The M48 Patton began in 1950 as the T48 project, launched in a panic as the Korean War broke out and US planners feared Soviet heavy tanks like the IS-3 massing in Europe. With the M26 Pershing and M46 judged inadequate, the Army chose to test and mass-produce the tank at the same time. The design moved to a four-man crew, put the driver in the center of the hull and dropped the bow machine gunner to free space for ammunition. General Bruce C. Clarke’s wish list asked for a fast, armored, swimming, low-maintenance vehicle and added that it should also be invisible. Early gasoline M48 and M48A1 models managed 0.33 miles per gallon and a range of roughly 70 to 75 miles, so crews strapped four 55-gallon fuel drums to the rear deck.

The M48 never fought the European war it was built for. From 1965 the diesel M48A3 served in Vietnam, clearing mines and supporting infantry along Highway 19. After US forces withdrew, the ARVN 20th Tank Regiment was ambushed on April 23, 1972 by infantry firing wire-guided 9M14 Malyutka (Sagger) missiles, and by early May it had lost every M48. Pakistan used M48s against India in 1965 and 1971, Iran lost 150 at the Battle of Abadan, and Israel rebuilt them as the Magach with 105mm guns and explosive reactive armor. Pakistani M48s supported US troops in Mogadishu in 1993, Turkey still fields more than 750, and Thailand sent M48s to its border with Cambodia in 2025.

• 120 hulls cast with incorrect ballistic protection were designated M48C and restricted to training at Fort Knox.
• The M1 commander’s cupola was so cramped that the .50 caliber gun jammed and standard ammunition boxes would not fit.
• A stereoscopic rangefinder fed a mechanical ballistic computer whose shaped metal cams solved the trajectory of the 90mm shell.
• Explosive reactive armor on the Magach detonates outward and throws a steel plate across a shaped charge’s metal jet.
• The episode credits the tank’s long life to spare volume in its hull, which later held diesel engines, 105mm guns and reactive armor.