M60 A1 Oppinion...

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Hi all,

I’ve been doing a bit of background on the availanble M60 A1 kits in 1:35 but haven’t found the answers I was looking for, indeed some of the info is contradictory, and I was wondering if the experts here might be able to straighten things out.

What I’ve come up with is this:

  • Tamiya’s molds are the oldest and least accurate
  • Academy’s are much better, proportionally and detail-wise
  • ESCI’s old kit remains the most accurate M60 ever produced and is now boxed by Italeri

BUT

  • ESCI’s molds were also released by AMT/Ertl in the early 2000s

AND

  • According to a feature in Xtreme Modelling the AMT/Ertl kit has so many things wrong with it it takes a page and a half just to list them…

As you can see, I’m rather going in circles. Is the kit released by AMT/Ertl the same one by ESCI that folks have called the most accurate ever, or is it actually the dog of all dogs? Or… Are we talking about two different kits?

I have the Tamiya M60 A1+ with ERA (35157) and was actually looking for a review which would enumerate the flaws so I could do some creative building and fix a few, or introduce some AMs. I’m no rivet counter and know it’ll build real friendly-like, but if there’s a suite of fixes I can do, so much the better. There’s a suite of modifications for the M1 that I can’t help making these days and probably always will introduce them unless a kit has got those details right, but I’m not so much an expert on the M60. My only reference so far is the S/S book.

One last question, did the A1 RISE serve with the Marines during ODS?

Cheers, hoping for some guidence,

Mike/TB379

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Tamiya’s are the oldest, but the turret was retooled circa 1988-89 and is very nice. Hull is still basically the same motorized-capable one from the 1970s though. The Tamiya M60A3 kit is due to be reissued this year. It builds into either an M60A3TTS or an M60A1 RISE/Passive tank.

Tamiya’s USMC M60A1 RISE/Passive with ERA is basically the 1988-89 M60A3 kit with new ERA armor, new steel road wheels and figures. You can still make a US Army M60A3TTS tank from what you get in the USMC M60A1 kit. The Marines did use this tank during ODS as well as used a few hand-me-down M60A3TTS tanks from the Army. The 197th Separate Infantry Bde brought A3s with them and got M1A1s in theater. The Marines took some of the A3s for the thermal sight capability and used them in combat.

The Esci/AMT/Ertl kits from the late 80s are the same kits that Italeri and Revell reissued in the 2000s with a few tweaks. They are the best kits to make the most accurate M60-series tanks from. The original Esci/AMT/Ertl kits came in three variants; the M60A3TTS that could only be made into a US Army tank, the M60A1 which could be made into a garden variety mid-M60A1 and the Israeli M60A1 with Blazer armor. It was the same as the standard M60A1 with Blazer armor and IDF specific fittings added. Note that none of the three kits would produce an ODS era US M60A1 RISE/Passive straight OOB.

The reissues had some differences. I did an article on the Esci/AMT/Ertl kits a while back.

Revell released the M60A3TTS tank as pretty much a straight reissue with a few additional parts.

Italeri released the M60A1 as a straight reissue as well.

But when Italeri reissued the M60A1 Blazer kit, they removed the items that could make the kit a standard M60A1 (mainly the plain gun tube and commander’s cupola parts).

I’ve never been fond of Academy’s M60 series. They borrowed a lot from Tamiya’s original kit, to include all the motorization holes. They also had separate rubber rims for the road wheels which I did not like.

If I was to make a tricked out ODS USMC M60A1 RISE/Passive tank, I’d grab the Tamiya USMC M60A1 RISE/Passive tank with ERA and use the armor, turret, late style air cleaners, and any Marine-specific fittings on which ever Esci/AMT/Ertl/Italeri/Revell hull I could get my hands on.

Gunze Sangyo produced an ODS USMC M60A1 RISE/Passive tank with ERA that was basically the original Esci M60A1 kit with their own ERA pieces and some resin included. If you remember my note above that none of the original Esci kits builds into a RISE/Passive tank OOB, Gunze Sangyo missed the mark by a little bit but charged you a hefty price tag for their kit.

