USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

I have just noticed that the M60 mine ploughs (units 032 and 033) in obat13 are classed as Engineer Tanks. The M60 mine plough in the U.S. Army obat (obat 12/ unit 197) is classed as a Mine Clearing Tank.

Moreover, Marine M60 mine ploughs may have had ERA during the Gulf War (1991) like other M60s (such as obat13/ unit 017). I vaguely remember seeing a photo of one – although I cannot find it now.

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

I've made a note to look into this. If you find the photo let me know

Don

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

Guess you can start with this one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...C-92-03658.jpg
I already got two .lbms for it if you're interested, including from this very picture.

Which, interestingly enough is an...."M60A1 main battle tank during a breach exercise in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The tank is fitted with reactive armor and an M-9 bulldozer kit "

Last I heard bulldozer blades were primarily reserved for Engineering work which is exactly what that vehicle appears to be doing. Mine plows generally have teeth on the blade for lifting mines to the surface

Perhaps someone with actual experience with M60's in lurking on the forums and can tell us the use of the m-9 bulldozer blade

Don

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

It seems that M60s could be fitted with dozer blades as well as mine ploughs.

I have not been able to find the original photo that I saw recently - but the same photo has been used on the box of this model kit:

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k2...L_box-art_.jpg

The original photo was of a U.S.M.C. M60 mine plough leading a convoy during the Gulf War.

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

I can tell you what I personally saw during the breaching operation at the start of Desert Storm.

Every M60A1 (which had actually been upgraded to near M60A3 standards BTW, NOT including thermal sights however) possible was fitted with reactive armor. There were not enough sets to go around so in general one platoon per tank company was so fitted.

Additionally in general the USMC tends to fit one tank per platoon with mine clearing equipment. Again not enough to go around so in many cases dozer blades were used.

Also the USMC has armor kits for D-7 dozers (I once heard they were made from the armor of scrapped WW II era heavy cruisers) and we borrowed/purchased some Israeli armor kits for D-9's as well.

The M60's with blades were used to breach the sand berms and fill the fire trenches, in general we used M1's with mine ploughs and AAV's with both internal and external towed line charges for actual mine clearing. On the assumption the mine clearig was likly to be opposed we wanted the Abrams composite armor. Most of the M1's used by the USMC during Desert Shield/Storm were the HA (Heavy Armor) type borrowed (and later returned) from the US Army.

While I was not an engineer I was in the Military Police company that marked and controlled traffic thru the minefields. Unfortunately all the photo's I personally took during the operation were X-Rayed by the US Postal Service when I tried to mail them back home so I have zip for photographic evidence.

So, yes, the dozer blade was fitted to be used for mine clearing as a field expedient but the plough was MUCH preferred. Since WinSPMBT allows Engineer tanks to clear mines (at less efficiencey then ploughs) I'd just leave the blade equipped ones classified as "Engineer" and the plough equiped "Mine Clearing". ((In fact that just what I've done in my OOB revision))

Hope this helps.

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

Well that poses some questions when your OOB comes out could you mark what is USMC & what is borrowed if you have included it using the info button.

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

I "cheated" and made M1A1(HA)'s available only between 1 Jan and 1 May. In other cases I added (ARMY), (USAF), or (NAVY) to the unit name to make it clear these are not USMC assets. I've also used radio code X3 to make the units available for scenario designers but not AI purchase. And in the case of the OH-58's in the current USMC OOB I've replaced them all with UH-1's since the USMC doesn't own or use the OH-58.

While none of these solutions are ideal they work fairly well.

Re: USMC M60 mine ploughs
 

Thanks for reply sounds like you have got it covered, will certainly take your OOB out for a spin which is unusuall tend to stick to whats given