M48 Patton The M48 Patton was the third and final US medium gun tank of the Patton series , named after General George S . Patton , commander of the U . S . Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle . It was a further development of the M47 Patton tank . The M48 Patton served as an interim tank until replaced by the US Army ' s first Main Battle Tank ( MBT ) , the M60 Combat Tank . The M48 served as the U . S . Army and Marine Corps ' s primary battle tank during the Vietnam War . It was widely used by U . S . Cold War allies , especially other NATO countries . The M48 Patton tank was designed to replace the previous M47 Pattons and M4 Sherman s . Although largely resembling the M47 , the M48 Patton was a completely new tank design . Some M48A5 models served well into the 1980s . Many various M48 Patton models remain in service internationally . The M48 was the last US tank to mount the 90mm tank gun , with the last model , the M48A5 , being upgraded to carry the new standard weapon of the M60 , the 105mm gun . The Turkish Army is the largest operator of the modernized M48 MBT , with more than 1 , 400 M48s in its inventory ( around 1000 have been phased out / in storage or modified to ARVs ) . History . On 27 February 1951 , OTCM # 33791 initiated the design of the new tank , designated the 90mm Gun Tank T - 48 ( the prefix letter " T " would be replaced by the prefix " X " beginning with the M60 series tank ) . A deeper modernization than the M46 and the M47 , the M48 featured a new turret , new redesigned hull , and an improved suspension . The hull machine gunner position was removed , reducing the crew to 4 . It was essentially a new tank . On 2 April 1953 , the Ordnance Technical Committee Minutes ( OTCM ) order # 34765 standardized the last of the Patton series tanks as the 90mm Gun Tank M48 Patton . Nearly 12 , 000 M48s were built from 1952 to 1959 . The early designs , up to the M48A2C ' s , were powered by a gasoline 12 cylinder engine which was coupled with an auxiliary 8 cylinder engine ( called the " Little Joe " ) . The gas engine gave the tank a short operating range and were prone to catching fire when hit . This version was considered unreliable but numerous examples saw combat use in various Arab - Israeli conflicts . They also were prone to fire when the turret was penetrated and the hydraulic lines ruptured spewing " cherry juice " ( the nickname for the red colored hydraulic fluid ) at high pressure into the crew compartment resulting in a fireball . The flashpoint was too low , less than 300 F , causing many burns and deaths to crew members . In 1959 , American M48s were upgraded to the M48A3 model which featured a diesel power plant . M48s with gas engines , however , were still in use in 1975 by many West German Army units including the 124th Panzer Battalion . M48A3 . In February 1963 , the US Army accepted its first of 600 M48 Patton tanks that had been converted to M48A3 ' s , and by 1964 , the US Marine Corps had received 419 Patton tanks . These Pattons were to be deployed to battle in Vietnam . M48A5 . In the mid - 1970s , the M48A5 upgrade was developed to allow the vehicle to carry the heavier 105mm 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 of U . S . service . Many foreign countries , however , continued to use the M48 models . Combat service . Vietnam . 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 Marine 1st and 3rd Tank Battalions in 1965 ; the Marine 5th Tank Battalion would later become a reinforcement unit . 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 . The M48 Patton has the distinction of playing a unique role in an event that was destined to radically alter the conduct of armored warfare . 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 " ( ) 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 . The M48s performed admirably in Vietnam in the infantry - support role . However , there were few actual tank versus tank battles . One was between the 1 - 69th Armor and PT - 76 light amphibious tanks of the NVA 202nd Armored Regiment near Ben Het in 1969 . The M48s provided adequate protection for its crew from small arms , mines , and rocket - propelled grenade s . South Vietnamese M - 48s and M - 41s fought bravely in the defence of South Vietnam in the so - called Ho Chi Minh Offensive in 1975 . In several incidents , the South Vietnamese Army successfully defeated NVA T - 34 and T - 55 tanks and even slowed the North ' s offensive . However since the United States Congress passed bans on the transfer of fuel and ammunition to South Vietnam , the American - made tanks were soon out of ammunition and fuel and were abandoned to the North Vietnamese Army in 1975 which put them in predictably short service of the Vietnamese People ' s Army after the war ended in May 1975 . M48s , alongside Australian 20 pounder ( 84mm ) gunned Centurion s of the 1st Armoured Regiment , were the only vehicles in Vietnam that could reasonably protect their crews from land