The day the American M-26 Pershing tank knocked out the Soviet T-34 tank in Korea

@DefAviation ES 1·14·2023 · 20:00 0

The M-26 Pershing was a medium tank introduced by the United States at the end of World War II, playing a very limited role in it.

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During that war, the M-26 Pershing starred in a famous tank duel in Cologne against a German Panther. Thanks to its armor and its 90mm gun, the M-26 was the only American tank capable of fighting the Panther, Tiger and King Tiger, which were the best German tanks. The arrival of the Cold War brought the M-26 face to face on the battlefield with another excellent tank of World War II: the Soviet T-34.

At the beginning of the Korean War (1950-1953), the US deployed M-24 Chaffee light tanks, which proved to be no match for the T-34. The M-4A3 Sherman medium tank was up to the task, but the Soviets were able to supply North Korea with large numbers of T-34s, putting the UN forces in serious trouble. This situation led the US to deploy the M-26 Pershing in Korea. Would he be able to successfully fight the famous Soviet tank?

On August 17, 1950, near Busan, South Korea, a US Marine company made up of four M-26s engaged in combat with four T-34s. The difference was staggering: the M-26's 90mm gun proved capable of piercing the T-34's turret and causes shells to exit the rear. Although the T-34 was a tough tank, that fight ended with three North Korean tanks destroyed and not even one M-26 damaged, as the T-34's 76.2mm rounds proved ineffective to penetrate the tough armor of the M-26 (with a thickness of 102 mm at the front of its barge, that is, more than double the 47 mm of the T-34 at that same point).

Although the M-26 was not deployed as widely as the M-4A3 Sherman in Korea, it scored 32% of the victories against the 97 North Korean T-34s destroyed in that war, in which tank battles took place on a small scale and mainly during the 1950s, due to the mountainous nature of Korea. That was the last war of the M-26, since it was soon replaced by the short-lived M-46 and by the M-47.

The excellent channel Yarnhub has today published a video recreating that historic combat of 1950 between four M-26 and four T-34:

Once again, the quality of the video is commendable, as you can see in these screenshots.