M48A1 Spotlight question

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
1

so a long time ago I found pictures of the m48a1 with a spotlight in War Thunder so I made a post asking what happened to it (M48A1 light - #4 by Necronomica) and necronomica found this but I have found images that conflict with this.

images

Berlin_Krise_1961,_M48_Panzer
Berlin_Krise_1961,_M48_Panzer1731×1244 203 KB

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rmnpkp7oqyc011500×1303 240 KB

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Confirmed as M48A1’s
The M48 Patton Main Battle Tank - The Army Historical Foundation.
Standoff in Berlin, October 1961 | Article | The United States Army

So I was just wondering how this makes any sense because of the conflicting information. These images are from 1961, though, so it’s possible they were on the verge of being replaced by the A3, but they still had mounted spotlights, so I’m just confused. I am aware that its not the xenon spotlight originally depicted on the A1 when it was introduced, but why was it not just given its historical spotlight via a simple model change?

on a similar note, the M60 and M60A1 (aos) are also missing spotlights despite having the mounts visually modeled on them.

Originally, this was a message sent to several technical mods, but none of them responded, so now I’m asking the community.

2 Likes
2

What will the spot lights in game do beside Aesthetics?

3

They don’t have a turn spot light on or off keybind and it will just be like the t34 with the spot light

4

… its visible with night vision

1 Like
5

yes they do, it should be labeled as Toggle IR spotlight

6

They do? I searched light in the controls and it showed nothing

7

What would the spot light do?

8

It should be under the fire control section with the radial menu.

9

I also asked this a couple times in the past, and the answer I was given was that they removed the spotlight mostly because it achieved nothing but making the tank a bigger target (I don’t agree with this).

However, I believe the M48A1 tank (and others with NV equipment) were able to emmit infrared light from the headlights, with the IR spotlight substantially increasing the range if needed. This isn’t a valid excuse for removing the spotlight, however, since you can find endless photographs of tanks carrying them.

The M48A1 and M60 AOS should get their IR spotlights, even if it’s just cosmetic (which really isn’t, because as you’ve mentioned we’ve got an option to “enable IR spotlight”), including other possibilities like the M47, M60 and M103 amongst others. For instance I don’t see a single soviet tank missing its Luna IR system or the Leopard 1 missing its spotlight.

2 Likes
10

the standard m60 and the aos have the xenon mount actually molded already (and the tts maybe iirc)

1 Like
11

It’d quite literally just be copying and pasting the Leopard 1 spotlight on the Patton series, but I guess they have other priorities.

12

actually the m48a1 used a differnt spotlight (its some kind of 18in one)

13

All “Patton” series tanks carried mounts and were wired for the searchlight. The M-48s had to remove the mantlet cover to fit them, but the later “TV set” ones fit thru the canvas onto the tripod mounts.
Game wise, I can see where it might be useful to hide the cupola behind the searchlight that should/might fuse APHE, and definitely HEAT.