Cold War US Army Color

These are Roco M60 series tanks upgraded with new turrets and side skirts from the Boley Abrams.  It was a late Cold War proposal for countries that did not want to spend the money on Abrams or wanted to upgrade their existing fleet.

I use Rust-Oleum 2x paint, it sticks well to most plastics.

This is Deep Forest Green but it has a bit of a gray tone to it in my opinion.  So it looks very different from WWII era Olive Drab.  I remember vehicles in colors like this in the 1970s and 1980s.

Again the paint is very true to the color of the cap.  I find these Rust-Oleum paints match each other batch after batch.  I like that because it might take months or even years to paint up a whole battalion.
 

M120S Tank

The end of the Cold War was rather abrupt and many projects were in the process of being completed when the Soviet Union collapsed.

This one is the M120S.

It was a major upgrade for the M60 series of tanks.

They essentially took an Abrams turret and put it on the M60 chassis.

The idea was that nations that could not afford the full Abrams but had plenty of operational M60 series tanks could upgrade them at a fraction of the cost of buying Abrams.

It was a good idea but a few years too late.

I took five of my tired old M60 tanks and gave them the Boley Abrams tank turret.  Then I cast hatches for it from the Roco Abrams and took Roco machine guns from the Roco machine gun set for the M120S.

It's a nice looking tank and an interesting design.  I also used the side skirts from the Boley and fit them to the Roco M60 hull.  It was a very quick and easy conversion, and the Boley Abrams turret is very good, it's the hull that is undersized and the road wheels that are wrong.

Still I have a plan for the old Abrams hulls.  Nothing goes to waste here.  I made a platoon of five, in real life I think they only made one and it was dismantled when they failed to sell any.
 

M60 Upgrade

 

When we play a NATO vs Warsaw Pact wargame we are already playing a form of alternate history.

So why not go a little farther and add vehicles that never saw service.

In this case the M60 tank with the Abrams turret is a vehicle that was tested and found feasible.

So it's not as if I was making up some strange new vehicle.

It is not unlike using a Maus in a WWII game.

Germans only built a few and none likely saw combat service.

I have four Maus tanks in my collection, one platoon.

So one platoon of upgraded M60 tanks does not seem unreasonable to me.

Given that 15,000 M60 series tanks were produced, 5 unusual ones is not a statistically significant number.

Tank Conversions

Here is my 120S upgraded M60 tank with Abrams turret.
 

Just fooling around a little, I tried the M60 early turret on the Abrams hull.  Interesting look I think.

Now this one looks very sleek and I like it a lot.  It's an Abrams hull, by Boley and a Roco M60A1 turret on top.  Pretty cool looking I think but in real life why would you do this?

Two 120S tanks in the advance.

Driving ahead into danger.

Ready for anything.

Almost anything....
 

120S Prototype

The Boley Abrams used the Bradley suspension from their Bradley kit, so one less roadwheel than the Abrams actually had.  They used the same suspension on their M109.

Roco Abrams with the correct roadwheel arrangement.

Boley turret on Roco Abrams hull, it looks a little small.

Roco Abrams turret on the Boley hull.  Turret looks huge!

Roco Abrams turret on Roco M60 series hull with Boley Abrams side skirts, cut down to fit the M60 hull.

This is the model I intend to build.  It is the Roco M60 series upper and lower hull, left and right side tracks, Boley Abrams turret, Roco Abrams machine guns from the machine gun accessory set, and a home cast turret hatch.  In real life they built one of these on a leased M60 hull as a test vehicle and to interest allied nations who fielded M60s and wanted an upgrade.  There were no orders and the vehicle was returned to it's original configuration.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60-2000_Main_Battle_Tank
 

120S Tank

The Roco Boley tank from the rear.

The S120 was the name the tank was eventually given.

It had a 120mm gun.

The model is an easy conversion, hardest part is cutting off the side skirts from the Boley Abrams.

You have to drill our a giant hole for the Abrams turret.  You could, of course, us the Roco Abrams but unless you had another use for the Roco Abrams hull it would be an expensive conversion.

Boley Abrams and the completed S120 on the right.
 

M60-2000 or 120S Tank

Boley M1 Abrams tank.  It was an inexpensive model, but it has a Bradley suspension and the hull then is too short.

Top view shows a turret with no loaders hatch and no machine guns on the turret top.

Here is the turret on a Roco M60 hull and the side skirts are cut off an glued onto the M60 hull sides.

Near the end of the Cold War there were several versions of upgrades of the M60 series of tanks.  With 15,000+ M60 series vehicles having been produced and thousands still in service as the US Abrams tank was replacing the M60 series in US inventories, there was a need to upgrade these tanks if the Cold War were to flare up, or if other nations wanted an improved vehicle but could not afford the Abrams or similar tank.

This is essentially the M60-2000 main battle tank.  It is an M60 tank with an Abrams turret and side skirts, there were other upgrades available but this was the basic version.  It's an interesting looking vehicle and is a good use for the rather wonky Boley Abrams and for some of those spare M60 tanks you may have laying around your collection.  Don't throw away those Roco M60A1 turrets yet, or even those old Roco M60 turrets, more to come!
 

JagdPanther vs M36 Tank Destroyer

One Jagdpanther, three M36 tank destroyers.

One on one at each end of a pool table...

flat, smooth, level surface with no obstructions...

that Jagdpanther will win every time.

But the real world is not flat, smooth, or level.

And so the Jagdpanther did not win every time.