M26 Pershing

The M26 also saw service in the Korean War. When the war began in June 1950, the four American infantry divisions on occupation duty in Japan had no medium tanks at all, having only one active tank company equipped with M24 Chaffee light tanks each. When these divisions were sent to Korea at the end of June 1950, they soon found that the 75mm gun on the M24 could not penetrate the armor of North Korean T-34 tanks, which had no difficulty penetrating the M24's thin armor. In a Tokyo ordnance depot, three M26 Pershing tanks were found in poor condition; they were hastily rebuilt, but they had no fanbelts for their engines, so a substitute was used. These three M26s were formed into a provisional tank platoon commanded by Lieutenant Samuel Fowler and sent to Korea in mid-July; used to defend the town of Chinju, the tanks soon overheated when the substitute fan belts stretched and the cooling fans stopped working, and the only three American medium tanks in Korea were lost.[6]

More medium tanks began arriving in Korea at the end of July 1950. Although no armored divisions were sent because the initial response from battlefield commanders was "Korea isn't good tank country", six Army infantry divisions and one Marine division were deployed. Each Army infantry division should have had one divisional tank battalion of 69 tanks, and each Army infantry regiment should have had a company of 22 tanks;[7] the Marine division had a tank battalion of 70 gun tanks and nine combination flamethrower-howitzer tanks, and each Marine infantry regiment had an antitank platoon with five tanks each. While tables of organization and equipment mandated that all tank platoon vehicles should be M26 Pershings, with howitzer tanks in company headquarters and light tanks in reconnaissance units only, some units had a shortfall that had to be filled with other tanks. The 70th Tank Battalion at Fort Knox Kentucky had pulled World War II memorial M26s off of pedestals and reconditioned them for use, but had to fill out two companies with M4A3s; the 72nd Tank Battalion at Fort Lewis Washington and the 73rd Tank Battalion at Fort Benning Georgia were fully equipped with M26s; the 89th Medium Tank Battalion was constituted in Japan with three companies of reconditioned M4A3s and one of M26s from various bases in the Pacific; due to the shortage of M26s, most regimental tank companies had M4A3 Shermans instead. Two battalions detached from the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood Texas, the 6th Medium and 64th Heavy Tank Battalions, were fully equipped with M46 Patton tanks. The 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton California had all M4A3 howitzer tanks, which were replaced with M26s just days before boarding ships for Korea. A total of 309 M26 Pershings were rushed to Korea in 1950.[8] The Pershing and its derivative M46 Patton were credited with almost half of the North Korean T-34s destroyed by US tanks, M26s 32 percent and M46s ten percent.[9] The 76mm gun armed M4A3 Sherman, whose anti-tank performance was improved thanks to availability of the HVAP shells, was responsible for most of the remainder.

Being underpowered and unreliable in the mountainous Korean terrain, all M26s were withdrawn from Korea during 1951, and replaced with M4A3 Shermans and M46 Pattons.[10] The M45 howitzer tank variant was only used by the assault gun platoon of the 6th Medium Tank Battalion, and these six vehicles were withdrawn by January 1951.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• M26
• Pershing

[Dagreatdudeman]

the music is so happy!

[SaintsSpecOps]

@StiviGun1

you know the TOW 2 explodes over the top of the tank where the weakest armor is right? and the FGM-148 is by far the most capable anti-tank missile.

[infokemp]

Does anyone know if there is any documented fight between the M26 and Joseph Stalin 3 heavy tanks - if you have the video please send it to me, I've been searching for several minutes for a video of such a confrontation.

I am always reading "what if debates on YTube but it would also be interesting if anyone knows of an equivalently powerful gun the US could of used for M26 to the 128 mm the Jadg-tiger used which was known to be able to defeat all Soviet JS3 tanks - any info please let me know

[SMGJohn]

@9394JP731 Sorry but all I understood from your comment was that "I'm a retarded nuttshell from Washington D.C." 

[9394JP731]

@SMGJohn The T-44 was a FAILURE! The RETARDED soviets took much time to work out a "marginal better available decent" primitive cheap crap for the over-excessed expendables.to meet the numerical less but more sophisticated US tanks. even the up-gunned super Shermans BUTCHERED them in the Six-Days War. The T-34 was ONLY A BETTER COFFIN or U can SHIT INTO INSIDE DIRECTLY FROM THE CUPOLA......EXCELLENT temporary open dry toilet with stool & septic tank!..... Anyhow all FROM USSR WERE SHIT!

[SMGJohn]

@SaintsSpecOps And so did the T-34/85. The allies lost many tanks the North Koreans ended up abandoning most of their armors in early times of the war. Also T-44 was stationed in Vladivostok, I would love to see them against M46 Pattons. But both Sherman and T-34 could take each other out at same range but T-34/85 is better tank

[SaintsSpecOps]

@SMGJohn

the 76mm M1A1C(you may know it as "Easy Eight" took out many T-34s

[SMGJohn]

Holy shit, Americans where able to take out 30 years old design T-34 tanks. Amazing, also everytime a Sherman encountered a T-34 the Sherman was destroyed, and the IS-2 was the only tanks the Allies had trouble destroying in the war.

[starknight97]

junk lets seen it against the t55 or t44

[178thbattlegroup]

yeah so what documentary is this from?

[StiviGun1]

@SaintsSpecOps Tow is better than the javelin, from what i know. but both are inferior to theur Russian analogues, in specially the khiztantema. The RPG-30 and are also superior to everything you have. for intance, the javelin is too heavy for a missile with a 127 mm diameter. And how the hell can the missile have 127 mm diameter and the launching tube, 142 mm? Javelin is indeed a good weapon, but it's not as good as its Russian analogues.