mine s . They were often used for minesweeping operations along Highway 19 in the Central Highlands , a two lane paved road between An Khe and Pleiku . Daily convoys moved both ways along Highway 19 . These convoys were held up each morning while the road was swept for mines . At that time , minesweeping was done by soldiers walking slowly over the dirt shoulders of the highway with hand - held mine detectors . During this slow process , convoys would build up into a dangerously inviting target for the enemy . As a result a faster method was improvised . One M48 lined up on each side of the road , with one track on the dirt shoulder and the other track on the asphalt ; then they raced to a designated position miles away . If M48s made it without striking a mine , the road was clear and the convoys could proceed . In most cases , an M48 that struck a land mine in these operations only lost a road wheel or two in the explosion ; seldom was there any hull damage which would be considered " totaling " the tank . Indo - Pakistani Wars . M47s and M48s were again used in tank warfare by the Pakistan Army against Indian Army ' s Centurion and M4 Sherman tanks in the Indo - Pakistani War of 1965 with some good results . In the Rann of Kutch the tanks proved surprisingly nimble in marshy terrain , and Pakistani forces drove back Indian incursions . In Kashmir and Punjab , the tank had its first real test . During " Operation Grandslam " , Pakistani tank forces broke through the Indian lines very quickly , and defeated armored counterattacks . The Pakistanis used approximately a division worth of tanks though not all were Pattons . The Patton failed to live up to expectations in the Battle of Asal Uttar , where about 97 Pakistani tanks were lost majority of them being Pattons . Later the tank was the main Pakistani tank at the Battle of Chawinda and its performance at that battle was deemed satisfactory . The Patton was later used by Pakistan in the Indo - Pakistani War of 1971 , with mixed results . In a repetition of 1965 , Pattons spearheaded the Pakistani advance through Chamb , and the Patton was the main Pakistani tank at Shakarghar . In the latter battle , a brigade of tanks ( the Changez Force ) successfully resisted the Indian advance , in a repeat of Chawinda . However , in what became known as Pakistan ' s Charge of the Light Brigade , a counterattack led by 13th Lancers and 31st Cavalry was mauled by the Indian 54th Division around Battle of Barapind . India later set up a war memorial named " " Patton Nagar " " ( " Patton City " ) in Khemkaran District , where the captured Pakistani Patton tanks are displayed . Analyzing their performance , the Pakistani Army held that the Patton was held in reasonably high esteem by both sides and that tactics were to blame for the debacle at Asal Uttar . However , a U . S . study of the battles in South Asia concluded that the Patton ' s armor could in fact be penetrated by the 20 pounder gun ( 84mm ) of the Centurion as well as the 75mm gun of the AMX - 13 . Middle East . M48s were also used with mixed results during the 1967 Six - Day War . On the Sinai front , Israeli M48s up - gunned with 105mm L7 rifled guns were used with success against Egypt ian T - 34 s and SU - 100 s supplied by the Soviet Union in the second battle of Abu - Ageila . However , on the West Bank front , Jordanian M48s were often defeated by Israeli WWII - era M4 Shermans ( up - gunned with 105mm guns ) . In pure technical terms the Pattons were far superior to the Shermans , with shots at more than 1 , 000 meters simply glancing off the M48s ' armor ; However the 105mm gun the Israeli Shermans used was designed to defeat the T - 62 tank which was the Soviet response to the M48 ' s successor in US service , the M60 . The Jordanian Pattons ' failure on the West Bank could also be attributed to Israeli air superiority . The Israeli Army captured about 100 Jordanian M48 and M48A1 tanks and pressed them into service in their own units after the war . M48s were used by the Lebanese Army and the Christian Lebanese Forces militia in the Lebanese Civil War . The Lebanese Army still operates about 100 M48s . In 2007 , during the 2007 North Lebanon conflict Lebanese Army M48s shelled militant outposts in a refugee camp . Although only the M - 47s were actively deployed in the Operation Attila I & II in July and August 1974 , M - 48s are later stationed in Cyprus by Turkish Armed Forces . Africa . Pakistan used M48 Pattons while rescuing American troops during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 . Variants . Israeli variants . Israel created an extensive number of variants of the series from tanks acquired initially from a number of sources , including capturing them in battle , or from other countries such as Germany and the United States . Many of the Israeli M48 ' s have been upgraded with additional reactive or passive armor , drastically improving their armor protection . These uparmored versions are called Magach .