The old Spanish battle tank that will be exhibited in a museum in Australia

@DefAviation ES 3·23·2024 · 21:50 0

In January I told you here about an excellent museum of armored vehicles and artillery in Cairns, in northeastern Australia.

The jewels of the excellent Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns, Australia
Crisex 83, un enorme ejercicio militar con EEUU contra una posible invasión de España

That museum exhibits tanks of various nationalities and soon it will include a Spanish battle tank, as announced yesterday on its Facebook page. The vehicle in question is an M-48A5E2 Patton battle tank that belonged to the Spanish Army. This vehicle weighed 49 tons and was armed with a 105 mm M-68 main gun, a 7.62 mm MG-42 coaxial machine gun, a 12.7 mm Browning M-2 machine gun on top of the turret and eight smoke grenade launchers, with four launchers on each side of the turret.

In 2020, The Australian Armor and Artillery Museum published some photos of the restoration process of this tank, commenting: "David and his crew are doing a magnificent job putting this M48 MBT back together."

Spain acquired 181 M-48 battle tanks from the United States. The Spanish Army received 164, which were updated to the M-48A5E2 version, and the Spanish Marine Infantry received 17 units of the M-48A3 variant. The first 54 M-48s of the Spanish Army arrived in 1965, being assigned to the Armored Infantry Regiment "Alcázar de Toledo" No. 61. This model served to replace the M-47. In the 1990s, the Spanish M-48s were replaced by M-60s.

As we see in this image, the M-48 in question has been equipped with wheels from an M-60, perhaps due to a lack of original wheel replacements.

The Australian museum has not offered much information about this tank and about who is carrying out its restoration in Spain, but this photo published in 2020 invites us to think if they have any relationship with the Spearhead Historical Reenactment Association, which uses the emblem of the 3rd Armored Division of the US Army that we see on the wall of this industrial unit.

This Friday, the Australian museum published these photos with the following text, announcing a new exhibition: "Our buen amigo, David, has fitted the finishing touch to this magnificent M48 Tank." The museum added: "This spectacularly restored vehicle will (hopefully 🤞) be available for rides at AusArmourfest 2024." In this photo we see a crane from a company in Olias del Rey, Toledo, lifting the turret of the M-48.

An impressive image of the "marriage" operation, as armored vehicle maintenance units usually call the act of placing the turret on the tank barge.

The turret already in place. It has the four smoke launchers on each side that were characteristic of the M-48A5E2 of the Army. On the right we see an M-113 armored tracked transport.

The tank already completed. An excellent restoration job.

The M-48A5E2 already restored, inside an industrial warehouse decorated with the flags of Spain and Australia.