re: #19 austin_blue

My Da was serving as a staff officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon when in 1973 the Yom Kippur war broke out.

He was immediately detached to MCAS Beaufort where jumped into an F-4 which had it’s roundels and “Marines”scraped off, and with a RIO, took off for an aircraft carrier in the mid-atlantic that was serving as a gas station and refueled. Then flew to Lajes AFB where he landed and Israeli pilots jumped into the F-4s and took off to replace the Israeli losses at the beginning of the war, which were heavy because the Arabs had recently acquired short range antiaircraft missiles (MANPADS) which surprised the Israelis.

The C-5s flew in M-60 Pattons to replace tank losses too. One of the biggest shocks to both the IDF & the US Army came shortly there after when the IDF discovered how insanely flammable US hydraulic fluid used in the turrets was. Small hits survivable in earlier tanks caused burned out wrecks and bad burn casualties. After the war there was a crash program to replace it with a less flammable fluid. Eventually it would also lead to the US Army finally (after I was out of the active military) adopting fire retardant uniforms for tank crew.

There were other serious flaws in the M-60 that the Israelis dealt with (the M-73 & M-85 machine guns and the cupola we used on it) but nothing as bad as the hydraulic fluid.