefinitelyNotEmma the A2 isnt
@@rawhidelamp The A2 is the best looking tank ever
@@rawhidelamp no, but the normal one is
I was trained on m60 a1 and a3 (and m48a5 molf but irrelevant),and when i asked the company commander "is there an a-2 variant of this?" he just told me "we dont talk about the a2"
I find it funny that they tried to make a lower profile turret, then slapped a massive fucking commander’s cupola on top of it to make it practically the same profile height-wise.
Guess that only happens in 60s' command era
@@LEEGOOVER9901 only americans could have had this stupid idea.
@@tigerbesteverything I highly recommend you look at tank history and prepared to find just as many mistakes that are a lot stupider than an armored cupola
@@tigerbesteverything shut up
@@tigerbesteverything guessing by your profile name your a wheraboo?
US: Let's make the turret smaller so it's harder to hit
Also US: Let's add a skyscraper cupola for the commander
Lets make the M1 shorter so its not a skyscraper. M2/3 lets make it taller than an M60 series....
Design by committee at it's finest...
@@tanker6473
The Bradley is one vehicle where I still can't decide whether it's a shitshow or not. It's big, poorly armored, has a slow-to-deploy tow launcher and a gun that's too slow firing and has too little effect.
On the other hand, when it was introduced, it was more heavily armored than any other IFV, had an actual practicable ATGM launcher and a fairly heft autocannon that could shoot right through most soviet IFVs and APCs.
Fundamentally, the Bradley suffers from being one of the first true modern IFVs. It wasn't bad when it was introduced, but it wasn't great either and everyone that looked at it and decided it was a good idea made better shit(except the British, the Warrior is terrible) so people now judge it by comparison.
There were reasons it was built that way. Target designate ability. See my reply above...
@@The_Crimson_Fucker The Bradley is decent still it could use replacing but the things it can reasonably face irl aren't really good probably a good bit worse then it if I were to guess
Ah yes, the Ravenfield Tank.
A man of culture
Yes.
I didn’t even realize
Fuck it’s been a bit since I played that, is that what the games tank was based off of?
@@Dlúith Yep, after Early Access Build 15 (?), it's based off the M60A2 as opposed to that 6x6 tracked vehicle with a challenger-esque turret.
by the way, if you plan on returning to ravenfield, rest assured you will not regret in doing so, as there's a lot of good stuff in the base game, and in the workshop.
i recommend getting the Vanilla+, Project Altirus and Project Delum mods, as they are really high quality and fun mods to play with, along with the fact that they provide a bit more toys on the playground.
I’ve seen the last M60A2 in Danville, Virginia. It’s really interesting to see it in person and is absolutely massive
AYO SAME.
ay same lol
Down in Fort Knox KY, there's an interesting tank. It's an M60A2 turret, but it's on an M48A5 hull.
ive been inside of it, pretty awesome actually! lots of space in the turret and the commander had lots of cool panels and controls. was it the best tank ever? no not by a long shot but it was cool to climb inside and thats all that matters to me lol
Just moved to Alabama and was happy to learn there was an M60A1 on display (parked, really) near my house. I just had to get up close and was absolutely astonished by the size of the thing. Can confirm it is very very tall for an MBT.
My dad was a tanker back in the 70s, he said he was asked by his co if he wanted to transfer to a starship and get bumped up to the commander position. He politely said "Hell no sir those things are death traps lol"
Ah yes he said lol
@@Agua-hd4jh as u do
Fun fact, Army still has the NSN to order one of these things. No idea why, but its in a DA manual.
Edit: It was DA PAM 750-8, it was on page 252. Funny thing was that they had the m60a1, the m48a5, m60a3, the m60, all of the Abrams variants, m60a1r, the AOS m60, and the star-ship in the next category. I don't know WHY they still have this in there. But oddly enough, the national stock numbers are there to order them. My guess is that the first generation of wreckers that was made to pull abrams out of areas was made out of parts from the m60's and m48's. Just so they can order parts from those vehicle's TM's.
Thought the NSN was the NATO Stock Number.
@Fes:
Dumb questions: NSN Order Form? D.A. Manual?
@@LosBerkos it is. And they probably still have things like chassis around for bridging vehicles....even though those are FINALLY being replaced by an Abrams based Bridge laying vehicle(AVLB).
@@Dreaded88 Department of Army Pamphlet 750-8. If I remember right it was the monthly microfiche that you looked national stock numbers up on. It'd tell you things like price, unit of issue (wouldn't want to order 200 1/4 inch nuts if the unit of issue was HD/ hundred), what level stockage was authorized at, and I think disposal codes and whatnot.