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[dto:] what he said agree 100%.

Ron

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Many thanks, Rob! I now feel a lot better about building the Tamiya A1/RISE straight from the box. I notice it has the optional wheels and barrels provided, and the retooled (corrected proportion) figure. I’ll do it as a companion piece to my ODS Abrams underway for the M1 GB.

I read that Tamiya must have measured up a tank which probably had the engine pulled, as the suspension rides about 4 scale inches too high… Any comments on this? I’m thinking I could trim the tenon joint from the end of the axles, set the hull in a jig for the correct ride height and let CA lock up the swing arms at a slightly increased rotational angle. But that’s a lot of work to save 2.89mm…

I’ve pulled the ESCI/Ertl from my sell-on stack, it sounds like it’s the real deal after all. I can’t imagine which kit was discussed in Xtreme Modelling, but it was a shocker, even the hull was the wrong width…

I’ll see if I can get the Verlinden M60 book, and study the S/S volume. hopefully there’ll be a few tweaks I can do, but my impresion is that 35157 will build a good looking Patton with ERA straight from the box. (Plastic surgery on the motorisation holes is a given, of course!)

Cheers, Mike/TB379

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If you use this link to the instructions for the M60A3 kit, you should be able to see what the unused parts on your kit are for. Yes, there is a problem with the suspension riding too high on the Tamiya M48 and M60 series tanks. If you google it, you should be able to find one of the many fixes modelers have posted on the various modeling websites.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10131997a/20/1 M60A3 instructions

http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/modern/jcm60/jcm60.htm Pretty good article on the fixes that need to be made to the various M60 kits.

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Rob – many thanks for these great links! I have all three of the kits described in the compartaitive build article, so it’ll be invaluable in tweaking the details for each.

I pulled out the S/S book and the latest variant described looks like the TTS. I think I have Verlinden’s “Warmachines” book, if I could only find it… Can you recommend a definitive guidebook on the m60 that covers the later variants?

Best wishes, Mike/TB379

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The problem with the M60-series is that it served for about half a decade in the Regular Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. Long after the Regular Army moved to the M60A1 RISE/Passive and M60A3TTS, there were still National Guard units with straight M60 tanks (aka “Slick 60s”, A-nothings or M60A0) that received modernization upgrades also found on later tanks like the top loading air cleaners, smoke grenade launchers, etc. So you’ll find photos of M60s with more modern upgrades than photos of older M60A1s. You’ll even find M48A5 tanks with more modern upgrades than the original M60A1 tanks.

I do know the Verlinden Warmachines M60A3TTS book identifies several M60A1 RISE/Passive tanks as M60A3TTS tanks. Some modelers often mistakenly identify M60A1 RISE/Passive tanks as M60A3TTS tanks because they share similar upgrades. In US service, the M60A3 had a short lifespan with all of them being brought up to M60A3TTS standards as well as factory-produced M60A3TTS tanks.

Additionally, many foreign users received M60A1s and M60A3s. Some were brought up to TTS standards and some not. I know an Egyptian modeler who posted many photos taken during their recent uprising that showed M60A1 tanks with some features associated with M60A3TTS tanks (thermal shroud on the barrel). It muddies the water a bit because, needless to say, the history of the M60A1/A3 hasn’t finished yet.

I think I have a Concord book that has more up-to-date information on the M60A1 RISE/Passive and M60A3TTS than the Warmachines book. It is rather dated and came out before Desert Storm I think. I’ll look it over and see if it is what you need.

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I’m interested too…

Sure would be nice if Tamiya would re-do their M60 series, maybe even do the A0. Accurate hull, choice of one-piece or link-and-length tracks, modern engineering… well, I can only hope.

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Rob,

I think you had a slip of the word. Did you mean to say “half a century”?

Paul

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Yes, it should say half a century.