Tamiya 1/35 Tank Destroyer – M36 Jackson

Among Tamiya’s 1/35 scale models there is a truly remarkable vehicle – the M36 Jackson, the best tank destroyer fielded by the US Army during World War II. It was the long-awaited answer to the German Tigers and Panthers, which had previously resisted the firepower of Shermans and earlier tank destroyers.

US Army doctrine – tanks for maneuver, tank destroyers for fighting tanks

Unlike the Germans, the US Army doctrine assumed that tanks were designed for deep operations and maneuver warfare, while the actual fighting against enemy armor was to be carried out by specialized tank destroyer units.

The first attempts, like the M3 GMC (a 75 mm gun mounted on a halftrack chassis), were makeshift solutions. The next step was the M10 Wolverine, based on the Sherman chassis but fitted with a 76 mm gun in an open turret. Although it offered more firepower, its armor was still weak. 

At the same time, the M18 Hellcat was introduced – a vehicle designed from the ground up as a tank destroyer. It was exceptionally fast, agile, and had a low silhouette, making it hard to hit. Unfortunately, it carried only a 76 mm gun, which proved insufficient against Tigers and Panthers.

• As General Omar Bradley famously put it: “We didn’t need tank killers, but killing tanks.”

A new weapon – the 90 mm gun

A real breakthrough came in late 1944 and early 1945, when two new American vehicles armed with a powerful 90 mm gun appeared on the battlefield:

• M26 Pershing – a modern tank, but too heavy and logistically demanding (bridges with 30-ton limits were a serious problem).

• M36 Jackson – a tank destroyer built on the M10 chassis, equipped with a new open-topped turret and, most importantly, the 90 mm gun. Thanks to its lighter design and use of the familiar Sherman running gear, the Jackson could reach any place where standard US tanks operated.

The M36 proved to be a highly effective answer to German heavy armor and became one of the most formidable Allied vehicles of the war’s final months.

Tamiya 1/35 kit – the atmosphere of 1945

The Tamiya 1/35 M36 Jackson captures the character of this vehicle in every detail. Its open turret is highly detailed, allowing a glimpse inside the fighting compartment. To add more life to the model, Tamiya includes a figure of an American tank crewman armed with an M3 “Grease Gun” submachine gun. Dressed in his coveralls, he perfectly recreates the atmosphere of the victorious but muddy spring of 1945, on the borders of the collapsing Third Reich.