@@elmospasco5558 :
Many thanks! *_:D_*
I worked turret repair on the last battalion of M60A2 while at Ft.Hood, TX, 2nd Armorer Devision, (1980-82)(45Kilo). It was a giant POS. The circuit boards that controlled the laser range finder, fire control system, and missile guidance would crack from vibration from simply driving the tank on ruff ground. One I had to work on were the stabilization unit crapped out and the gun slammed up and down so hard that it cracked the guns trunnion. That one was a write off, but it didn’t matter do the slated decommissioning of the A2 a month or so latter. The joke saying was to load the tank on a HET, slowly drive up to a mountain top and park the tank there and hope nothing in the turret broke. The turret design with its vertical flat side would had allowed any tank round along with a RPG to penetrate. That last battalion tanks were replaced with M60A3.
As a side note. While I was at Ft.Hood, the Army did its first field trials of the then new M1 Abrams. 2nd Armorer was supposed to get the M1 for the field trials, but the Brass gave it 1st Cav instead. Kind of bummed me because I was trained at Aberdeen to work on them.
Man its amazing how electronic parts in the 60s-70s went from being shiny, new, and unreliable, to being extremely reliable and boring in 2022 lol.
Teslas electronics wise, are more complicated than your average chevy off the line. But even with the shitboxes Tesla made in 2012, someone managed to get a million miles on it, and only had to replace the batteries twice. The powertrain is stupid simple, and stupid reliable.
Now Tesla gives out 8 year, 150,000 miles battery warranties for cars that experience more than 30% of lost capacity.
Its honestly wild seeing how reliable electronics have gotten. Back then you could probably assume a smartphone was gonna be gimmicky and unreliable. Now (as long as your manufacturer isnt Apple), these shits last forever, with the batteries being the only weak points.
Was at ft hood in 77 to 80 on the A2 1/67 Aco 1st platoon.
Funny thing is the M60A2 starship is actually the vanilla common tank in a game called ravenfield
@@jessegd6306 Yeah, it's a much more conventional tank.
hey I remember that game
bugs me why they chose it and then made it a conventional gun tank in every way
@@yeetadog That's why you get the Vanilla+ mod, lot better vehicle design.
@@yeetadog Likely because it's just a cool design. I never use vanilla weapons/vehicles
İt's just like the Maus. When you think about it it's awesome but in reality it's really useless.
Ferdinand/elefant too
@@waterdotzable right. When you think about Ferdinand it's a TD with really tick front armor and a gun can kill anything. But in reality,
Hans! transmission is broke! Again!
@@truck-kun5924 it lost a fight to a hill, we're out of spare parts, it got stuck again etc
@@waterdotzable at least it's working in war thunder. Kinda.
I would attest to effectiveness if it didn’t absolutely bankrupt my SL.
I'ma' be real here, the M60A2 Starship looks awesome.
Love the design.
although a terrible design, it looks quite unique and something you would see in a near future sci fi movie
@@toadtexas I honestly wonder what the M60A2 Starship would have been like if they continued to work on the vehicle, creating a Sep V1, V2, and V3 veriants and what they would have looked like.
That preposterous U-boat conning tower of a turret is a crime against humanity. Even if they only replaced that AMX 30 style cupola with the version from regular M60s it might look slightly better. But as it went into service? Shudder.
@@daniel_f4050 Still looks like something you would see in near future sci fi movies
@@fasterthandragons7908 Even an armour package that made the turret look like the silhouette of a normal m60a1.
Probably one of my favorite tanks in WT. I wish it did better IRL than it does in game
Ahhh yes the tank that could use some historical accuracy ingame but that is reserved for USSR.
@@ivanmonahhov2314 Silence Russian bot!
The M60A2 was my favorite MBT in Armored Warfare ... back when it was worth playing.
Did better Irl? Wdym? Killed people better? Idk how dumb people can get
@@cia4gent128 Yes, as someone apart of the Central Intelligence Agancy you should advocate for the total annihilation of anyone that poses a threat to US interests, or the US in general. That's your job.
when spookston uploads, it automatically makes my day better
Yes
I 100% agree
Same
definitely
Yep
I was an M60A1, M60A3, M1, M1A1 and M1A2 tanker. From talking to the old M60A2 tankers the problem was the technology to make the concept of the vehicle work was just not there yet. There were numerous problems that were never worked out effectively, such as the turret and cupola traversing wildly on their own when the turret power was on. Much of the lessons learned from the A2 program went into the M1 Abrams. Also the name Starship was something that came out way after the vehicle left service.
In the driver's seat at Knox during A2 training when that happened. I was a young E-2, loader and gunner were as well. The loader was putting a round in the tube when it happened. TC hit his back on the radio rack, round stuck in a hot tube (HEAT, not TPT). Gun tube got pointed back down range, right over my head in the driver's seat (buttoned up, of course). TC get's air evac, loader and gunner un-ass the tank since the breech is open with a stuck HEAT round in it. Safety officer and I sit in the tank for over an hour waiting until the tube cools enough to get the round unstuck and put in the chamber. (2LT saftey officer had 2 more months time in service than I did at 4 1/2 months!)
