M48A3

Most Army M48A3s lived long enough to be rebuilt into M48A5s and repainted in MERDC. They were considered a step above the straight M60 but used by only the Army National Guard and the Army tank battalions stationed in Korea. I'm not sure when the Active Army used them until, but the National Guard used them to the late 80s, perhaps as late as 1990-91.

Since M48A5s were all rebuilds, they could have features of either the M48A2 or M48A3.

Ok!

But they there not in A3 guise post OD in Army use?

I am not sure if the M48A3 was camouflaged in true MERDC camouflage scheme. That pattern of camouflage came around 1976 and would have taken a few years to fully implement. I know you can see various other armor of the time in locally camouflaged, but not in an official standardized paint scheme. For example, here is an M48A2C during gunery in Korea. It has a locally applied camouflage pattern, but not MERDC. It is probably safe to assume that a US Army M48A3 would be in OD green. Having said that, it is possible to see the M48A3 in what looks like a MERDC scheme in service with US allies. Countries like South Korea, Spain and Turkey used the M48A3 long after the US discontinued its use and many of our allies used MERDC-looking schemes on these tanks.

Further muddying the waters are photos of display tanks painted in current (for the time) schemes. For example, when I was stationed in Germany in the 1980s, the M4A1E8 and M24 in our area were both painted in current MERDC schemes using the same paints we used on the M60A3TTS tanks. Similar things probably happened to display M48A3s.

Now this is probably a USMC M48A3 in desert MERDC scheme, but it could also be the California National Guard.

Yes the question around painting and so on is rather hard to find out. Mostly caused by so many factors that was not implemented from above.

My plan was to combine the M48A3 in Marine markings toghether with my newly finished M151A2 Mutt painted in the Tropic scheme of MERDC. But I shall maybe try to find out an other setting for my little Ford?

That should be fine, both were used at the same time. Back in the day, a tank company was 17 tanks (3 platoons of 5 tanks each plus the commander's & XO's tanks), 3x M151 Jeeps (1st Sgt, Commander & XO), plus the maintenance and supply vehicles (3x M35 2.5t, one with a water trailer, other two with regular trailers, M113 for maintenance team and M88 for recovery).

That basic organization remained unchanged for decades until the tank platoons were reduced by 1 tank each in the early 1980s and the XO's Jeep was deleted when the HMMWV was fielded.

What about the "Band-aid" PC? Or did the doc ride with the Top?  It's been too long since I was around any armor units, but I remember that there was a 113 that was always around..

Medics always belonged to the battalion aid station. We'd get normally the same 2-man team in their M113, but it would have an HQ bumper number and not a line company bumper number.

Ok, Right, knew the doc belonged to Bn, just couldn't remember if the Band-aid did or not..  Thanks, Colonel..

here is a picture I took in 1982 at the Army's Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne NJ at a "friendship day" display

That's an M48A5 used extensively by the 40th ID, 49th and 50th Armor Divisions in the Texas, California, New Jersey and Vermont (and many more) National Guard into the 1990s and not an M48A3. Notice the 90mm main gun has been upgraded to a 105mm gun and the standard M48A1/2/3 cupola has been replaced by a low profile Israeli-type Urdan cupola which closely resembles the plain M48's original cupola. Although the cupola isn't always a good identifier for the A5 since some A5s retained the original A3 style cupola.