M47 Patton Medium Tank

At the end of World War II, the M26 Pershing was the heaviest and most powerful tank in the U.S. Army, and further development produced the M46 Medium Tank, known as the Patton. The Korean War showed that a new tank was urgently needed, so a modified M46 chassis was fitted with the T42 tank turret mounting the 90mm T119 Gun, with improvements in armor protection, cooling system and fan control, and a new electrical system, resulting in the M47 Patton Medium Tank, named for General George S. Patton, the famed armor commander of World War II. The M47 had a hull of cast sections welded together with two escape hatches in the hull floor, a Continental Model AV-1790-5B, 7 or 7B, V-12, 4 cycle air-cooled gasoline engine, an Allison Model CD 850-4, 4A, or 4B transmission, and a generator driven by a Wisconsin TFT two-cylinder gasoline engine when the main engine was shut off. It had an action radius of 100 miles and could fire 16 rounds per minute in rapid fire and 8 rounds per minute in sustained fire. After several years it was replaced in service by the M48 Patton, a direct development of the M47, but although discontinued by the U.S. Army, it became standard equipment in many other armies throughout the world and served in fifteen countries as late as the 1970s. This M47 Patton Medium Tank was manufactured in 1951 by the Detroit Tank Arsenal of the Chrysler Corporation and the American Locomotive Company, and its 90mm T119 Gun was made by Watervliet Arsenal in New York. It weighed 101,775 pounds, carried a 90mm T119 gun with cylindrical deflectors, two .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns, and one .30 caliber M1919A4 Browning machine gun, had a crew of five, could reach 37 miles per hour, and had armor varying from 1 to 4.6 inches.

Georgia · United States