Fun times....
@@RossOneEyed I had an Abrams do the same thing once. Damn near took someone’s head off
What ammunition did yall use in the m60 did you use sabot or heat for anti tank
3:50 It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one
When he saw that in game he was probably like,
"What the hell......"
but they sing it in italian
Dude was doing a slow speed crash
Me when look at it
*Wait that's illegal*
general kenovi
My company supported the M60A2 when it went to Grafenwohr. It was a nightmare. We had one in our Maintenance Float section to issue to the unit when we could not fix the Tank in a timely manner.
I commanded an M60a2 from 1975-1978. It was fun to play with, but I would never have wanted to take it where someone was actually shooting at me. As reported, the missile system was "questionable" at best. It had a max range which was classified but I can say it would hit a target at 3000 meters. It had a minimum range 0f 800 meters but that was covered by a 152mm HEAT round. We didn't have the problem of moisture on the HEAT cartridges but then, we were in Germany, not Viet Nam like the Sheridans were. The TC cupola has already been mentioned. You could lay the TC sight reticle on a target, push a button, and the main turret would slew around and line the gunner's sight up perfectly with the TC's sight. Or, you could push a different button and the TC cupola would align with the Gunner's sight. From that position, the TC could fire the gun/launcher or coax machinegun. And those systems worked flawlessly. But look at the cupola. It's located center of mass right above/behind the main gun. There is no ballistic slope and the armor is only a few inches thick.
Following American doctrine of that time, the tank would wait behind the top of a ridge or hilltop with only the TC cupola exposed. When Soviet tanks appeared, the tank would move forward until the gun/launcher was exposed and engage the target. Now, the only thing the Soviet gunners could see to shoot back at would be the TC cupola. I imagine after the first battle, there would be a bunch of M60a2's running around with no cupolas...
Another thing to consider about that missile: It takes time for the missile to fly from your tank to the target. And all the time that missile is flying, the a2 is sitting there, guiding the missile. Plenty of time for a Soviet tank platoon to fire back.
Oh, and one more thing: NO tanker back then ever called it "Starship". I don't know where that came from, but it wasn't us...
I had a platoon sergeant who was a gunner on an M60A2 earlier in his army career. He told me that the FCS was extremely accurate but fragile. If it worked, it worked great, but if anything went wrong, forget about it.
It's kind of like the M14 in that, had it been introduced a decade or so earlier, it would've been incredibly effective, but it was effectively obsolete upon It's actual introduction.
At least the m60 didn't screw over everyone in nato like the m14 did
The M14 however still was a good DMR especially in desert combat as shockingly a 30 cal rifle does good at long ranges. Main problem was that they tried to force it to be all weapon types at once. It doesn’t use low recoil rounds for SMGs and other CQ combat areas. It doesn’t have the belt capacity of the lmgs. I’m glad we got the M16 instead of the M14 with a automatic feature
Nah not relaly. The starship still wouldv been a good tank, if it wasnt for the poor reliability.
If they had modern day electronical reliability, the starship wouldv been beyond amazing for the time
@@Predator20357 It's not shocking that the .30 cal does great at long ranges, it's just physics. When you send a heavy weight like a 150gr bullet at Mach 2, Newton's law of Inertia does the rest. In fact the .30-03 (the original round for the 1903 Springfield) was so good at longer ranges, the Army faced either rebuilding all of its training facilities, or downgrade the round to work with the facilities they had. This is how the .30-06 is born (.30 cal, 1906). This long range performance is also why the .308 Winchester (7.62x51 NATO) exists. The US Army Bureau of Ordinance wanted to stay with a .30 cal round that would work out to around 800yds but in a smaller package (.30-06 is 7.62x63 in metric). The M14 is a good DMR/Sniper because at heart that's exactly what it was built for, it's absolutely the wrong weapon for mass issue on the other hand. Too heavy, expensive, and complex for the average soldier. Shame that the original AR10 (or any other submission for that matter) didn't stand a chance in the trials. Could have had Stoner's glorious work of art 9 years earlier.
@@honkhonk8009It was simply limited by its time, as Howard Stark would put it.
War Thunder: This tank is awesome!
Real Life: Wow, this is a shitty tank.
It seems like a lot of the fun ones are actually not that great.
The t95 heavy tank could barley go a football field in length before catching on fire.
The Ferdinand just died from bridges and hills (it was to heavy for standard bridges and would collapse them) and had to engines
that fought against eachother.
The tiger 2s had weak transmissions that needed constant mantaniance ( made for upper hand in offense, not a desperate defence)
Idk those were some examples I could think of off the top of my head.
