Includes five M24 Chaffee Light Tanks & one Tank Commander sprue.
The M24 Chaffee was developed to overcome the inadequacies of the M5A1 Stuart Light tank. These shortcomings included the poor performance of the M5A1 37mm gun. Troops had been complaining about the performance of the 37mm gun as early as 1942 during the campaign in North Africa.
By 1944, the US Army was fighting in Western Europe and was facing the cream of the German Panzer Divisions. What was required was a tank with a high degree of mobility and a gun powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with opposing armour. The Chrysler Division of the General Motors Corporation was entrusted with the task of developing the new design. While Chrysler took care of the automotive package, the Rock Island Arsenal developed a short-recoil 75mm gun that utilised the same ammunition and enjoyed the same ballistic performance as the M3 75mm used in the M4 Sherman.
As dissatisfaction with the M5A1 became more widespread, demand for the M24
grew but, due to logistic problems, delivery of the first batch of M24s did not
occur until December 1944. Upon arrival they were urgently thrown into action
in an attempt to stem the German offensive in the Ardennes. By the end of the
war in Europe,
the M24 made up 34 percent of light tanks deployed by the US Army. Performance
in the field was much improved
over that of the M5A1; this ensured that the Chaffee would continue serving with
the US Army during the
post-war years.
