The bow mounted machine gun and its related crew station was eliminated thus providing more ammunition storage for the main gun. The driver's station was moved to the front center of the hull. The steering controls were redesigned. A large aircraft-styled steering wheel (replacing the wobble stick control of the M46 and M47) and placing the transmission range selector on the floor to the driver's right. Mod A hulls had a small oval overhead hatch for the driver. It incorporated a mechanism that dropped his three periscope heads to provide clearance for the hatch door as it swung to the right, and the driver then had to reposition the periscopes by hand once the hatch was closed again. The vehicle did not have an NBC protection system for the crew and a fording depth of approximately . It had a crew of 4; the commander, gunner and loader were positioned in the turret and the driver stationed in the front center of the hull. The M48's turret consisted of a redesigned flat gun shield and standard pop-up hatch for the commander's station. The M48 Mod A turret design had smaller roof hatches for both the commander and loader. A .50 cal M2HB using a M1 remote control mount on a pedestal was available for the commander. When not in use, the machine gun mount could be stowed on a bracket welded to the turret roof in front of the loader. The M48's direct fire control system consisted of an M12/T41 stereoscopic rangefinder with a field of view of 5 degrees and magnification of x7.5, an azimuth indicator, an M20 gunner's periscope and a T13 super elevation actuator. Two main bearings are bolted to the mounting plate on the roof of the tank turret to support the range finder on steel radial ball bearings. A parallel gun linkage between the gun trunnion and the range finder assures that the line of sight of the range finder reproduces the exact motion of the gun in elevation. A .30 caliber M1919E4 machine gun was coaxially mounted to the main gun's right and was operated by the gunner. An M12 full field optical range finder was used, the same as the M47. The tank was not fitted with any night fighting or computerized fire control systems. Some early production M48s used a Y-shaped muzzle brake on the barrel and carried 53 rounds. Eight ready rounds were stored in the left side of the turret bustle for the loader, the rest were stored inside safe containers in the hull.