I met a retired tanker that trained on the starship. He was telling his wife "each shot cost $50K, so we never could train on it"
Its funny this video came out. I actually got to see one (apparently one of the very few) M60A2s. Its left on fort Knot's MOUT town. I got some pics of it and crawled over it some, the poor thing has been left to rot, but its still a sight to behold
I’m pretty sure we have one outside of a local amvets, but I can’t tell if it’s a starship or some other model
I have a friend who was a M60A2 Platoon leader.
One the crews called them Stumpies.
Two Slow reload speed due to both ammo weight, Fire Prevention measures, Missile Length and electric breach system.
Three Shillelagh had a minimum range in the 900 meters area all shorter ranges were dealt with HEAT-MP.
Four They were great for forest fighting when proper platoon fire distribution and Overwatch planning was done to account for the loading times.
Five Scary fast turret rotation.
Six Fire Prevention measures included Breech scavenger system, 9 ply barrier bags over the combustible cartridges until on the loading tray plus the peel off Rubber water proof layer directly on the cartridge. Plus after every 33 rounds fired a snap ring which sealed the breech had to be replaced with a fresh one.
Another friend almost caught a breech flash in the face from a worn out ring.
They were out of date when issued most were rebuilt into M60A1 when withdrawn from Reserve stockpiles as newer Anti Tank systems came online. M901 Improved Tow Vehicles which in turn were replaced by all Bradly's having TOW launchers and many other systems with TOW Mounts.
I spent 7 years as a crewman on one as well tank commander . It was a good tank if you know how to use it. The big problem was that the Army didn’t want it in the first place.
I love those designs from 50's-80's, when engineers made wacky but very creative things to go around the technological limitations of their time.
I've always wondered if any speculative designs using the M60A2's low profile turret combined with a conventional gun system were on the board. With improvements to crew positioning the idea had obvious merit.
What if they had mounted a 120mm gun?
There was, allegedly, one prototype with the M68 105mm used on the other M60 models, though I can find very little on it and it seems not to have been photographed. "M60A1E3: Prototype, M60A1E2 Type B turret fitted with M68 105 mm gun." To clarify, M60A1E2 was the prototype for M60A2, and the "Type B" turret refers to the final design they went with after a lot of testing. There were also Type A, C and D turrets: Type A was another low-profile design which may or may not have been built, Type C was basically a Sheridan turret for MBTs and never left the drawing board, and Type D was a variant of the same T95 turret that became the M60A1's "needle-nose" turret. The Type D design seems to have been the only major competitor to the Type B they eventually went with, and has an interesting history. It was not only tested on a T95 like the Type B turret but also (for some reason) on an M48 hull; the hybrid tank actually survives to this day and last I checked was on display outdoors in the US. But yeah, back to the M60A2's low-profile turret, it does seem that they built at least one with the conventional 105mm gun, but it apparently went nowhere. If I had to guess, I'd say that this was probably built around the same time the M60A2's prototype was, and with the US Army obsessed with using the gun-launcher, it would only have been produced if the gun-launcher had entirely failed. By the time they decided to phase the M60A2 out, it would have been easier to just slap the old M60A1 turrets back on them and upgrade them to A3 status than to convert the 500 A2 turrets to have the same gun. With the MBT-70 and then the Abrams in development during the '70s, there probably didn't seem any point in having a slightly better M60A1 with a low-profile turret with a new tank right around the corner when they could do a more modest improvement, turn the A1s into A3s, and have a workable stop-gap until a new MBT can enter service.
@@PoorFoxface The M60A2's were converted to AVLB's. Their was also some thought of trying the 76mm gun from the M41 in a M551 - not sure of it ever got to the hardware stage.
@Spookston You can't fully appreciate the development of the M60A2 without also going into the MBT-70/KPz 70 project. MBT-70 was intended to field the longer-barreled XM150 152mm gun-launcher and otherwise replace the M60 platform, but when that project fell through, the Army brass felt the urgent need to stopgap an MBT armed with a 152mm gun-launcher, hence the M60A2.
ngl you’re one of the few channels i genuinely enjoy watching, always entertaining commentary, gameplay and I learn a lot from your videos.
This is why I like spookston. I have always loved the m60a2 design, but never really knew exactly why it never really caught on. Thanks bud.
Spookston, I implore you to make more of these kind of videos! They are so good. Maybe something a bit longer though?
You could start asking him to better research.
I thought this thing would be terrible ingame, but since I’ve been playing it it turned into one of my favorites. The armor is hit mor miss, but the armor profile is so complex it’s hard for people to figure out where to shoot you head on.
It's weird that I can remember getting a giant toy version of this tank when I was real little. There were some changes like a longer barrel.
