M48 Patton series in obat12

[Basileus Ioannis]

Suhiir, Pat -

Again, Hunnicutt's PATTON shows M47s being tested at Quantico in February 1953, and there weren't enough M26s (maybe M46s) for 3rd Marine Division when it deployed to mainland Japan in August 1953, and I had read somewhere that they did indeed have M47s upon deployment. But if you have definitive deployment date as October 1953, it sounds good to me.

I thought about the diesel vs gasser survivability rate too, and also took Israeli experience with "cherry juice" turret hydraulic fluid in the 1967 and Yom Kippur Wars, resulting in replacement of hydraulic fluid in US tanks with a less volatile colorless fluid after the latter war (along with up-armoring the turret chin armor and turret ring on M60A1s), into consideration. The Israelis discovered that penetrating hits near the turret ring caused the pink "cherry juice" lines to rupture, resulting in massive burn injuries to crewmen. Thus the chin armor upgrade and replacement of hydraulic fluid was a definite survivability improvement.

This may go back to WWII Sherman ammo storage improvements, going to the wet storage to suppress penetration-induced detonation of on-board ammo; dieselization must have had a similar survivability enhancement, but we only have seven gradations of survivability from zero on Jeeps to six on the ammo-compartmentalized, spall liner equipped Abrams series. So we have to weigh whether dieselization warrants a full point increase in survivability, and whether the post-Yom Kippur upgrades also warrants a full point improvement.

Take also into consideration that while ammo was compartmentalized in the turret bustle, apparently Abrams tanks run on aviation fuel, not diesel. So setting that combination as the optimal six, perhaps diesel tanks with Yom Kippur upgrades rates a five, diesel tanks before would be a four, gassers a three, no wet storage gassers a two? Light tanks and flame tanks would drop one point, but APCs didn't have large caliber ammo on board, so no penalty for size, three points for gassers, four for diesels. Bradleys have TOWs on board, but they have spall liners; still, they had a restow to improve survivability after the Gulf War, so I'd say survivability four for pre-restow, five post (they can't have six, because the TOWs are sitting right there in the passenger compartment). Since BFISTs have no TOW, they could have a six I suppose, since they have small caliber ammo (25mm), spall liners, and run on diesel.

John

[Suhiir]

Testing the M47 in 2/53 and operational deployment in 10/53 seems reasonable, there's usually a 6 month to a year gap between testing and deployment of any new equipment.

Yeah the survival rate could possibly be revised along the lines you suggest (and they're excellent suggestions) but it'd be a MAJOR pain to implement in the game. I'll probably revise my variant of the USMC OOB along the lines you suggested tho.

[Basileus Ioannis]

Thanks, and roger that, Suhiir, I test them on my modded obats but it would be a PITA for default (so Don please disregard ).

One more thing about Bradleys, the Cavalry Fighting Vehicles have more than twice as much ammo on board, in the passenger compartment (as well as the 25mm ammo cans under the floorboards like on the IFV), so they might warrant a drop in survivability one point. Before they were fielded, DA considered carrying gasoline powered motorcycles in them for the dismount scouts, but they dropped that from the J-series TOE because of fire risk. One may wonder, surrounded by twelve six-inch anti-tank missiles, if two gasser motorcycles would have been so dangerous, or if it was more of a fiscal matter

John

[DRG]

We could implement revised tank survival into the game and the end result would be this much

>|<

change to overall gameplay

Don

[Basileus Ioannis]

Roger Don, since we modders tinker with custom obats, perhaps one can say the difference in gameplay isn't worth a "tinker's dam"?

Getting back to M48s...in USAREUR, all the ACRs got M48A2s by 1958, but I can't find any reference to tank battalions receiving them (only USAK and CONUS tank battalions appear to have fielded M48A2/A2Cs). About the same time, USAREUR MTOEs replaced ACR and DIVCAV M41s with medium tanks, resulting in M48A2-pure ACRs; DIVCAVs may have hung onto their M41s until M60s were fielded, I have photo evidence of M60s working with M114s in infantry battlegroup recon platoons. Per US ARMY BORDER OPERATIONS IN GERMANY 1945-1983 by William E. Stacy, in December 1962 DA and USAREUR planned to replace M48A2Cs in ACRs with M60 series tanks by 1965; per photo evidence in Tankograd's U.S. ARMY GERMANY 1945-1969, it apparently didn't take place until 1964, whereby they were one of the first units fielded with M60A1s, skipping the M60s which were Standard B by that date.

One more note, I've seen a photo of an ACR M47 tank dated 1956; in that case, is it possible that ACRs didn't receive M48A1s like their tank battalion brethren, but went straight from M47s to M48A2s in 1958? Or did they convert to M48A1s first in 1956, and swap them for M48A2s two years later? It's not inconceivable, considering they swapped out M60A1(RISE/Passives) for M60A3(TTS) in only two years in the early 1980s. Would appreciate if anyone has definitive info, thanks

John

[Warwick]

"There was no M4A5."

Not strictly true. M4A5 was the US designation for the Canadian Ram.

Regards,
Warwick