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Saturday, January 9, 2010

M-47 Roco


Despite the United States desire to move to push button warfare, the demise of the tank had not yet happened and so they were forced to develop new tanks to take on the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

The M-103 heavy tank, the M-47 medium tank and the M-41 light tank were some of the main vehicles in the US Army tank battalion in the Cold War era.


The M-47 tank was not used in combat by the US Army and only served in US service for a few years. Later upgraded with new engines and later new guns and fire control they served with many allied nations.


Perhaps the most lasting use of the M-47 was as German Tiger II tanks in the movie The Battle of the Bulge. I may make up a few for that use in my own collection. At least 15 were used in the movie in the days before CGI tanks had to be used where they could be found.



This is my second M-47 battalion, when you have as many Roco T-54 as I have, you need a lot of these old soldiers to keep up. I have no actual evidence that the US Army painted any of these tanks in a brown camo, but here in California it has been a common scheme in the National Guard for M-48 and M-60 series tanks so I took the liberty and got a company in that color.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Admittedly it might be rude to suggest, but given Hollywood's predisposition to use anything with treads in a war movie, you have, in that M-47 battalion, any number of enemies and allies, should the notion move you.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

Actually, I do plan on making a couple of them up as the German Tiger tanks from the Battle of the Bulge movie.

panzer1 said...

Battle of the bulge is a great flick. And great idea to make up some of those M47's as pseudo tigers. If you ever got around to it please post up some images.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

Faux Tigers are on the to do list! Thanks for reading Panzer1.
Bunkermeister