Funny how memories come back with a spark
i never realized this thing saw actual service, i saw it in wt and thought "guess its a prototype m60"
We were the first battalion to turn our M60A1s in to draw the "new" A2 in USAEUR. (Jun 1975 [1/32 Armor, 3AD]). They stayed in service until the unit was given the A3 in about 81. (I had re-upped by then, became a lab tech and was in a Combat Engineer battalion in Frankfurt).
One of the mockups is still surviving as a gateguard at Amvets post 93 in Armada, Michigan. I live nearby and have visited it, it's a great little piece of history.
you know what the army needs? a tank that looks like a hamburger
That would help recruitment, but then they wouldn’t fit through the hatches
@@arcturus4762 LOL
and it shoots mayonnaise, your enemy will freak out over being covered in white stuff and run away to shower in bleach
@@Journey_to_who_knows hahahaha
I love the pure irony of the M60A2's design, it's so wrong:
"So we are designing this MBT-70 with our new dual/high-hardness spaced steel technology and a good stabilized panoramic sight"
"Ok but WHAT IF we threw all the synergy and research away to design a completely unrelated turret design for M60A2?"
XM66 testbed with conventional turret: "What the fuck"
1968 Chrysler K proposal: "What the fuck"
Leopard 2 proto and 1A3/A4 with spaced armor and panoramic sights: "What the fuck"
I bought the yugoslav dlc for war game red dragon, let's just say that yugoslavian T34 85s whooped 8 starships
War game has fucked balance, to be fair.
And they say war thunders matchmaking mechanics are bad
di kad kako
Ah yes, Wargame.
Only game where you can kill M1A2 Abramses with a hordes of T-34/85s
@@NetizenNo Well, it's an RTS, where "more shit counters less shit". Throwing enough stuff at less things is an arguably valid tactic.
Though, Wargame still is a kinda jank game at its core, that's undeniable as well.
But hey, at least Wargame: Ixwa Strike is out now to add new DLC to the game?
the turret looks like they hired a grade 1 to design it 😂😂😂
its pretty well made
@@Juhnaaa Because nothing speaks well made than a turret specifically to decrease profile when it greatly increases it and makes an ergonomic nightmare for crews
Not really, it's quite sophisticated and well thought out.
In fact, the falcon turret that is in use today on challenger chassis in the middle east is the principle
What he fails to mention a few fatal flaws like : ATGM was radio guided , the turret had a design problem the gun obstructed the antenae this made missle unguided for the first 800 meters . In Vietnam M551 discovered that combustible casings absorb moisture and bloat making it impossible to load. Recoil would knock out electronics on M551. The first composite armor tank entered mass production in 1963 aka T-64 ( with 115mm ) and it had working combustible casings.
@@m1a1abramstank49 well it did decrease the frontal area, as for the height, you can thank '60s americans for slapping oversized cupolas on every tank, making them higher than they needed to be
At the time the A2 was developed, HEAT was very effective against the RH armor then in use, and missile launchers were far lighter than large caliber guns. Until multi-layer composite armor was developed HEAT rounds seemed to be indefensible, that's why the Leopard 1 and AMX 30 had such thin armor, thicker armor seemed pointless.
Spookston : *speak English*
Subtitile : I think he speak Vietnamese
My grandfather has memories of watching a sheridan in some kind of air-dropping trials. It exploded on impact.
@@phred.phlintstone This was from my grandfathers memory, so I can't speak to the accuracy of it. Just an anecdote I had heard.
idk about that chief, the gameplay that’s playing the background says otherwise
It's easier getting it to work in a virtual environment than the real world. I loved my Starship in Armored Warfare and was quite disappointed upon learning the real version was terrible.
Since most of the starship's problems were around reliability and maintinence, in a game that doesn't simulate those it performs just fine.
@@trickedraptor idk about that chief, war thunder is the most historically “””””accurate”””””” game I know
Sums up American design. They want it to do everything, so it does a few things mediocre and misses the point of its original purpose.
Sums up America itself
@@Insomniac3d hey hey hey, we got one thing going for us, we "liberate" oil from poor countries really well
Tell that to the Abrams that wiped out hundreds of Russian made tanks all in one day in gulf one...
@@jonruger the Abrams is well built, but the tanks that were fought in the gulf War were older models with more outdated technology. Also the crews were not as well trained. It had to do more with training and the technology the attacking countries had (mainly GPS and better thermal) than the actual tank itself.
@@kyle18934 t62 and t72s one of which development was started at at the same time as the Abrams programs began. Tanks that were supposed to be advanced and unstoppable had fought well against everything Israeli had threw at them up till then.
oh man the starship, my favourite armored warfare tank alongside bagelpanzer
bagelpanzer "Gunner, Cream chese, Mess truck in the open!"
