Hello everybody!
After building all kinds of captured tanks the last couple of months I thought I would realize a project that I've had in mind for some years now - to build two M3 tanks in a different setting than North Africa, namely the CBI (China-Burma-India) theater of operations.
Since I have a special love for bulky, square tanks, the M3 is one of my favories. But I also find the combat history of the M3 interesting.
Here we have a tank that first saw action (atleast on the North African front) in May 1942. Begining with the introduction of the M4 by the British in October and the Americans in November that year it was gradually being phased-out, even though it was used up until the Axis surrendered in May 1943. That's a pretty short life span. The performance of the tank was not a huge success. It did it's job, but not much more than that. The Russians held the tank in low regard when they used it on the Eastern front, something one can tell from its russian nickname "A coffin for seven brothers". 
But then the M3's got a second (or third) chance! Some 800 were deployed with the Australian forces and another 900 were used by the Indian forces in Burma. And in Burma it performed quite well. When it was not forced into tank-to-tank combat and not facing heavy AT-weapons, it could be used to provide some badly needed infantery support, takings out Japanese bunkers and stong points. In this role it became quite a success. A couple of years ago I saw a TV-documentary about the tanks used in CBI, and I recall that the narrator said something like this: "The M3 were to the Japanese what the Tigers were to the western allied forces. Maybe one should call them Bengal Tigers". I found the comment quite catchy, hence the subject of the thread.
After some research I thought I would build two different versions. All versions, except the M3A2, were used in the CBI, and judging from pictures I found on IWM's database there were quite a mix of verisions even within a single unit. Some were Lees and some were Grants. One can also note a lot of modifications. For example, the Lees had their machine gun turret removed and replaced with the Grant commander hatch, the radio antennas were placed on the front left mud guard and were a lot longer than usual, smoke dischargers were monted on the turrets, the engine decks were often covered with protective mesh and the front of the hull was covered with a generous amount of spare tracks.
After some thinking I settled for the following versions:
The first is an M3A3 ( twin diesel engine and welded hull). It was originally suppsed to have be fitted with the Grant turret and other British modifications, but I chose to remove the turret and make it into an improvised open top vehicle, that resembled an AFV version that were used. On this tank I had to rebuild the whole engine deck into the diesel version.
The second is an M3A5 (twin diesel engine and riveted hull), with the Lee turret and pretty much all of the modifications I listed above. Since this
one is going to be littered with equpiment I didn't bother to rebuild
the engine deck since it won't be visible anyway.
Both tanks belong to the 254th Indian tank regiment which fought in Burma in 1943-44.
Here are two pics that I used as a source of inspiration. (It was not my intention to build exact copies of the tanks in these pics.)
Here's where I'm at right now, in different stages of the painting process. The base color of the M3A3 is Tamiya "Dark Green" and for the M3A5 I chose the lighter "Olive Drab":
Here's some pictures of the M3A3 right before the painting started:
When I first got the idea of building these M3's I thought I would also build a diorama. Two Bengal tigers on a jungle road passing a knocked-out Japanese tank in the ditch (The road to Madalay, so to say). 
But since I havn't build a dio in years I'm not sure if I'm up to it. Well, I'll problably wait and see how the "Tigers" turn out!
Enjoy!
/Tony aka Bultenibo