Even as Ankara has plans in the works to introduce its more modern, domestically-produced Altay main battle tank, the Cold War era M60 will likely remain in service for years to come. Likewise, the Turkish Army has more than 1,000 in service and dozens or more have been deployed to Syria.

Those Saudi M60s aren’t on display at museums, however, and many have been deployed as part of the coalition currently engaged with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. A descendant of Korean War era “Patton” tanks, the M60 was an example of how incremental advances in military technology could progressively better-fighting machines.Ĭurrently, Egypt maintains one of the largest fleets of M60s – and has some 300 M60A1 and 850 M60A3 variants still in service, while Saudi Arabia has nearly 400 in its arsenal. Army in Europe with a solid, dependable tank to fend off the armored hordes of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. It played a critical role in defending key American allies and provided the U.S. M60 MBT served longer and fought on more battlefields than any other. Yet, as of last year, the M60 main battle tank (MBT) remained in active service with some 17 nations around the world – a testament to the robustness of the basic design. Though the United States military retired the M60 from front-line combat after 1991’s Operation Desert Storm and the last tanks were retired from National Guard service in 1997.

The reason so many were able to be used as static displays is that a staggering number were produced – more than 15,000 in all variants. Meet the M60 Tank: Across the United States, hundreds of M60 tanks are now on display at parks, National Guard armories, military bases, and museums.

Syria battle tanks