- JstarThe cradle access door opened in the manner you described, to allow access to the gun cover assembly, providing a measure of protection....were you suggesting something bigger?
And, yeah, that cupola was an absolute waste of money.
- Joe_DThe Part #'s that actually changed were the cupola, #10873386, and the cover assembly, #0873140. Later castings were #10911781 and #0915610 respectively.
- Joe_DKurt,
Right you are, I don't know how I left off the 1 on both. I culled out the pictures to post but I have some good shots of both style covers with the part numbers in plain sight. Some of those covers it's located under the canvas but others it's cast in near the bottom upside down, just depends who the foundry was.
Dealt with the M19 cupola and M85 for 7 years off and on and yeah, it was not the easiest to work with but generally I had no problems with either for the most part. Always kept a large screwdriver handy to feed the rounds up through the chute and being tall made it easier to reach over the sight housing to open the covers and load. One of the later and better ideas that came out with the A3 was the last round over ride function. Kept you from completely expending all your ammo so you could link up another belt without having to reload the weapon. The biggest issue I had with that cupola was the poor visibility, since all the vision blocks were really tiny and you didn't have any forward. When I first got on the M1 I loved the new periscopes and especially the forward one. Hated the weapon station though. Really poor design and under utilized the M2 capabilities. Broke easy too with that brass gear and pinion design. And don't get me started on the stupid combination elevation wheel and trigger. At least on the M1A1 they finally put an electric solenoid on it. Guess they gave up with the M1A2 and went with a pseudo flex mount.
Doug, Amen on the heavy protected pintle mount being a pain. In Iraq we had M1114 Humvees with the armored cupola and gun shield, Manual traverse handle that was not up to the task after we started putting additional armored front windshields on the sides for protection. Got even worse when they made those "Pope Mobiles" and put them all around the gunner. Hated those and when we got a loaner the first thing I did was remove them and install them on the sides. Right before I left the team I was with got the "Rock Island" turrets installed along with other armor upgrades. Electric traverse with a joystick control box that was magnetically attached, so the gunner could place it where it was most comfortable. Even came with nice big rear view mirrors. Used the same motor drive as those fancy electric wheel chairs.
The best I worked with, and mind you this was with the OPFOR in Irwin, was the M551 cupola. Standard flex mount but the cupola was electric traversed. Had a cable that ran out side to connect remote control. Never could get the original ones but some were rigged up a DPDT toggle switch to make it work. Some really "Smart Guy" got an old CVC cord and rigged up some thumb triggers that attached to the back plate hand grips. Squeeze left, traverse left, squeeze right, traverse right.
- C_ShermanCool beans. Interesting detail info, that I probably never would have noticed! Those parts are pretty much always completely covered, so unless you are prowling around relics with their canvas covers shredded you'll never notice there is a difference.
IIRC, the M60-series came about during some really secret-squirrel times of the Cold War, so I expect that any discussion of the design changes was immediately classified. It's probably declassified now, but Lord only knows what vault or file archive the documents are buried in.
Having never developed the double-jointed wrist and third elbow to be able to effectively reload the M85 without exiting the cupola, and the coordination to traverse and elevate the thing anywhere but on stationary, flat range firing points, I agree that the M19 cupola sucked. The MG itself sucked too.
C
- C_Sherman
IIRC, the M60-series came about during some really secret-squirrel times of the Cold War, so I expect that any discussion of the design changes was immediately classified. It's probably declassified now, but Lord only knows what vault or file archive the documents are buried in.
C
- DontosDoug
Sounds like you are overdue for some 'professional reading'...
Don
- Joe_DOne of the later and better ideas that came out with the A3 was the last round over ride function. Kept you from completely expending all your ammo so you could link up another belt without having to reload the weapon.
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