New to the armor scene - just picked up Tamiya’s Bulldog for a steal at Hobby Lobby. The decal options are one US Army, or two different Japan Ground Self Defence Force schemes.
I am still kind of conufsed - during the Korean war, how would this tank have been operated? In the instructions, it shows for the JSDF with a tiger head, and Japanese characters on the rear of the tank. However, on the side of the toolboxes it shows USA and then a serial number still.
So, was this a US tank with American soldiers, which was based in occupied Japan at the time? Or was it actually manned by Japanese?
The Japanese Self Defence Forces were established following the Occupation of Japan, which ended in 1952. The Walker Bulldog entered JGSDF service in 1961(?), so I would assume they were wholly operated by Japanese crews.
I would speculate that it’s quite possible that the Japanese M41’s were drawn from US Army stocks and some vehicles may have temporarily carried US serials.
Or possibly it’s an error in the instructions. [:-^]
The directions are messed up. The USA Serial Number should be on decal option C (US Army tank) with turret number 532, not with option B (JGSDF tank). You can see what I mean below.
The Walker Bulldog saw limited combat with the U.S. Army during the Korean War, but for the most part, the conflict served as a testing ground to work out the tank’s deficiencies, especially with its rangefinder. At the time, it was designated as the T-41, and was rushed to the battlefield even before its first test run.[citation needed] This was due to the fact that the North Koreans were supplied with Soviet T-34 tanks, which were superior to the M-24. By 1961, one hundred fifty were delivered to the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force to supplement their Type 61 medium tanks.
Whomever wrote that Wikipedia entry needs to have his/her headgear flushed out. The T41 wasn’t rushed to the battlefield as only 3 T41 pilot models were produced and were used for testing in CONUS. It was equipped with a Vickers fire control system and a coincidence rangefinder. The Vickers system had many problems and was deleted along with the coincidence rangefinder. This along with other changes resulted in a brand new turret being developed. This new turret was used on the T41E1 which became the M41 series of tank. Production on the T41E1 started in 1951. Two types of fire control systems ended up being produced. Depending on the type the tank was equipped with, it was designated T41E1 or T41E2. The designations were changed to M41 and M41A1 respectively in May 1953. The M41 series wasn’t deployed with the U.S. Army until 1953 due to the many bugs that needed to be worked out. By the time the Walker Bulldog series reached Korea, the truce was already in place.
Huh, thanks for the info. So, that means the USA M41’s never really saw any combat, right? They came too late for Korea and were phasing out by Vietnam? I was hoping to model the tank in a battle type diorama scene. Sounds like I’ll end up modelling it sitting behind a barbed wire fence at an armory… [:P]
Yep. No M41’s saw combat in U.S. service, unless you count their use in helping to quell some of the race riots in the 60’s. They’ve seen combat with several nations including South Vietnam, Lebanon, and others.
