The 65-ton M103 Heavy Tank served with the US Army and US Marine Corps (USMC) during the height of the Cold War from 1957-1974. Its whole design was predicated on the need to counter Soviet heavy tanks, and thus it boasted a rifled 120mm M58 cannon for long-distance engagements. This gun fired a separate-loading round, which required two loaders, thus giving five men in the crew. The armor was up to 180mm thick on the front of the turret. Some 300 T43E1 tanks were built, of which 219 were later converted to M103A1 standard, and 153 rebuilt into M103A2.

The M103 (officially designated 120mm Gun Combat Tank M103) served the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps during the Cold War. Until the development of the M1 Abrams in the mid-1970s, it was the heaviest and most heavily armed tank in US service. The M103 was manufactured at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant and the first units were accepted in 1957. The last M103s were withdrawn from service in 1974.

Like the contemporary British Conqueror tank, the M103 was designed to counter Soviet heavy tanks, such as the Joseph Stalin tank or the T-10 if a conventional World War III broke out. Its long-ranged 120 mm cannon was designed to hit enemy tanks at extreme distances. In 1953-54 a series of 300 tanks, initially designated T43E1, were built by Chrysler at the Newark plant. Testing was unsatisfactory; the tanks failing to meet Continental Army Command's standards and the tanks were put into storage in August 1955. After 98 improvement modifications were approved, on April, 26th, 1956, the tank was designated the M103 Heavy Tank. Of the 300 T43E1s built, 80 went to the US Army (74 of which were rebuilt to M103 standard), and 220 were accepted by the US Marine Corps, to be used as infantry support, rebuilt to improved M103A1, then M103A2 standards.

The engine and transmission were never modified enough to give the extra power needed for the greater weight of the M103, and as a result, the tank was relatively underpowered and the drive systems were fragile.

The turret of the M103 was larger than that of the M48 or the M60 to make room for the huge 120 mm gun and the two loaders assigned to it, in addition to the gunner and the commander. The driver sat in the hull. The gun was capable of elevation from +15 to -8 degrees.

Pictured here is a 1:72 scale US M103A1 heavy tank that served with an unidentified unit, then deployed to Germany during 1959. Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Length: 5-1/4-inches
Width: 2-inches

Release Date: January 2016

Historical Account: "Exercise Reforger" - Exercise Reforger (from return of forces to Germany) was an annual exercise conducted, during the Cold War, by NATO. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO had the ability to quickly deploy forces to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. Although most troops deployed were from the United States, the operation also involved a substantial number of troops from other NATO nations including Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Reforger exercise itself was first conceived in 1967. The Johnson administration announced plans to withdraw approximately two divisions from Europe during 1968. As a demonstration of its continuing commitment to the defense of NATO and to illustrate its capability of rapid reinforcement, a large scale force deployment was planned that would deploy a division or more to West Germany in a regular annual exercise. The first such exercise was conducted beginning on January 6th, 1969. These exercises continued annually past the end of the Cold War, except for the year 1989, until 1993. Reforger 1975 marked the operational presence of the United States Marine Corps in Europe for the first time since World War I when the 2nd Marine Division's 32nd Marine Amphibious Unit (32nd MAU) was deployed from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina as part of that exercise. Reforger 1988 was billed as the largest European ground maneuver since the end of World War II as 125,000 troops were deployed.

Reforger was not merely a show of force-in the event of a conflict, it would be the actual plan to strengthen the NATO presence in Europe. In that instance, it would have been referred to as Operation Reforger. Important components in Reforger included the Military Airlift Command, the Military Sealift Command, and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

The US Army also increased its rapid-reinforcement capability by pre-positioning huge stocks of equipment and supplies in Europe at POMCUS sites. The maintenance of this equipment has provided extensive on-the-job training to reserve-component support units.

Operation Bright Star, the biannual deployment of American army and air force units to Egypt, serves much the same purpose as Reforger did.