page_title: Tanks in the Cold War
section_title: Vietnam War era
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks in the Cold War / History in the Cold War / Vietnam War era
caption_attribution_description: MGM-51 Shillelagh Anti-tank miisile fired from M551 Sheridan light tank. Likely an XM551 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico or Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
context_page_description: During the Cold War, the two opposing forces in Europe were the Warsaw Pact countries on the one side, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries on the other side. The Warsaw Pact was seen by the West as having an aggressive force outnumbering the NATO forces.
  Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact led to effective standardization on a few tank designs. In comparison, NATO adopted a defensive posture. The major contributing nations, France, Germany, the USA, and the UK developed their own tank designs, with little in common, while the smaller nations of NATO purchased or adapted these designs.
  After World War II, tank development continued largely as it had been because of the Cold War. Tanks would not only continue to be produced in huge numbers, but the technology advanced dramatically as well. Tanks became larger and their armour became thicker and much more effective. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with advances in shell design and terminal effectiveness. However, most contemporary tanks in service still have manually breech-loaded guns, a trait of the earliest tanks which is shared with most self-propelled and field guns.
context_section_description: Tanks for the most part, saw limited action in Vietnam compare to the heavy fighting in Korea, but even in the Vietnam jungle the M48 Patton saw tank-to-tank duels. On March 3, 1969, the Special Forces camp at Ben Het was attacked by the NVA 202nd Armored Regiment. The 202nd was tasked with the mission of destroying the camp's 175 mm self-propelled guns. One of the PT-76s had detonated a land mine, which not only alerted the camp, but also lit up the other PT-76s attacking the firebase. Flares had been sent up, thus exposing adversary tanks, but sighting in on muzzle flashes, one PT-76 scored a direct hit on the turret of a M48, killing two Patton crewmen and wounding two more. A second Patton, using the same technique, destroyed a PT-76 with their second shot. At daybreak, the battlefield revealed the wreckage of two PT-76s and one BTR-50 armored personnel carrier.
  The M48s saw extensive action during the Vietnam War, over 600 Pattons would be deployed with US Forces during the war. The initial M48s landed with the US Marines in 1965. Remaining Pattons deployed to South Vietnam were in three U.S. Army battalions, the 1-77th Armor near the DMZ, the 1-69th Armor in the Central Highlands, and the 2-34th Armor near the Mekong Delta. Each battalion consisted of approximately fifty seven tanks. M48s were also used by Armored Cavalry Squadrons in Vietnam, until replaced by M551 Sheridan tanks. The M67A1 flamethrower tank (nicknamed the Zippo) was an M48 variant used in Vietnam.
  When US forces commenced redeployment operations, many of the M48A3 Pattons were turned over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces, in particular creating the ARVN 20th Tank Regiment; which supplemented their M41 Walker Bulldog units. During the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Easter Offensive in 1972, tank clashes between NVA T-54/PT-76 and ARVN M48/M41 units became commonplace, but on 23 April 1972, tankers of the 20th Tank Regiment were attacked by an NVA infantry-tank team, which was equipped with the new 9M14M Malyutka (NATO designation: Sagger) wire guided anti-tank missile. During this battle, one M48A3 Patton tank and one M113 Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV) were destroyed, becoming the first losses to the Sagger missile; losses that would echo on an even larger scale a year later during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East in 1973.
  In the mid-1970s, the M48A5 upgrade was developed to allow the vehicle to carry the heavier 105 mm gun.  This was designed to bring the M48s up to speed with the M60 tanks then in regular use.  Most of the M48s were placed into service with reserve units by this time. By the mid-1990s, the M48s were phased out.
  The M48s performed admirably in Vietnam in the infantry-support role. However, there were few actual tank versus tank battles. The M48s provided adequate protection for its crew from small arms, mines, and rocket-propelled grenades.
  The plans were laid in the US in the late fifties, for a tank with a 105 mm main gun and a redesigned hull offering better armor protection. The resulting M60 largely resembled the M48 it was based on, but has significant differences. The M60 mounted a bore evacuated 105 mm main gun, had a hull with a straight front slope whereas the M48's hull was rounded, had three support rollers per side to the M48's five, and had road wheels constructed from aluminum rather than steel.
  The hull of the M60 was a single piece steel casting divided into three compartments, with the driver in front, fighting compartment in the middle and engine at the rear. The driver looked through three M27 day periscopes, one of which could be replaced by a night vision periscope. Initially, the M60 had essentially the same turret shape as the M48, but this was subsequently replaced with a distinctive "needlenose" design that minimized frontal cross-section to enemy fire. The M60 was the last US main battle tank to utilize homogeneous steel armor for protection. It was also the last to feature either the M60 machine gun or an escape hatch under the hull.
  Originally designated the M68, the new
caption: XM551 Sheridan
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