Category Archives: Cold War

Cold War, Vietnam

Patton Would Approve (M60 Patton)

M60 Patton

Patton Would Approve (M60 Patton)

 

That above is an M60 Patton. The M60 and its variants served as the main battle tank for the US Army up until it was finally replaced by the M1A1 Abrams in 1997. Coming into service in 1960 it was manufactured until 1987 with over 15,000 units being built during that time. Of course, there are still numerous units in service not only in the US military but in the military of many countries around the world. The story though is how it came about.

In 1956 the people of Hungary rose up against the Soviet-backed government for a period of several months actually posed a threat to Soviet control. Though not successful the several months that the revolt lasted provided some interesting information. At one point a Soviet T54A tank found itself sitting the front yard of the British Embassy in Budapest.

Not ones to miss an opportunity the British examined the armor and armament of the tank and were impressed. The T54 mounted a 100mm gun, much more powerful than what the NATO forces of the time could muster. Soon the British and Americans were working on 105mm cannons and were looking for chassis to place them on. The US decided that they would use the M48 chassis, with the new 105mm cannon. The new design was christened the 105mm Gun Full Tracked Combat Tank M60. Unofficially it carried over the Patton designation and began a stellar career that stretched across many wars and continents.

Though officially retired in 2005 the US still maintains a number of them in storage. Even more impressive is that some of the special variants. The M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle and the M60AVLB still are in service.

Cold War, Modern

The M60 Machine Gun and Congress

Pictured above is the M60 machine gun. 7.62MM, belt fed, gas operated, air cooled, iron sights and can fire 500-650 rounds per minute. The standard 100 round ammunition belt consists of four ball rounds followed by a tracer round allowing the gunners to “walk” the fire onto the targets.

Since it was officially introduced in 1957 it has served with every branch of the American armed forces and with many countries around the world. Sixty years later it is still being produced even with newer models entering active service.

And it almost never was…

The M60 was based on some of the more popular German WWII machine guns namely the MG42 which in a modified version was seriously considered as the official replacement to the Browning M1918 and M1919A6. But there was a problem. Congress had placed serious restrictions on the army that demanded preference being give in to domestic manufacturers for all contracts. While on the surface this may seem like an effort to stimulate domestic production, the true source of this requirement was out of a desire to not have to pay licensing fees to foreign manufactures, thus saving a buck. This sometimes led to superior weapon designs being left on the table in favor of cheaper, but domestically produced weapons systems.

Luckily it has proven over time to be one to best weapons systems developed and though many different revision have come out during its history the basis of the system has stayed in place. Seriously who could imagine Rambo tearing through the jungle with anything else. All because Congress wanted to save a buck.

Cold War, Modern

To the Moon…

A View from the Moon

To the Moon…

That is a picture of a picture that was made into a mural on the wall at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While this may not fit directly into the Military History theme of the blog, it does fit around the edges.

The race to moon started as far back as the first time that someone looked up and say it hanging in the sky, and wondered “I wonder what’s up there?” Early Science Fiction writers came up with many different scenarios of what is there and how we can find out. It was not until the chaos of WWII that the idea finally looked like it would be a reality.

Above is a V2 from an earlier post. The first guided missile that the Germans used to effect against England. The German engineers that came up with that became one of the great prizes of WWII.  The Americans, British and Russians all looked to claim their brains. That race itself has had books written on them, so I won’t go into a lot of detail, to read more about it go here.

http://www.operationpaperclip.info/

The Great Race

And thus the ground work for the Space Race was laid. When the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957 the marathon became a sprint. The desire to reach the moon became a national obsession. President Kennedy made his famous challenge at Rice University in 1962. In the speech he explained why we had to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

With those words a new gear was reached in the development of the technology that was needed to reach that goal. In 1969 with Apollo 11 we finally reached the moon and a new place in the human epoch.

 

Cold War

All That’s Old Is New Again

In the GR Ford Presidential Museum hangs this interesting piece from New York magazine. In it President Ford is shown storming the beaches alongside Henry Kissinger with US troops and oil rigs in the background. The headline reads, Would We Really Kill for Oil?

It would not be out of place to see something similar in most modern magazines or websites, regardless of who our leadership is and should serve as a reminder that what is old usually becomes new again.

In this case the illustration above is referencing our involvement with the Middle East, an area of the world that just happened to have very large oil deposits that are necessary to run the engines of the world economy. That oil has tied us (the world) to this region and has made it a focal point of our foreign policy for a very long time. National interest has dragged us into a number of wars, questionable alliances and quite frankly a continuation of the Crusades from which Western Civilization may very well not be able to survive.

Back under the Ford the question was, “Would We Kill For Oil?” Forty years later we know the answer to that question is still being debated. The irony is that in the last decade oil reserves that dwarf those in Iran and Iraq have been found much closer to home which should mean the answer is a resounding no.

Alas, we have embroiled ourselves so deep in that region that we may never be able to get untangled. Luckily though Ford and Kissinger never had to storm that beach as depicted in the magazine, which was good, but perhaps if they had we would be asking a different question now.