Kinda reminds me of the M3 tanks with how the top sections becoming so ridiculously tall.
Considering how last year went, we need a new hindsight phrase. As 'Hindsight is 20/20' can sound a lot like Hindsight is a disaster.
Idea for an April fools event
R3pocalypse
Players must defend themselves from an endless stream of R3s
Just like the simulations
Like the defence game mode against bots? That would be fun
Or maybe like a survival thing where a team is put on the map and has to hunt down 100 r3's and purge them from existence
AA Vehichles with 20mm or higher cannons: Showtime
Ok, but AA and Aircraft are not allowed
Franlky I don't see who could call the Starship a bad tank, at least in the game, I found I really enjoy playing it, and do better than if I was using the T95E1.
Knew about the Sheridan but not the m60 versions. Learn something new every day
All those things attached to the turret, would be a fun target practice to try and shoot that all off, one bit at a time, right after you send a mean round through the commanders turret.
...we had the M60 & A1 in Germany in the early 70s (HHC 4/35 Armor - Iron horsemen - Illesheim)...the A2 arrived long after I'd left in July 1974...50 years ago...
Several of the senior NCOs I served with/under in the early to late 1980s were Vietnam War Veterans and Tankers who had served on both 152mm "gun/launcher" vehicles. The only round they all liked in Vietnam was the "Beehive" round. I only trained with the 105mm version, and found it to be nasty, to say the least, and can only imagine what kind of carnage a 152mm would be capable of. NONE of those NCOs liked or trusted any other round other than maybe (and they were somewhat divided in their opinions) the HEP round which to one degree or another they considered VERY effective on certain targets such as lightly armored/unarmored vehicles and SOME structures. None of the Combat Veterans/Tankers, who had served on them, liked the M60A2 and much preferred the M60A1 and M60A3 mounting the 105mm main gun and the rounds that gun was capable of firing. More than one of those men transitioned, as did I, to the First Generation M1 Abrams MBT which also mounted the 105mm main gun.....And don't get me started on how much many of us came to loath that tank while bearing in mind, of course, that it WAS the First Generation model.
Title: How Bad was the M60A2 Starship
Spookston: *proceeds to farm enemy team" Also talks about how bad it is.
Me: visible confusion
He was talking about how bad it was in real life, not in game
@@TR33ZY_CRTM I know I just had nothing to comment so I wrote something that doesn't make sense
My new tank unit in 1980 had turned in their M-60 A2's a few months before, for the M-60 A1's I had been trained on....a gunner told me of a Shillelagh missile that had misfired coming out of the gun tube and fisseled out on the ground a few yards away... It then took off again, shooting along the ground, but he was able to get the laser guidance back on it and lifted it up and it went on to hit the target. Witness's backed this up.
M-60 A2's were well liked because all crew members had their own hatch...
the A2 was my favorite tank when it was added :(
I was an Armor officer 74-99 1) Never heard anyone call a M60A2 a "Starship" in all that time. I think that name was dreamed by some wannabe years later 2) When I was critical about the A2 at AOAC, guys from Germany rose to its defense, they had learned how to make it work and liked it 3) The A2 was deployed in pure A2 battalions and not in mixed units 4) What killed it was the rate of fire. Even if all the problems with the missile had been solved, the rate of fire was too slow to "service" the number of targets in a European environment (Remember that it had to be guided out to impact as opposed to being fire and forget like a gun) 5) The Closed Breech Scavenging System was nothing new. Warships had been using it since the early 20th Century (Watch video of a battleship gun firing. See the puff of smoke after the smoke from firing disappears? That's the '"air wash" system in use, clearing out smoke, toxic fumes and residue) It had been thought that a fume extractor would do the job (you can see it on early M551's and M60A2's wrapped around the gun tube) Unfortunately, no., it didn't 6) The hulls from the A2's were converted AVLB's. The M88 recovery vehicles were based on M48 technology, which was NOT a conversion of anything 7) Originally the plan had been to convert all of the plain M60's to M60A2's. Their 105mm turrets would be remounted on M48 and M48A1 hulls stripped of their 90mm turrets at the same time they were upgraded from gasoline to AVDS-1790 diesel engines (similar to the M48A3 conversion program). Note that the M48A5 kept the M48 turret, upgraded to take a 105mm gun and fire control along with the M48A3 automotive package 8) Both the M551 and M60A1 suffered from being on the bleeding edge of technology. Sixties technology with discrete components as opposed to solid state chips couldn't take the shocks of tank service. None the less, the systems and concepts pioneered in the M60A2 were brought into fruition in the M60A3 TTS and M1 series.
When the army junked them some were converted into bridge tanks. You can tell them by the extended lower rear hull were the gun scavenger system was in the rear of the engine compartment . Here in Kuwait I see one of the old girls running around as a bridge tank sometimes.
