page_title: M41 Walker Bulldog
section_title: West Germany
hierarchical_section_title: M41 Walker Bulldog / Service history / Other foreign service / West Germany
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kampfgruppe A 3 der 3. Panzerdivision mit etwa 100 Panzern und Selbstfahrlafetten, 500 Räderfahrzeugen und rund 3.000 Soldaten im Raum Trittau und Neumünster. Im Bild Panzer vom Typ M 41 in Trittau in Bereitschaftsstellung.
context_page_description: The M41 Walker Bulldog, officially 76-mm Gun Tank, M41, was an American light tank developed for armed reconnaissance purposes. It was produced by Cadillac between 1951 and 1954 and marketed successfully to the United States Army as a replacement for its aging fleet of World War II vintage M24 Chaffee tanks. Although engineered as a reconnaissance vehicle, the M41's weight and armament also made it effective in the close infantry support role and for rapid airborne deployments. Upon entering US service, all M41s received the designation Little Bulldog and subsequently, Walker Bulldog after the late General Walton Walker, who was killed in a Jeep accident in 1950. The M41 was the first postwar American light tank to see worldwide service, and was exported in considerable numbers by the United States, particularly to Asia.
  Development of the M41 proceeded slowly until the outbreak of the Korean War, when the US Army's renewed demands for more tanks resulted in its being rushed into production.
context_section_description: The M41 Walker Bulldog was the first postwar tank to be adopted by the Bundeswehr after its formation in 1955. In German service, it was primarily utilized for its traditional role of reconnaissance. Each Bundeswehr division was organized with an integral armored reconnaissance battalion of one M41 company and two companies of Schützenpanzer SPz 11-2 Kurz tracked scout vehicles. The concept of light tanks proved unpopular with the Bundeswehr, and by 1966 all its M41s had been retired and replaced with the much heavier M48 Patton and Leopard 1 in armored reconnaissance battalions. Additionally, the M41 was used in a tank destroyer role until 1969, first in divisional tank destroyer battalions and later also in the tank destroyer platoon of the heavy company of a mechanized infantry battalion.
caption: M41 tank of the 3rd Panzer Division's Kampfgruppe A 3 during the Manöver Südwind exercise in the Trittau and Neumünster area, 2 October 1957.
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