"M26 Pershing TO&E for WWII and Korea?" Topic

I am looking for the TO&E for an M26 Pershing tank battalion for World War Two and the Korean War / Cold War. I would like to know all the Jeeps, trucks and other support vehicles. Also did they have three medium tank companies and a light tank company in the battalion?

I know they were not used in battalion strength in WWII but I would think there would still be an TO&E for them.

Thanks.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Hmmm, sorry, don't know the battalion level details, but companies consisted of an HQ with two tanks, and then three platoons of five vehicles each.

I believe in very late WWII even, numbers were very restricted, so there may have only been one whole company available to an entire division.

Perhaps two companies, or so max. available, before the end of the war for all of Europe. Don't quote me on that, but they were very scarce.

Same TO&E up through the 1950s, when they were replaced by other tanks, e.g. M-46, M-47, M-48, etc.

I believe I read that some M-26s were upgraded to M46s, if I understood that right. Can't recall right now what the differences between the two were, but think they were relatively minor.

The M46 didn't last long in service, nor did the M47 either.

Suggest you check out "From Camp Colt to Desert Storm" a history of armor theory and production in US armed forces. It has a chapter on the crisis of armored vehicles in US/UN forces, the piecemeal dispensing and distribution of tanks, and the frantic overhauling of archaic and worn-out vehicles, including the upgrading of M26 Pershings to M46 Pattons.

The big differences between the M26 and the M46 is a new powerplant, which neccessitated a redesign of the rear hull. The engine deck had louvered doors similar to the M47, and mufflers on the rear fenders similar again to the M47, M41, etc. The new powerplant gave the tank much better power/weight ratio and mobility compared to the m26, with many (if not most) being rebuilds. IIRC the M46 lasted well into the '50s, maybe even into the early '60s, though no longer frontline service.

Damon.

There is information online that states 70th Armored had two line companies of Easy 8s and a C Company of Pershings for this period. The count for tanks per company was 22 (1 each for CO and XO and four platoons of five tanks each).

Several online commentaries note the M26 being pulled from Korea service in 1951 and replaced by Pattons/other tanks. Pershings were not well reportedly even with the larger gun due to mechanical problems, Korean hills not being good tank country, etc.

Seems like a lot of online sources copy a study emphasizing the need for the Army not to repeat the materiel readiness errors (e.g., having to pull Pershings off pedestals at monuments, cobbling together one platoon of Pershings from occupation forces in Japan to ship to Korea, etc.) of Korean War in more modern times.

Lots of Shermans filled out the slots in the armored units.

In WWII in Europe the M26 was deployed in small batches only because it took a while to prepare them for issue, and to train the troops. Still there must have been a TO&E for the time when they could be issued in full battalions. After all, they did not know when the war would end.

As Korean developed, the M3 halftrack was going out of service, so I suspect the TO&E may have been changed, also the light tank was going out of favor too.

I like to build full size units, I have over 50 HO scale Pershings and I am trying to get the other ancillary vehicles to go with them.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

There were no Pershing battalions in WW2. They were considered experimental (still T26, not M26), with a few given to various armored divisions to try out. The 9th AD gathered them into a few platoons, each to a different company. The other ADs, I believe, scattered them in 1s and 2s. Presumably, had the war in Europe continued for another 6 months or so, Pershings would have been substituted for Shermans in the regular TO&E.

Yea, even the US TO&Es pretty much continued to have 17 tank companies, up through the 1960s, and 1970s, IIRC.

This might help
link

RICHARD VAN TASSELL

Unit: COMPANY C, 64TH TANK BATTALION

Service or Relationship: ARMY VETERAN

Comments: In 1955 and early 1956 until my discharge, I served as Communications Chief of C company, maintaining the 3 transceivers and the intercom system in each of the tanks and APC's of the company (tube radios, all of them), plus the company's field telephones and the twisted-pair wire to connect them with other companies and battalion HQ. At that time the Korean war was over, and the 3rd Infantry Division was garrisoned out in the boondocks of Fort Benning, with the 64th Tank Battalion still attached to it. In those days, the name of the battalion did not include the word Heavy or Medium. It had 4 companies: A, B, C, and HQ. My recollection is that each of A, B, and C Companies had 8 tanks, two of which were the older M47's. and the rest M48's, all equipped with 90-mm guns. Each company also had an APC , and HQ co had several of them. We spent a lot of time driving those tanks and APCs through the red dirt of the backwoods at Benning. Of course, C Company was last, so we ate a lot of that red dirt thrown up by our comrades ahead of us in the column. The highlight of my time with this unit was participation in maneuvers in Louisiana. Our own topkick never poked his head out the hatch of his APC during our traverse of Mississippi both ways. He said he was wanted in that state, and that was the reason. But maybe it was just that all that corn likker made him lazy."

Also:

LARRY HAMMES wrote on August 4, 2013

Service or Relationship: FAMILY MEMBER

Comments: My father, Norman W. Hammes, was a platoon leader in Company A, 78th Heavy Tank Battalion. His was the first tank unit to land in South Korea in early July 1950.

When they entered combat somewhere south of Osan, covering the withdrawal, they had no armor piercing or HE ammunition for their main guns, only practice rounds, which fragmented well for anti-personnel use, but were hopeless against the North Korean T-34 tanks. They could only hope for a lucky shot to knock off a track or jam the turret ring of the T-34s. The M-24's were so lightly armored that when they returned to the lager to re-arm,they used tent pegs to plug the holes in the sides of the turrets where they'd been hit by NK anti-tank rifles.
Their M-24's didn't last long against the T-34's. They had all been destroyed within a couple of months and the battalion was disbanded, re-equipped, I believe with M-4's, and remade into a recon unit, according to what I've read."

And link