All,

I saw a thread recently that said that the M1A1's that the Marines used in DS had no markings on them other than a "USMC XXXXX" stencil on the rear hull corner.
I have not been able to find any pics of one except for a couple close-ups of the turret of one in a copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine that I have had since the war ended. I want to build one because it shows a shot of a HUGE belt of .50cal hanging out of the TC's gun in a big pile on the turret deck inside a enclosure made of sand bags. I'm not sure how common this was, but I want to build it.
I guess what I'm asking is this....did the USMC tracks even have the Coalition chevrons on them? Anyone know of any gun-tube names?
I have read that they were HA models, is that correct?
Any specifics on these little photographed tanks would be outstanding

Thanks,
Dave Lueck

I'm sure our resident USMC experts will be along soon, but this is what I have been told by them and what I know.

USMC M1A1s in ODS were US Army M1A1HAs that were drawn from PrePo stocks (1BN) and a BDE from 2AR, 2nd Tiger BDE, was assigned to the USMC to support them. USMC did not own any of their own Abrams at that time. As such, they had standard Army smoke launchers, not the later USMC 8-shot ones on post ODS USMC M1A1HCs, and no deep water wading gear, or any USMC specific items. Very few, if any had more markings than the USMC XXXXX registration #s. Coallition Chevrons were not painted on most, if any of them. Personalized barrel names and names on the turret, etc. were not common and I haven't seen any examples of them.

Howdy David. The M1A1s that the USMC 2nd and 4th Tank battalions used were originally shipped over from CONUS and destined for the 3rd ACR. The USMC did have posession of their own some M1A1s at the time but had none in theater. They were being used by the NETT(New Equipment Training Team ) training crewman at 29 Palms, CA. As Gino points out the borrowed tanks used in DS/DS had the older six shot smoke grenade launchers. In addition they were equipped with T-158 track(two rectangle shaped track shoes per block). There were also all sorts of unit (company chevrons)and crew markings/bore evacuator names(squaddie humor?) applied to them to include the Coalitions mandatory inverted "V" which was applied to everything that rolled across the LD(Line of departure) into Kuwait. Go to www.usmc.mil and search the photo archive or the Defense Visual Information Center website for reference photos. Use key words like Abrams, tanks, 2nd Tanks, B Co Yakima, Marine tanks and so on and you you will get some hits. There is also the Concord Publications #7502 M1A1/A2 Abrams by Walter Bohm. On pages 12-14 there are some pictures of Abrams in DS/DS used by the USMC both during the war and after they were returned to the US Army in Europe. Just be aware that some of the photo captions in the book are incorrect or SWAGs. Happy USMC modeling! Out here.