The 152 mm gun launcher can also fire a number of conventional rounds which have a combustible cartridge case consisting of two parts, a base and a body, which are made of felted nitro cellulose. The Shillelagh warhead is of the HEAT type. The missile has a maximum effective range of 2,500 m against moving targets and 3,000 for stationary targets. The missile was also launched from the M60A2 main battle tank. The Shillelagh missile is designated the MGM-51A and was designed by the United States Army Missile Command and the Philco-Ford Corporation from 1959. The M551 Sheridan main armament consists of one M81 (formerly the XM81E12) 152mm gun/launcher which can fire the Shillelagh missile or a number of conventional rounds with a combustible cartridge. These are essentially basic M551s but with visual modifications to the outside to disguise them as "OPFOR force" vehicles such as BMP-1 and ZSU-23-4. Late in 1978, it was announced that the M551 would be phased out of service and replaced by the M60A1 MBT, apart from those vehicles allocated to the 82nd Airborne Division (57) and Arkansas National Guard (12), 330 have been assigned to the National training Center at Fort Irwin, California. as originally conceived, is to function as the main reconnaissance vehicle for armour, infantry and airborne operations and arms teams not employing main battle tank. Production continued until 1970 by when 1700 M551S (or General Sheridans) had been built, of which 1570 were still in service with the US Army in 1970. In May 1966 the Sheridan was classified as Standard A and by this time production was well under way with the first production vehicle being completed in June 1966. In November 1965 approval was given for the type classification of the XM551 as Limited Production and a four-year production contract was awarded to the Allison Motor Car Division of General Motors Corporation. The M551 Sheridan is a light reconnaissance tank which was developed by the American Company General Motors in May 1960 under the designation XM551.
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