page_title: Non-U.S. operators of the M60 Patton
section_title: Turkey
hierarchical_section_title: Non-U.S. operators of the M60 Patton / Turkey
caption_attribution_description: IDEF '07 Savunma Fuarı'nda çekildi.Mercedes Benz S2000. 23 Mayıs 2007
context_page_description: M60 Patton non US-operators are the non U.S. nations that operate or used the M60 Patton Main Battle Tank. The M60 Patton entered service with the U.S. military in May 1959 and served until 1991 and as a training aid until 2005. During this time it was the primary tank of the U.S.Army and U.S. Marine Corps.
  The M60 Patton was exported to 26 other nations, and continues to serve in a military role in some parts of the world.
context_section_description: As a key member of NATO, Turkey received 658 M60A3TTSs and some 104 M60A1RISE Passive tanks through the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty between 1990 and 1992. Some 170 of these have been upgraded to the Sabra M60T variant. Approximately 80 M60A3 and M60T Sabra tanks of the Turkish Army, jointly with Syrian rebel factions of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) conducted Operation Euphrates Shield (ES) beginning in August 2016, aiming to clear an area of 5,000 square kilometers of Syrian territory controlled by ISIS forces. During the fighting in and around the city of Al-Bab in December the Turkish 16th Mechanized Brigade lost at least one M60A3 due to an ATGM missile with reports that the driver suffered minor injuries (concussion and hearing loss). They have bought Leopard 2s in 2005 from stocks made redundant by German military cutbacks to begin the process of replacing M60s still in service as well as developing its own Altay MBT. Turkey has been systematically upgrading its remaining fleet of M60A3s. Under a 2002 contract, Israel Military Industries had upgraded a batch of 169 M60s now designated in the Turkish inventory as M60Ts or Sabra Mk III. The contract price was $688 million but the actual figure was higher. In January 2017 Turkey announced a competitive bid to upgrade a batch of 200 tanks including 40 M60A3s, 40 Leopard 2A4s and 120 M60Ts. Estimated value of the contract is $500 million. The major goal of the upgrade program are to be armor improvements and installing active protection systems. The program comes with a priority tag from the Turkish government after several Turkish tanks have been hit by Islamist radicals during the Turkish military's incursion into Syria. as of 2018 the Turkish army currently has the following quantities and types of tanks in its arsenal: 339 Leopard 2A4, 391 Leopard 1R, 170 M60 T, 619 M60A3 TTS, 752 M60 A3 and 758 M48A5T2. Turkey's goal is to replace the older M48-series and M60-series tanks with the Altay MBT.
caption: M60A3 TTS tank of the Turkish Army at the IDEF '07 Show, Ankara, Turkey
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