M103: The Tank With No Name

In 1950, the USA was facing a tank crisis. And this was supposed to be part of the solution. But it would hardly ever be used. It was never taken to war. And unlike just about every other US tank, it didn't even get a name. The M103 has to be in the running for the ultimate panic buy. And such purchases are often followed by buyer's remorse. This is the story of the M103 heavy tank and the panic that produced it. The M103, this is a later M103A2, looks like what you'd get if you asked a six year old to draw a tank. There's no doubt about the fact that this is a very big, heavy tank. It weighs 56.7 tons. And the armour, cast armour on the front here, is five inches thick. The original M103, the follow on M103A1, had an 810 horsepower gasoline continental AV 1790 engine and a General Motors automatic transmission. That was the same powertrain as the M48 medium tank it would fight alongside. But that was 10 tons lighter. As such, the M103 was 7 miles per hour slower than the M48 with a top speed of 21 miles an hour. Maximum range was just 80 miles, although this was similar to the first M48s. But this one, the A2, has the 750 horsepower AVDS 1790 engine from the M60. Because that's diesel, which is a far more efficient fuel, and because the capacity of the fuel tank has been up from 280 gallons to 440, the range this tank can do has gone from 80 to 300 miles. It's also capable of doing 23 miles an hour. Just like earlier tanks, there's a crew of five. But in this case, the fifth man isn't a bare machine gunner. He's a second loader. This is because of the powerful and extremely accurate M58 120mm gun. That can penetrate 230mm of armour at 1,000 yards and up to 210 at 2,000. That should be enough for the heaviest Soviet armour. The bad news is the ammunition. It's extremely large and extremely heavy. Projectile and charge are loaded separately and each weighs 50 pounds or 23 kilograms. They need a loader each. It all looks pretty good. But just remember, we're looking at the final version. This is a tank with troubled development and a disappointing service history. That's what tends to happen when something is rushed into service. But what's the hurry? If the Soviet Union really wants peace, it must prove it by living up to the principles of the United Nations Charter. In June 1950, North Korean troops mounted a surprise attack on the South. Fears that this marked the beginning of wider moves against the West led to American intervention. But the US wasn't ready for war. Huge cuts in conventional forces meant the United States was now in a difficult position. They had built over 88,000 tanks during the Second World War, but by 1945, most of these were gone. Scrapped as obsolete, destroyed or exported. But they still had almost 30,000 on the books. 1945, with the coming peace and demobilization, there was a massive reduction in the size of US forces. The US Army declared all of their tanks, with the exception of the M4A3 76mm gunned Sherman and the new M26, obsolete. By 1949, this numbered around about 7,600 tanks, just a third of the Army's total fleet. The US Marine Corps was in an even worse position. By that year, their serviceable tank force was down to 200 M4A3s with 105mm howitzers, 100 M26s and a dozen or so flamethrowing Shermans. Both branches realized they would need new tanks of all sorts. Light, medium, heavy. Why? Because of this. The reveal of the IS-3 during the Berlin Victory Parade in 1945 has a lot to answer for in Western post-war tank development, as the Western Allies scramble for solutions to counter a new generation of Soviet armour. Five years later, faced with the IS-3, a shortage of tanks in general and modern ones in particular, and now the Korean War, which had begun very badly, the US Army declared a tank crisis and rushed their new tank project into production in what they called the Crash Programme. This meant starting to build these new tanks even before all the bugs had been ironed out. This process was called telescoping. They needed new tanks fast and they were willing to overlook the problems to get them. Before we move on, a thank you from me for watching. And if you appreciate what we're doing is not for profit, please give us a like to help get this video out to a wider audience. And if you'd like to help further, click the link here to become a YouTube member. Now, back to the M103. The race was on and the US response to the new Soviet armour threat came in the form of the T-43. T-43 was a heavy tank in every sense of the word. 60 tonnes combat weight, 5-inch thick frontal armour and a 120mm gun. However, despite the urgency, T-43 was delayed and slowed by design changes. And even as these were being made, the Army Chief of Staff was questioning the need for a heavy tank entirely. But the US Marine Corps was still interested. We are in the midst of a very critical situation. Everything that we do or say has its repercussions throughout the world. At this time, the Marine Corps' doctrine required two types of tank for amphibious landings. A lighter vehicle to come ashore with the infantry in the first wave, a role currently filled by the medium tank, and something bigger, which would therefore have to be a heavy tank, to push inland and defeat any armoured counterattacks. This was based on what was learned in September 1944 at Peleliu, when Japanese Type 95 Hargos led a counterattack against a US landing force. While the Hargos didn't prove much of a problem for the Marines' Shermans and Bazookas, the tank battalion commander was of the opinion that had the Japanese possessed better tanks, the situation might have been critical. The Marines also had the problem that they were dependent on Army programmes for their tanks. They weren't a big enough player to be able to design and order their own. So when they learned that the Army was likely to only order 80 T-43s for testing and evaluation, they were concerned the project would be cancelled entirely. And, fearing this might be their only chance to get a heavy tank, the Corps leadership quickly ordered 220. The T-43 certainly sounded promising, but even before production had finished, 114 necessary improvements had been identified. It was clear that the T-43 was nowhere near ready to enter service, and all 300 tanks were placed straight into storage or their fate was decided. How had this happened? How had they ended up with 300 unusable tanks? The culprit was telescoping. Now, what this meant is that flaws found during production either had to be ignored or production slowed down in order to make them good. And all that took time and money. Now the Korean War was over and the urgency had passed, the Army decided it could only apply the 98 simplest modifications to their 80 vehicles, which they named the M103. But this still left the tank with a number of major deficiencies. The Marines really weren't happy with this. The gunner on the M103 was overworked. He had to operate the rangefinder, gun controls and aim the gun without a ballistic computer to help him with long-range firing. The Marines wanted the commander to operate the rangefinder and they wanted a computer and backups. They