The Cold War US Army M60 “Patton” Tank Fought Through Gulf War

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

As a famous descendent of the 1950s-era M48 Patton main battle tank, the second-generation M60 tank served as a key foundation of the US Army’s Cold War deterrence posture and fought through the Gulf War in the 1990s before retiring in 1997. 

M60 Cold War Powerhouse

Given this distinguished history, the M60 and its upgraded M60A3 variant operated as America’s “primary” main battle tank for decades, and a formidable force of 15,000 M60s were ultimately built MBTs before production ended in 1983. Despite the end of production, thousands of M60s were converted to upgraded M60A3 tanks and used in the Desert Storm in the early 90s.

The size of the US Army’s M60 fleet of tanks seems to have sustained the service’s need to project land war “mass” in offensive armored maneuver formations. 

It comes as little surprise that M60 production ended around the same time the famous M1 Abrams tank began to emerge, yet the tank was revered for its 105mm gun and fully-tracked armored propulsion system. 

A 1984 text by Richard Hunnicutt called “Patton. A History of the Main Battle Tank.” traces the technological evolution of the Patton tank and M60 by discussing its design and describing its role in both the Korean War and Vietnam War. Hunnicutt says the M48 and M60 were developed to replace the M47 Patton and the M4 Sherman. 

In its time, many sources credited the M60 for exceptional combat performance in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where it outperformed Soviet T-62 main battle tanks. The performance of the M60 was a substantial and extremely important combat success given the sheer ground force “size” advantage the Soviet Red Army sustained over the US for decades during the Cold War. The Israelis also used the M60 in the 1983 Lebanon War, where it was equipped with explosive reactive armor.