Tanks of the United States saw limited action in the battle for Normandy as armored recovery vehicles with dummy guns. The M4 was the best known and most used American tank of World War II. Christened "Sherman" by the British, it was named for the famous US Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman. The M4 Sherman was a medium tank that proved itself in the Allied operations in North Africa, Europe and the Pacific theaters of war in World War II. The Sherman was a relatively inexpensive, easy to maintain and produce combat system. Similar to production efforts on the part of the Soviet Union
Tanks of the U.S. in the Cold War its derivative M46 Patton were credited with almost half of the North Korean T-34s destroyed by US tanks. Being underpowered and unreliable in the mountainous Korean terrain, all Pershings were withdrawn from Korea in 1951, and replaced with M4 Shermans and M46 Pattons. The M103 was manufactured at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant and the first units were accepted in 1957. The M103 was designed to counter Soviet heavies. Its long-ranged 120 mm cannon was designed to hit enemy tanks at extreme distances, but it was never used in combat. Of the 300 M103s built, most went to the Marines.