Hello Jordyn, @1corsair64
Welcome to our ever growing Korean War group build. Thanks for participating.

This Tamiya kit builds into a nice model. I built one of these Bulldog models, and the only change I made to mine was adding a set of AFV club individual track links. You will have fun with it... The Army had over 900 of these tanks built by March 1952. They had a lot of mechanical problems that needed to be worked out before they were placed in front line service.

Sources indicate that "some" of these 900 early tanks were shipped to Korea, and they arrived just as the fighting ended. I am fairly certain they did not see combat in Korea, but they were most likely there when the "cease fire" happened.

Have some fun with it and be sure to post up some in progress photos...

Jordyn, @1corsair64
Go ahead and build it for the group. As best we can tell, they were present in Korea during the hostilities, they just didn't see any active combat there. So it still qualifies...

The type did see combat with the French in Vietnam, a little while later.

I like the work you have posted on it so far. It looks good. You mentioned one of the things I don't like about "rubber band" style one piece tracks, and that's how to keep them together. I have successfully used a stapler in the past to keep them joined. It will work in a pinch.

These one piece tracks do have their good points though. They are much easier to build and you can have both tracks installed in minutes, versus a day or so of tedious work with the individual link sets. Do what works for you... It's your model. Have fun and learn something while you are at it...

Nice trick with the tracks!

Here are a few pictures of my Tamiya Bulldog. I pulled it out of my display case to show you something about the tracks.

The AFV club tracks were an improvement over the kit supplied parts. But there is also a small trade off as far as accuracy. They look better, but when you look closer you can see a slight "sag" in the tracks over the return rollers. On American tanks, they typically run a very tight track tension, so this track sag would not be present on the real thing.
Here is a close up of what I'm talking about.

Now if this was a WW2 German or Russian tank it would be good to go... but it's not.

And your kit supplied parts along with your ingenious sewing fix will look much better than mine does when you are done. This was one of the first armor builds I did when I returned back to the hobby about 25 years ago. I have learned from my mistakes like the ones I pointed out to you with my Bulldog. I have noticed that your models are getting better with each one you make.

Keep up the great work !

Looks great! That hint of surface rust on the tracks reminds me that once on a Reserve drill weekend for some reason we had to go to Bayonne Naval Base in NJ, there lined up along the pier was a number of M1A1 Abram tanks, with a similar look of rust on their tracks, this was around the late 1980's.

Your tank looks great, Jordyn.