The British called it “Honey.” It fought on every front of the war.

When the first American light tanks reached British crews in North Africa in 1941, the tankers didn’t have much good to say about their 37mm gun. They loved everything else. It was fast, it started every morning, and it kept running in the desert when other tanks broke down. The story goes that one driver took it for a test run and said, “She’s a honey.” The name stuck.

The British named their American tanks after Civil War generals: Lee, Grant, Sherman, and this one, the Stuart, for the cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart. For a fast light tank built to scout and raid, it was a fitting name.

Stuarts fought America’s first tank battles of the war in the Philippines in December 1941. The M3A1, which entered production in 1942, refined the design: it dropped the commander’s cupola for a lower turret, added a turret basket and powered traverse, and kept the gyrostabilizer that helped the gunner aim on the move. More than 4,600 M3A1s were built.

Under the rear deck was something you wouldn’t expect in a tank: a seven-cylinder radial aircraft engine. It gave a 14-ton tank a top speed of around 36 mph. Inside, the four-man crew was cramped, and the commander loaded the gun himself.

By 1943, the 37mm couldn’t hurt a Panzer IV from the front, and in Europe the Stuart moved to reconnaissance and screening work. In the Pacific it stayed a frontline tank, because there it faced lighter Japanese armor and its gun was still enough. Stuarts fought in North Africa, Italy, Northwest Europe, Burma, the Pacific islands, and on the Eastern Front with the Red Army through Lend-Lease.

Outgunned by the middle of the war, it never stopped being useful.

What you’re building:

• 601 pieces in 1:28 scale
• 3 crew figures included
• The M3A1 profile: low welded turret without the commander’s cupola, the 37mm main gun, and the vertical-volute suspension
• Elevating main gun
• Rotating turret
• Opening hatches
• Working tracks 
• 100% pad-printed, zero stickers
• Pairs with our Type 97 Chi-Ha for a Pacific face-off