Friday, November 29, 2019

M56 Scorpion


This mobile 90 mm cannon was designed in the late 1940s, and used by the U.S. Marines during the Korean War. It was capable of being parachuted into battle. But it was not widely adopted for a number of reasons. It provided no armor protection to its crew of four. The only piece of armor on it is the blast shield around the cannon. It was not amphibious. A total of 325 of them were manufactured and existing ones are now in museums or displayed at National Guard buildings. Others had the cannon removed to provide a tank driving vehicle for training.

10 comments:

  1. Even bad design decisions can make it if the pressure is too high.

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  2. From all the flaws the M56 Scorpion has I think it was the right move to retire them.

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  3. Strange the tank wasn't armorized. Interesting though
    MB

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  4. Maybe they thought the others had bows and arrows :)

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  5. An expensive training tank or museum piece.

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  6. Parachuting into battle. No armor? Would that make it faster, lighter, and easier to manipulate.

    We live about 100 mi. from a General Patton museum. Outdoors is a collection of equipment he used. Impressive.

    Over from Bill's site. I'll visit again.

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