Patton Tank Uniform – And the black (or fieldgrey alternatively) German tanker uniform did not look that much different in cut with its wide breast flap. So, no, Patton was not too wrong here, although Patton’s flamboyance certainly shines through.
? A decade before—in October 1935—while on duty with the U.S. Army 25th Division in Hawaii, then-Lt. Col. Patton acquired a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson pistol with a left-handed S.D. Myers holster. Notes one source, “The only photograph of this pistol being worn or used by Gen.
Patton Tank Uniform
Patton was taken on Nov. 7, 1942 as he struggled ashore from a landing craft in North Africa. The combination of the two holsters on one belt proved to be too much, and Patton had the left-hand holster removed.”
By Blaine Taylor
This weapon is still considered to be the “second” of the “pair” of Patton pistols, however, and is also a part of the Patton Gallery collection at Ft. Knox. Hmmmm… that’s something to consider after modding the short pant Brit textures into girl’s public school uniforms… or Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts (AndrewTF’s idea).
I guess the Brit helmet texture would have to become a straw hat! For comparison, the Israeli Sabra II upgrade also boasts a 120 millimeter gun of comparable performance paired with a new targeting computer, as well as a superior 1 thousand horsepower engine which increases speed to 34 miles per hour.
Unlike the SLEP, the Sabra also has beefed up armor, giving the turret an angular shape. This includes the addition of explosive-reactive armor—that is, bricks of explosive that prematurely detonate incoming missiles and shells—as well as appliqué armor plates.
Fifty years have passed since the inception of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., and it is still an outstanding repository of Patton memorabilia and mounted warfare. General George Smith Patton, Jr.’s boots, pistols, medals, uniforms, helmets, silver stars of a general officer’s rank, and more are all here, as well as the automobile in which he suffered his fatal accident on December 21, 1945
Wounded While Commanding The Us Army Tank Corps
. The Patton saw quite a few upgrades over its service life. The avant-garde M60A2 “Starship” variant used a 155-millimeter gun that could fire Shillelagh anti-tank missiles; it was quickly phased out because of crippling technical limitations.
The final version, the M60A3 TTS, came with improved fire control systems and thermal sights that made it an effective night fighter. Some Marine Corps Pattons were even fitted with explosive-reactive armor. The Patton is considerably more vulnerable than the M1 or Merkava—and even the older T-72!
The Patton’s old-fashioned cast steel frontal armor is rated equivalent to 253 millimeters of Rolled Hardened Armor, the standard measure of tank armor effectiveness. Modern tanks use composite armor which is drastically more effective for the same weight, especially against shaped charge warheads.
A modern M1A2 is rated equivalent to around 800 millimeters verses tanks shells and 1300 verses shaped charges. Also on display at the museum is Patton’s riding crop and a cardboard helmet liner issued with the M1 helmet in the early days of World War II.
The Illustrious Legacy Of George Patton
Jardim continues, “Originally used strictly as a helmet liner by Gen. Patton, it was converted to dress use sometime in mid-1944.” First, it replaces the old M68 gun with the powerful 120mm M256 gun used in the Abrams tank.
This will transform the Patton from a tank that would struggle against a 1980s era T-72 to one that can penetrate most modern tanks. Furthermore, so as to actually hit the target, the M60 SLEP has a new digital targeting system taken from the M1A1D to replace Patton’s dated technology.
Modern targeting computers have made tank gunnery while moving viable, so this is a big plus. Finally, the hydraulic system for rotating the turret has been replaced with an electric one, increasing rotation speed and reducing the aforementioned “bursting into flames” problem when hit.
One of the museum’s proud possessions is the single-action Colt revolver Patton purchased in March 1916 from the Shelton Payne Arms Company in El Paso. With this weapon—in a celebrated shootout that gained the young lieutenant national newspaper headlines back home—he shot and killed two Mexican bandits and put two notches in the pistol’s grip to commemorate the deed.
Expanding The Museum To Make Room For Historic Memorabilia
Arguably his most famous personal symbol, Patton continued to both wear and use this famous revolver until his death in December 1945. The Great War was the last major conflict—other than the Russo-German Eastern Front of World War II—in which the old horse cavalry played a major role;
machine guns and barbed wire had effectively ended cavalry usefulness, as Patton himself ruefully noted. He was also quick to note, however, that the mounted warrior of the future would go into combat riding in the new armored tracked vehicle, the tank, as well as the wheeled conveyances of the trucks of motorized infantry divisions.
