Being an old tanker, I remember the value of having a guy in the platoon that could keep the personnel heater in a tank operational. I was blessed, and we wisely had the extra parts hidden away so that all 5 tanks in the platoon had operational ones. So, the question is about personnel heaters inside of tanks. Did the WW2 tanks of both sides have heaters? I don't remember if M-48's had them Rob, I guess you are the resident expert. So when did US start putting them in? If anyone knows about WW2 German, I really need that info as well. Plan to do a winter dio and how I place snow is the concern.

My M-48 had a heater, as did my M-60A1 and A3. Problem was some dam idiot would always shut them off the wrong way and flood them, thus rendering them unusable. We also were not allowed to use them for tactical and safety reasons most of the time. On the 48 and 60 series the exhust pipe for the heater exists on the right side about in line with the drivers hatch, you can use it to cook on by the way. It also burns what little hair I had once.

Although my M48A5 tanking days were a couple of weeks in the summer, the M48 AVLB we had did have a heater. I do not know when tanks started getting heaters. I do know that the Tank Workshop resin M41 Walker Bulldog mantlet set comes with the auxillary exhaust muffler. I wonder if this is also the heater exhaust?

Well,the M-41's had em.
Page 32 of the Hunnicutt Sheridan book has a TM picture of the M-41 drivers area,and to the right of the gear shift,is a personnel heater data plate,attached to the heater.And there is a better picture of the whole thing on page 30

OK that means we've used these for sometime. Any of our old Sherman experts out there know if we had one back then? How about WW2 German spcifically the King Tiger? Am planning a pre Bulge dio and if tey had a front heter, the snow wouldn't be on the front deck.

Rob. I think the auxillary exhaust is for the Little Joe. At VMI, we had the M-48a1 gas burners. To warm the engines we ran the Little joe to start them in winter. It was located on the upper right side of the rear deck near the turret.