>low profile turret
>has a 4 storey high cupola
I will say it's great that the second he talked about the lil boi (Sheridan) his Squadmate is in one. good stuff.
My first PLT SGT crewed an M60A2.
He never talked about it. If you asked him about it he'd have to drink from is "special canteen."
I knew a guy who was part of a crew that operated one in the late '70s. He didn't think it was a bad tank for Europe. It did what was required but most were converted to M60A1 or M60A3 standard by the mid-80s.
Easy Eight No, they were rebuilt to AVLB's
I had the misfortune of being assigned to an a2 unit 1977 - 1980. This was without a doubt the biggest POS ever acquired by the Army!! It was the only tank in Germany that was not allowed to keep it's basic load of ammo uploaded at all times in the event of a Soviet attack, as it was such a fire hazzard. The .50 cal was mounted upside down and the ammo was loaded upside down and backwards. To switch from firing missile to conventional ammo, it was necessary to put a machined metal seal in the breach to prevent a fireball in the turret. If the seal was warped or nicked you had a problem! The turret was significantly heavier than the M60a1 and a3 which caused drive train issues. The laser range finder was accurate to + or - 10 meters except in rain, sleet, snow, or fog. Guess what the weather is in Germany 8 months out of the year?? At Tank Gunnery my crew once qualified with no electric in the turret. My Gunner manually elevated and traversed the main gun while I fired it with the manual blasier. It was a death trap.
I had the Job in 1999-2000 of sending 125 of them to the jet bombing range in NV to be targets and the remaining 400 to a small town in Indiana to cut up recycled and melted down. I got to drive a few of them and have some fun with them and always thought this model was a lot cooler than the M60 or M48
Me, a Ravenfield player: This looks familiar
Hi, just a quick question - have you considered looking into the ground vehicles of the Mass Effect series?
I'd be curious to see what you've got to say about the Mako APC, Hammerhead IFV, Grizzly MBT, etc.
Sounds like it would not pass the “oh dear the tank is on fire” test.
Of all the M60s series, the A2 was the easiest to egress. Every crewmember had their own hatch.
So why was the low profile turret uncapable of mounting the 105mm gun?
Spookston, you can put together quite the history lesson. Have you thought about contacting other You Tubers who do this kind of thing and collaborate with them? Like The Chieftain or Mark Felton Productions?
its like in videos where he discusses stuff his voice drops but when there is a montage of a sherman or something destroying everything he is just happy and yeah
Very informative; Thank You.
It also came out during Vietnam, where anti tank firepower came as a distant second to anti infantry capability
There's one chilling at my local museum. Pretty wild to look at
OK, I was an 11E10/20 W1. Trained at Knox, served in 1/32 Armor, 3AD (the first and BEST M60A2 battalion in USAEUR!).
Many of the things you say are quite true about the deuce - but WE never called it the Starship. That is something that came out during the 80s I'm guessing....never heard it said while a tanker.
For most of us, the main issue was the electric breech. In tank to tank warfare, it is who get's there "firstest with the mostest." An electric breech is a lot slower than the mechanical breech we were used to using on the A1. The laser rangefinder was great (when it worked).
The missile launching was a joke. We could rarely get them to work, and the company techs would always try to blame it on the gunner. We were well trained - but given crappy missiles. Good thing the balloon never went up.
All in all, it was a great test bed for things that wound up being used in later tanks but it is a damn good thing we never went to war with it.
First time I heard the "Starship" reference was in 1978 when a guy from 1/67 AR 2AD transferred to our battalion in 1CD.
What are the odds that you post this, today, when some of my friends in World of Tanks were discussing this exact tank, yesterday evening?
I love this tank in war thunder but I honestly thought it was an engineering vehicle or some sort of heavy support tank not an mbt
That story about premature detonating ammunition in Sheridans is very sad.
the auto-generated subtitles are hilarious to watch
Former 19D Scout here, still wish that the US Army had the M551 Sheridan instead of the M3 too tall bradley.
Next video: "How great was the Ersatz Panther?"
it 100% is a panther. without commander cupola. Which means it is simply a worse panther.
That and the hull machine gun was hidden by a plate, that cannot be removed internally.
IRL they also did poorly, being sent mostly without any proper plans on a suicide missions. Only 10 of them were made, that was already a war crime.
@@swisstraeng What do you mean?! The Ersatz Panther was the superior Panther design, with the removal of the cupola, it simply meant that the commander doesn't need one because the commander himself knows where the enemy is by knowing where the enemy isn't. The mg on the hull was removed because you don't need hull mg when you can just run over and flatten enemy infantry. The Ersatz Panther was powerful Germany only made 10 of them to make things fair for the Allies. Why you'd think the Allies won the war? Well the Germans are champions of fair play and decency since they didn't mass produce Ersatz Panther
@@anm10wolvorinenotapanther32 true
@@anm10wolvorinenotapanther32 Then the Allies would've brought the T10 Mine exploder with it's massive wheels that would run over anything that it came across.