“The Patton Museum sees itself as the ultimate repository of the history, heritage, and artifacts of those units long after the sounds of their battles have faded into the pages of history. Such an expansion will allow for storage, restoration, and exhibition of all donated vehicles, as well as the addition of new exhibits and interactive and computer-assisted displays.”
With the 120-millimeter gun and new fire control system, the M60 can both hit and destroy the majority of tanks in use today at medium to long range. M60 operators will likely lack the advanced M829E3 and E4 depleted uranium rounds designed to circumvent the most sophisticated reactive armor systems, but few operational tanks benefit from them so far.
“Tough Aggressive Hot-Tempered And Above All He Was Impatient”
So, the M60 SLEP could be a decent tank hunter. Second, Raytheon has replaced the 750 horsepower diesel engine with a brand new 950 horsepower motor. This is nice, because the basic M60 lumbers at 30 miles per hour, while maximum speeds over 40 miles per hour are typical for modern Western tanks.
Has anyone tried to make a “Patton tank uniform” mod for US tank crews? The uniform I’m thinking about is the one Patton designed sometime while in Africa (I think, he was in Africa when he discussed it in “Patton”) It was to have a double-breasted green jacket with gold buttons and a golden helmet
. The uniform was never put into use (although it would make a nice “what-if” mod, as CM doesn’t take texture colors into account), but apparently (according to some article I read online) one such uniform exists in a
museum somewhere. Does anyone know more about said uniform and would anyone like to make such a mod? You’d get at least one download. Museum director Frank Jardim notes, “Purchased by Brig. Gen. Patton in 1940, his leather belt and holster set was built by the legendary firm of S.D.
Myers of El Paso. The rig as it exists today is equipped with an M1910 enlisted belt buckle, as well as a compass case, 12 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition in a slide-on carrier, and a first-aid kit in a custom-made leather pouch
.” The last U.S. M60s were operated by the Marine Corps, and finally saw heavy combat in the 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait, knocking out around 100 Iraqi tanks for the loss of a single Patton.
However, that reflected the unequal training and tactics of the opposing sides more than anything else, and shortly afterwards the Patton was phased out of the U.S. service. When German Generals Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel rolled across a prostrate France in their tanks in 1940, the U.S.
Army reestablished its own Armored Force at Ft. Knox, and Patton himself transferred to the 2nd Armored Division at Ft. Benning, Ga., where he was named its commanding general on April 11, 1941. His picture was featured on the cover of Life magazine, and he was depicted as the very epitome of America’s new mounted armored warrior, which he indeed proved himself to
be in the years ahead. It was at Ft. Meade in 1920 that the Tank Corps was initially disbanded altogether, despite both men writing against the decision in the professional military journals of the day. During the interwar period, Patton held a variety of staff jobs both in the Hawaiian Islands and in Washington, DC, and completed his military schooling as a distinguished graduate of the Army War College at Ft.
Leavenworth. Kans. A part of the museum, the Emert L. “Red” Davis Memorial Library, contains reference materials relating to mechanized cavalry and armored vehicles and equipment, Patton himself, and Ft. Knox, home of the U.S. Army Armor School.
Adjacent to the museum is Keyes Armor Memorial Park, which commemorates organizations from the Army recognized as having served in a combat theater. The M60 Patton was the mainstay of the U.S. tank fleet in the 1960s and 1970s, before being replaced by the M1 Abrams tank currently in service.
However, more than five thousand Pattons remain in service in the armies of nineteen countries. Earlier this year, Raytheon unveiled its Service-Life Extension Package (SLEP) upgrade featuring a new engine, fire control system and 120-millimeter gun.
According to one author, Patton “was tough, aggressive, hot-tempered, and, above all, he was impatient. Often referred to as ‘Old Blood and Guts’ by men under his command, he was the best armored force general on the Allied side in World War II.”
Hitler admiringly called him “that cowboy general” after the Karl May-written Western novels of his own youth. If Hitler had had Patton in his own stable of generals, the Germans might well have made it to Moscow in 1941, snow or no snow.
Made from Dark Green gaberdine, in order to hide stains, it was dubbed “The Green Hornet” by the press, after a popular radio program at the time. It featured gold buttons down the side along with pockets on the front of the thighs of the trousers for improved access while seated in a tank.
