A good example was our M-60A1 Passive Rise tanks. When the tanks
arrived at the Squadron they were not equiped with the smoke grenade
launchers, but after six months a retro kit arrived that was installed
on all 54 tanks. We also found that the tool boxes on the fenders were
not enough storage for all of the gear that was needed in the field so
we added the sponson boxes from old M-24 Light Tanks down at the bone
yard to the turret racks of the M-60's, those boxes combined with the
bolted on 4.2mm mortar round packing cans (used for map storage) on the
turret rakes finished the dress up of the M-60's turrent.
Another example was the wooden doors that were fabricated out of plywood
for the M-151A2s. We ran border patrol and always removed the tops and
doors to improve the vision of the patrols. We needed something that
would offer a little protection of the occupants while not impeading the
vision of the patrol like the plastic windows did. The solution was a
half door made of plywood installed on the jeep. We also found that the
standard heaters did not do the job, particularly with the tops removed.
So we installed heaters from the 5 Ton Trucks and fabricated ways to
hold the ponchos down around the edge of the jeep body that still let
the patrol accomplish there mission of watching the Russians.
I would imagine that anyone who spent any time in the field could tell
you of more ways that the vehicles were modified, or repaired using
parts from another vehicle or a different model of the same series
vehicle. That was an important part of what has always been refered to
as "Yankee Ingenuity", and in my mind makes collecting military vehicles
fun!!
-- Joe Baker Major, Cavalry 1/2 ACR, Bindlach, FRG (77-80) 418 Med Co (AMB) RVN (69-70)=== To unsubscribe from the mil-veh mailing list, send the single word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of a message to <mil-veh-request@skylee.com>.