The M48 Patton is a main battle tank (MBT) that was designed in the United States. It was the third tank to be officially named after General George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle. It was a further development of the M47 Patton tank. The M48 Patton was in U.S. service until replaced by the M60 and served as the U.S. Army and Marine Corps's primary battle tank in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It was widely used by U.S. Cold War allies, especially other NATO countries.

The M48 Patton tank was designed to replace the previous M47 Pattons and M4 Shermans. Although largely resembling the M47, the M48 was a completely new design. It was the last U.S. tank to mount the 90 mm tank gun, with the last model, the M48A5, being upgraded to carry the new standard weapon of the M60, the 105mm gun. Some M48A5 models served well into the 1980s with American forces, and many M48s remain in service in other countries. The Turkish Army has the largest number of modernized M48 MBTs, with more than 1,400 in its inventory. Of these, around 1,000 have been phased out or are in storage, or have been modified to ARVs.

Pictured here is a 1:72 scale replica of a US M48A3 Patton medium tank that was attached to C Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor, then participating in Operation Cedar Falls, near Saigon, Vietnam, during 1967. Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Length: 4-3/4-inches
Width: 1-1/2-inches

Release Date: February 2016

Historical Account: "The Iron Triangle" - Operation Cedar Falls was a military operation of the Vietnam War conducted primarily by US forces. The aim of this massive search and destroy operation was to eradicate the so-called "Iron Triangle", an area located in close proximity to Saigon which had become a major stronghold of the communist National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong. The operation began on January 8th, 1967 and ended on January 28th, 1967.

Operation Cedar Falls was the largest American ground operation of the Vietnam war: Two Army divisions, one infantry and one paratrooper brigade, as well as one armored cavalry regiment participated in the operation; altogether, Operation Cedar Falls involved 30,000 US and South Vietnamese troops. The Vietcong, however, chose to evade this massive military force by either fleeing across the border to Cambodia or hiding in a complex system of underground tunnels. Nevertheless, the Allied forces uncovered and destroyed some of the tunnel complexes as well as large stockpiles of Vietcong supplies. In the course of the operation, so-called tunnel rats were introduced to infiltrate Vietcong tunnel systems.

In an attempt to permanently destroy the Iron Triangle as a Vietcong stronghold, Operation Cedar Falls also entailed the complete deportation of the region's civilian population to so-called New Life Villages, the destruction of their homes, as well as the defoliation of whole areas.

Most senior officers involved in planning and executing the operation later evaluated it as a success. Most journalists and military historians, however, paint a bleaker picture. They argue that Cedar Falls failed to achieve its main goal since the Vietcong's setback in the Iron Triangle proved to be only temporary. Moreover, critics argue that the harsh treatment of the civilian population was both morally questionable as well as detrimental to the US effort to win Vietnamese hearts and minds driving many into the ranks of the NLF instead. Therefore, some authors cite Operation Cedar Falls as a major example for the misconceptions of the American strategy in Vietnam and for its morally troublesome consequences.