@@tntproductions1996 Exactly, tanks back then are so powerful that major countries tried to use them as little as possible, best example is the Bob Semple tank developed by the mad scientist Bob Semple. The Empire of Japan probably shat and pissed themselves all at the same time upon knowing the existence of this monstrosity so they cancelled all plans to invade New Zealand. Bizarre times really
In wargame: European escalation, the starship is broken, its main gun was decent for taking out tanks and the auto cannon shredded helicopters meaning you didn’t have to waste spawn points on AA units allowing for more starships.
The irony is that the M60A2 and M247 are just about my favourite vehicles in War Thunder. The M60A2 is a bundle of quirks (some good, some bad) and oddball options (lobby slow HEAT matched to fast laser rangefinder, fast turret etc which should be great for urban combat but matched with slow reload etc). The M247, at 8.3br, seems vastly more capable than the M163 at 8.0br. Curious to see how the new over-pressure update (today in War Thunder) affects their ability.
I love these kinds of vids, more tank info, yum yum yum.
Obscure knowledge is delicious.
I genuinely did not know Ravenfield was this popular, and I've been playing since the Beta in 2017.
ah that Halo ODST music. Gets me every time
I was on the A1's and the Duces both. Duce was 155mm HE conventional rounds and laser guided missiles, They wouldn't let us keep them loaded too prone to blow up from a electrical short. They were a death trap, but fun to run around and over shit in.
Hey spookston, if i make a military styled shooter with vehicles, would you review it and give your opinion?
That shilly launcher from the sheridan was a big fucking issue on its own...
I consider the Starship to be emblematic of the issues that continue to plague the USA weapon design process to this day.
Someone, way back at the start of the project, had a good idea: "What if there was an M60 variant that could launch ATGMs?"
But the further down along the line, a horde of consultants and Pentagon suits started slapping new ideas and requirements onto the concept until it was doomed to fail.
Meanwhile the Soviets asked the same questions about their own tanks, then just made it happen.
Your last line is pretty much false. The Soviets pumped out _tons_ of gimmicky and poorly made/designed tanks that never saw much of the light of day. It's just that you haven't researched them, evidently.
thanks for the information about the starships!!!
3:49 you monster
He was so closed to making it home to little jimmy
Dunno, but it seems like Starship has a last chance to return for M60 since just like T-72 and old Leo1 and early Leo2, a lot of countries still have them, but unlike all those, the upgrade packages for it are rather lacking.
Low profile turret has a point and can be improved with new tech in both protection and fire control, commander's cupola can be eliminated with remote weapons station and both 105mm and 120mm guns have both APSDFS and barrel launched ATGMs in their arsenal.
Imagine joining the Armoured forces expecting to drive an M60 but then you get placed with the M60... but it’s the Starship.
M103 guys after their tank is retired and this thing comes in: SON I AM DISAPPOINT
What really happened was I enlisted to be a tanker. They trained me as a tanker, then sent me to A2 school after AIT - an extra four weeks at Knox. We honestly were pretty excited about the tank during training, and were looking forward to getting them. Then we got them, did four weeks of breaking them in at Vilseck and had to road march to Hohenfels for our annual ARTEP. Took maintenance a few days to fix all the broke tanks....(it's a 65- 70 km trip). That's when we started to realize that it might not be as good as we thought.
Not gonna lie it looks like the tank from Ravenfield
This be one of top 5 favorite tanks in WT and I love it.
I saw one of these in the AAF museum in Virginia. I didn’t know about it and it looked stupid so now I love it
It should be noted that General Starry said, upon the introduction of the M60A3, that priority must be made to transition the five M60A2 battalions in Europe to M60A3s. Withdrawing the M60A2s from Europe couldn't happen fast enough and the last battalion of M60A2s, 1/37AR, transitioned to the M60A3 in early 1981.
My Uncle used to crew an m60. A1 varient I believe. The one thing he never shuts up about is how uncomfortable the seats are compared to other tanks. Don't know why that is, maybe they had different seats I suppose
Because tanks (like all .gov equipment) is made by the lowest bidder. GIs laugh when we see something labeled "MilSpec".....we know what that really means.
I worked on an M60A2 that was equipped with a dozer blade about 3 years ago. I guess there were roughly 10 A2’s total that had the blade mounted. Needless to say, the way the Army decided to mount the linkage and hydraulic system was even garbage.
The local national guard armory near me has one of these on static display out front
Another massive flaw with the FCS. It required time to charge in order to fire the ammunition. If you pull the trigger early the Fire Computer resets.