The uniform was topped off with a football helmet said to come from the Washington Redskins. In August this year, Turkish M60A3 and M60T poured over the border in support of allied rebels as part of Operation Euphrates Shield, first chasing ISIS out of the town of Jarablus without a fight and then attacking Kurdish militias.
Kurdish fighters knocked out several M60s with long-range missiles, inflicting the first Turkish casualties in the intervention. On November 8, 1942, Patton commanded the Western Task Force that landed with the Allied invasion of North Africa.
After the American defeat at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Ike gave him command of all U.S. forces in the Tunisian Combat Area. That battle won, he commanded the Seventh Army during the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and its subsequent conquest.
In March 1944, Patton was also given command of the new Third Army, which became operational the following August to exploit the Allied breakout from Normandy. It was with the Third Army that Patton achieved his greatest prominence.
He became an aide to American General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing when the latter was ordered by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to capture or kill marauding Mexican bandit Pancho Villa across the border after the latter’s raid on Columbus, NM.
Patton was born in San Gabriel, Calif, on November 11, 1885. In 1909 he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as a cavalry officer, and would forever after wear the trousers and boots of that arm of service.
He was considered an expert on both horses (like Ulysses S. Grant before him) and the use of the saber. His portrait has since been painted riding one of the famous white Lippizaner stallions of Vienna’s famous Spanish Riding School.
Actually looks not too bad. Could take a bit of simplification like halving the number of buttons. But it is smooth on the outside to not snag on anything in the vehicle, accessible pockets on the legs.
Quite sensible indeed. The golden helmet was silly, agreed, but the helmet actually issued for tankers in WW2 looked a lot like it was derived from a football helmet I always thought. Turkish M60T Sabra tanks eventually redirected their firepower against ISIS-held towns—and unfortunately, were subject to a series of successful attacks by Kornet missiles.
In the videos posted online, two of the three destroyed Pattons burst into flames. Pershing took Patton with him to France when the country entered World War I. Here Patton served as the commanding officer of the newly formed U.S.
Army Tank Corps, and was wounded in action with it under enemy fire in September 1918. Now, the prototype filmed in Raytheon’s promo video also has a lot of features they don’t advertise: slat armor, which can be effective at deflecting shaped charge warheads in rocket propelled grenades, add-on armor panels, and an auxiliary power unit and
cooling fans in the back. It appears that these are not standard features of the SLEP upgrade. Not only are U.S. vehicles on display, but so too are those from 14 countries. In all, there are 213 vehicles: 33 on exhibit indoors, 57 outside—others being restored or in storage.
Many of the vehicles outdoors are in nearby Keyes Park. Here examples of historic armor can be viewed up close. From WWI there are the French Renault FT17, and the British Mark V. From WWII can be seen the U.S.
M4 Sherman tank, the USSR’s famous T34, and the German Panzerkampfwagen (armored battle car). Notes Jardim, “The M48 Patton tank and the M551 Sheridan tanks that were used in Vietnam are also part of the park.
Desert Storm is represented with the U.S. M1 Abrams tank and the Russian-built T72 tank.” It was in the Middle East that the M60 Patton first showed its mettle. During the Yom Kippur War, Israeli M60s rumbled to the rescue of the Seventh and 188th Armored Brigades on the Golan Heights, breaking the back of a Syrian onslaught numbering over 3 thousand tanks.
However, on the southern front, AT-3 anti-tank missiles devastated M60s counterattacking the Egyptian beachhead on the Suez canal. The Patton’s tall profile made it an easy target, while its frontally mounted hydraulics were prone to bursting into flames when the armor was penetrated.
Nevertheless, the Israelis were so fond of the Patton that they kept it in service until 2014, upgrading them into several generations of Mag’ach tanks. The museum and surrounding attractions already draw an estimated 400,000 visitors annually.
At Keyes Park, notes Jardim, “Commemorative structures with plaques are arranged along a serpentine walkway beginning at the park entrance. Except for divisions, no groupings or hierarchy of units exists, each having served with distinction.”
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Emma Nehls is a military writer and historian with a passion for exploring the intricacies of warfare and the human experience within the military. With extensive knowledge and a deep understanding of military strategy, tactics, and historical contexts, Nehls brings a unique perspective to his writings.
