Futuristic U.S. Tank Failed Spectacularly – Summed Up in 2 Words

The M60A2 “Starship” proved that futuristic firepower can collapse under one boring, brutal reality: reliability.

Story Snapshot

The U.S. Army built the M60A2 around a 152mm gun/launcher meant to fire shells and Shillelagh anti-tank missiles.
Its low-profile “Starship” turret looked like the future but boxed the crew into awkward, isolated positions with separate hatches.
A lethal engagement “dead zone” emerged when missiles had a minimum range and conventional shells topped out too soon.
Only about 526 were built, entering service in 1975 and leaving it not long after, with turrets repurposed or sidelined.

The “152mm Monster” That Wanted to Be Two Weapons at Once

The M60A2 started as a Cold War gamble: bolt a massive 152mm gun/launcher onto a proven M60A1 hull and let it do double duty. Conventional rounds handled closer fights, while the MGM-51 Shillelagh missile promised standoff kills against Soviet armor. General Dynamics delivered a distinctive low, disk-like turret that earned the “Starship” nickname. The concept sounded clean on paper: one platform, two solutions, future-proofed.

The machine underneath stayed familiar—AVDS-1790-2 diesel power, torsion bar suspension, and the general M60 family feel—but the turret and weapon system changed everything about how the crew fought. The tank carried a limited mix of 152mm rounds and missiles, and its added turret mass pushed overall weight into the low-50-ton class. It looked like an upgrade path after ambitious programs stumbled, but the Starship didn’t behave like a simple upgrade.

Why the Army Chased Missiles When It Already Had a Good Gun

The 1960s and early 1970s produced a hard question for armor planners: keep improving traditional kinetic guns, or leap toward guided missiles for long-range tank killing. The Shillelagh represented that leap, using guidance methods that made sense in test ranges and certain visibility conditions. After Vietnam-era operational lessons and the turbulence around next-generation tank programs, an M60-based solution offered a tempting middle ground: new tech without a totally new fleet.

That temptation also reflects a procurement instinct Americans should recognize: beat the threat with a clever shortcut rather than steady iteration. Sometimes the shortcut wins. Other times it creates a complicated machine that demands perfect maintenance, perfect training, and perfect conditions—three things the real world refuses to supply on schedule. The M60A2 became a case study in how a good hull can’t rescue a temperamental combat system from the consequences of complexity.

The Dead Zone Problem: When the Range Bands Don’t Overlap, Crews Pay

The Starship’s most infamous tactical flaw was the gap between what the missile could do and what the gun could do. Shillelagh required a minimum engagement distance—often described in the 730-meter-and-beyond neighborhood, with some discussions pushing it higher depending on circumstances—while conventional 152mm rounds had practical limits that could leave a nasty overlap problem. The result: a “dead zone” where neither option felt like the right answer under pressure.

That kind of gap isn’t academic. Tank combat compresses time and punishes hesitation, and American common sense says a weapon you can’t confidently use at the distance you’re most likely to meet the enemy becomes a liability, not an advantage. A tank crew doesn’t get to call timeout to swap to an ideal engagement envelope. They either have a clean shot or they don’t, and the Starship too often forced crews to fight the system instead of the opponent.

High-Tech Optics, Low-Tech Human Factors

The M60A2 earned credit for fielding advanced features for its era, including a laser rangefinder that pointed the way toward modern fire control. That achievement mattered, and it showed the Army could push technology into armored formations. The problem came when the turret design and internal ergonomics demanded too much accommodation from the humans inside. The crew arrangement and separate hatches reduced the practical benefit of the low silhouette and complicated day-to-day operation.

Human factors decide whether a “futuristic” tank becomes a dependable tool or a hangar queen. Conservative values lean toward equipment that works when tired, wet, and overdue for depot-level pampering. The Starship asked for the opposite: careful handling, patience with quirks, and tolerance for a system that could feel like it belonged more to an experiment than a line unit. The turret might have looked sleek, but the lived experience didn’t match the silhouette.

A Short Service Life That Still Left a Long Shadow

The Army ordered production in the early 1970s, fielded the M60A2 in 1975, and built roughly 526 examples. Then the turn came fast. Reliability problems, operational limitations, and the simple fact that the concept didn’t deliver enough advantage for its cost pushed the tank out of favor by the early 1980s. Many turrets found secondary roles in training or reserve contexts, a quiet admission that the hardware wasn’t worthless—just miscast.

152mm Monster: The U.S. Army’s M60A2 ‘Starship’ Tank Summed Up in 2 Wordshttps://t.co/OUBrQUc8Pa

— 19FortyFive (@19_forty_five) February 20, 2026

The Starship’s real legacy sits inside what followed: the U.S. pivot toward more straightforward, higher-confidence solutions, including the broader move to powerful main guns and the doctrine that prizes consistent, repeatable lethality. The M60A2 also survives as a cultural artifact—museum piece, simulator star, internet debate magnet—because it captures a timeless lesson. The future doesn’t belong to the weirdest idea; it belongs to the idea that works every day.