also wanted a turret basket that moved with the gun and more durable tracks. Their demands were met. Between May 1957 and July 1959, the modifications were made and the vehicle emerged as the M103A1. So what did they end up with? On the M103A1 and A2, the commander operates the rangefinder, but he also lay and fire the main gun if needs be. His position is at the back of the turret, high up in the turret bottle. The gunner is down on the right. As well as his turret controls, he has an M29 periscope, M102 telescopic sight and the M14 ballistic computer. This took in information such as range and ammunition type and automatically elevated the gun as required. The M14 and the M102 were added in the A1 upgrade. The powerful recoil would rock the vehicle back on its suspension every time the gun was fired. And what that meant is the gunner would lose sight of the target. So he'd have to reacquire it in his sight after every round. That, understandably, slowed the rate of fire. In the middle of the turret, on either side of the breach, are seats for the two loaders. Although, of course, they'd fold them away and stand when they were working. There are also ammunition ready racks which extend back into the bustle. The propellant charges in particular are very long. And, as we mentioned, both projectile and charge are very heavy. Hence the need for two loaders, one for each part. The rate of fire was around five rounds a minute. The original M103 held 33 rounds. The A1 and A2 took this up to 38. The driver has a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals. And a four-position shifter for the automatic transmission. That gives you neutral, low range, high range and reverse. Now, that is nothing that a 1960s American wouldn't be familiar with from their car. M103 also has probably the best and easiest position for air filters that I've ever come across. They're just here. So, all you do is open the hatch, knock that lever down, pull it out and you can blast that over an air hose or just give it a shake. You've got a clean filter. Ideal for something like desert operation. Simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom. What they ended up with seems to be more trouble than it was worth. The M103 only lasted seven years with the Army and 15 with the Marine Corps. The Army's deployment plan was to make use of the M103's long-range hitting power, distributing them in platoons of three across West Germany. One per battalion of M48s. However, the Army quickly discovered they were underpowered and unreliable with engines and transmissions that might only hold for 500 miles and tracks that wouldn't last much longer. The 80-mile range was never good enough, but as upgraded M48s arrived that could do double this, it became a major problem. The Army also realised the Marines had been right to insist on the necessary improvements and in 1959 they obtained 72 of their M103A1s as replacements. On top of all this, the logistic requirements of these vehicles, needing different spares and ammunition and spread all over Germany, must have been daunting. By 1963, it was obvious the Soviets weren't going to build the number of heavy tanks that had concerned the Army in the first place. And there was a new US tank, the M60 MBT. It may have had less armour and firepower, but it could deal with the T-54s and 55s that now posed the main threat. Not to mention it was faster, more reliable, and presented no logistic or training issues like the isolated M103 platoons would. So the Army gave up and retired the M103. The Marines felt differently though. They'd rejected the M60 because they didn't think it was enough of an upgrade on the M48. Nothing at all on the M103. So they chose to wait until the M60's successor, the future main battle tank, was ready. But then the FMBT project was cancelled. So to keep their fleet viable, they chose to modernise their M103s with as many parts from the M60 as they could obtain. This led to the M103A2, of which 218 were converted. This is one of those. The main upgrades were the M24 Coincidence Rangefinder, which was less accurate than the M1's M15. But it was easy to use. And the AVDS 1790 diesel engine. Yet despite clinging on to the M103, the Marines didn't really have a use for them. They'd be needed in a major war when the Marine Corps would expand, but not in peacetime. They weren't deployed to Marines stationed at Okinawa in Japan as they were considered too heavy for the terrain. They took no part in the crises in Lebanon or the Dominican Republic, nor were they involved in the US Marines' most significant deployment of the era, Vietnam. Again, it was simply considered unsuitable. Their only operational deployment came in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when five M103s were assigned to the defence of the US base at Guantanamo Bay. Sending such a powerful tank wasn't an overreaction. The Cubans had IS-2s, SU-100s and T-55s. And during the 1960s, tensions were high. Most, though, went straight into storage, only coming out for a few large-scale landing exercises in training for their potential wartime role. The Marines finally pulled the plug on M103 in 1972. And they accepted the fact that if they wanted to keep their tank fleet viable, they were going to have to buy the M60. There was just nothing else. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum. And what then? The M103 is a heck of a tank. Powerful, capable and incredibly imposing to be around. But did the Americans really need it? Was it the ultimate panic buy? Looking at it from 2025, you probably have to say, no, they didn't. And yes, it probably was. However, if you're looking at things through the eyes of the Americans of the 1950s, you probably have to say, yes, we do. And yes, but. At the time, there was a point to building a heavy tank. The British reacted in a similar way to the potential threat of thousands of IS-3s and whatever was ready to follow them by building Conqueror, although this had an even shorter life than M103. The Korean War had highlighted fears that existing US tanks would not be good or plentiful enough to stop the spread of communism. So rushing a new heavy tank in service, even if it's less than perfect, is an understandable reaction. But it nearly always comes to price. The Army's decision to telescope their tank development probably included an element of panic. It was the Army, after all, that called it a tank crisis. But then, they were the first to be consumed by buyer's remorse. The Marines, on the other hand, seemed determined to make it work. After all, their doctrine said they needed it. But they never really found a use for them in reality. And perhaps that ambiguity is symbolized by the fact that, alone amongst post-war US tanks, the M103 never got a name. Let's keep this in perspective, though. With just 300 built, it represents less than 1.5% of US tank production between 1945 and 1960. So we're left with a piece of fascinating Cold War history and one that never fails to turn heads in our Tankfest displays. Was the M103 the ultimate panic buy? And what would you have called it? Let us know in the comments below. And thanks for watching.