M48A2C Patton Main Battle Tank at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (HGM) in Vienna (Austria)

The M48 Patton is an American first-generation Main Battle Tank (MBT) introduced in February 1952, being designated as the 90mm Gun Tank: M48. It was designed as a replacement for the M26 Pershing, M4 Sherman, M46 and M47 Patton tanks, and was the main battle tank of the United States Army and United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War.  Nearly 12,000 M48s were built, mainly by Chrysler and American Locomotive Company, from 1952 to 1961. The M48 Patton was the first United States medium gun tank with a four man crew, which replaced the traditional 5 crewmen tanks, a centreline driver's compartment, and no bow machine gun. As with nearly all new armored vehicles it had a wide variety of suspension systems, cupola styles, power packs, fenders and other details among individual tanks. The early designs, up to the M48A2C, were powered by a gasoline engine. The M48A3 and A5 versions used a diesel engine, however, gasoline engine versions were still in use in the U.S. Army National Guard through 1968 and through 1975 by many West German Army units. The M48A2C had its old telescopic rangefinder replaced by a more user-friendly M17 coincidence model, coupled with a new ballistic drive which integrated temperature data while the entire Fire Control System (FCS) shifted to all-metric measurements (notably for exports). The main gun had also a larger bore evacuator or fume extractor, larger hatches for the commander and loader, and the rear auxiliary tension wheels were deleted (from now on). The Bundeswehr (West German military) received several hundreds of the Kampfpanzer M48 in 1957-58, soon reinforced by Kampfpanzer M48A2C in 1958-59, while the M47 was replaced gradually by the Leopard. When the Leopard 2 appeared in the 1980s, the M48A2C were passed from the Bundeswehr into the Heimat-Schutzbrigaden (Territorial Home Defence Brigades) of the territorial army, acting as a reserve.

10. Oldtimertreffen im Arsenal "Auf Rädern & Ketten" vom 3. bis 5. Juni 2017 - Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
(10th Classic Car Meeting in the Arsenal "On Wheels & Tracks" from 3 to 5 June 2017 - Museum of Military History)

The Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (HGM) is a military history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It claims to be the oldest and largest purpose-built military history museum in the world. Its collection includes one of the world's largest collections of bronze cannons and focuses on Austrian military history from the 16th century to 1945. The "Tank Garden" (Panzergarten), located behind the museum building and usually open to the public from March to October, accommodates the most important combat vehicles of the Austrian Armed Forces from 1955 to the present, with the different types demonstrating the continuous advancement of tank weaponry. The first Austrian tank troops were equipped entirely with vehicles of the occupation powers, such as the M24 Chaffee, the Charioteer, the Centurion and the AMX-13. The museum is located in Vienna's Arsenal, in the Landstraße district, not far from the Belvedere palace.