"A question for Cold War era tankers" Topic

I have a question for all the Cold War era tankers out there. I am a grunt have been for twenty years so I don't know what tankers experienced. Since Cold War tankers could shoot on the move it was the Tank Commander that would spot for the gunner correct? The individual tank commanders would call out targets and issue orders to the gunner because the gunner really only had tunnel vision through his site, correct?

Essentially, yes.

Agreed. TC might lay the gun in right direction but it was up to the gunner to identify the target and sight the gun

The gunner on an M60A3 with TTS had a wide field of view and a narrow field of view selection. With wide, they could see more but their sight was still restricted vs what the TC could see in open hatch.
A standard fire command would be "Gunner Sabot Tank, driver move out, gunner announce stabilized platform."
On this command the TC would lay the gun in the general location of the target, while the driver maintained a steady speed and the gunner laid in and once the sight was on target would announce "Stable" at that point the TC would lase and then order the command to fire.

Another command from the turret down position would be "Gunner Sabot Tank, Driver move out gunner take over."
In this one the driver would move forward into a hull down position, while the gunner searched for the target in the area the TC laid on. Once he found it he would respond with "identified" which also told the driver to stop, (or the TC would say "Driver stop"), and then they would lase the range and fire on target.

That has been the case since multi-crewman turrets were developed. The gunner has a limited field of view that varied by tank model, but usually had higher magnification optics than the TC. The TC has a wider field of view either with multiple vision ports or by sticking his head out of the hatch. The TC would move the turret until the gun was pointed in the general direction of the target and the gunner would acquire the target and engage. Advanced technology just makes the processes faster and more efficient.

The gunner was primary located as his vision tended to be coax with the main gun. The TC tended to scout other directions than straight with the gun. The TC could spot a secondary target if the gunner was engaged and over ride the trigger controls once the primary was engaged. If the gunner was not on a target, the TC could lay the gun on a spotted target and engage with copula controls or if the gunner confirmed a visual then he would engage.

I did gunnery in M60a1, M60a2 and M551. Each tank was unique in performance and handling.

WOW very interesting. Why does the gunner need to push buttons on his fire control system for different rounds?

Different flight paths for the different rounds. Sabot flies much faster and flatter than HEAT, for example.

It was the same in the old computer simulation 'M1 Tank Platoon', the sights adjusted depending on the type of round.

It was much worse for WW2 tankers, iirc they had to do this stuff manually without a computer to help (iirc there were different markings on the sights for different types of round).

Irish Marine; For the ballistics computer on the M60A3 you could push the ammo selection, SABOT, HEAT, HEP, etc…and it would automatically feed the elevation, stablization, tube wear, range/windage, etc into the pc without you having to manually do it. Saved time and efficiency.

And WWII tankers had to worry about the Ballistics on paint rounds.

I would just add that everyone on the crew had the task to spot targets, even drivers. The TC's job was to pick out specific targets or target groups and get the gunner on target.

I should add that there have been some really scary accidents with mis-adjusted FC computers. Tell the computer you're firing HE or HEAT with a sabot in the pipe and the shell will land miles and miles downrange.

There was an accident on the Yakima range where someone did that, their sabot round landed in the middle of Yakima High School a good 25 miles from the gunnery range border (and closer to 35 miles from the shooting line).

The Brits had a similar accident, their wayward sabot landed somewhere in France.

That's the legend, though it's a bloody long way from Lulworth to France (about 70 miles)… :)

A comment on the DRS project. The First Cavalry Division had three brigades with each having a different tank platoon organization. The Second Brigade had Three tank platoons. The final report was negative on that set up. The problems were that common maintenance breakdowns left at least one tank per platoon down which reduced combat effectiveness by 33%. Tactically the Army was still using the Bounding Overwatch system of tactics. So an entire platoon would conduct the Overwatch while a different platoon conducted the bound move. More involvement of company commo channel which complicated a simple maneuver.

The First brigade retained the traditional five tank platoon. Tactically two tanks conducted the move while three tanks conducted the Overwatch. The tactical maneuver control used a single platoon radio frequency..

The Third brigade had four tank platoons. The PL operated with one tank and the PS paired with the other tank.. The bounding Overwatch was easy with pairs conducting ng Overwatch and moves. This organization got the most positive votes.