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