Although a new power plant corrected the mobility and reliability problems of the M26 Pershing, the subsequently renamed M46 was considered a stopgap solution that would be replaced later by the T42 medium tank.

Although this interim tank was itself technically immature, Army officials felt the improvements over the M46 in firepower and armor were worth the risk.

Truman administration policy sought to strengthen American arms makers' resilience to aerial attack by encouraging more decentralized weapons production – away from Detroit.

[7] A faulty Ordnance Corps-designed hydraulic turret-control mechanism, shared by the M41 Walker Bulldog, kept the tanks from Korea while engineers worked on a fix.

By then Army officials had scrapped plans to send the tanks to Korea, in favor of providing them to troops stationed in Europe and at home.

In October the agency announced that NATO member nations had agreed to adopt the British Centurion main battle tank and the M47 as standard.

[9] By October the at Camp Drum in July, the New Jersey Army National Guard was the first reserve force to train with the tank.

[14] Army officials quickly acknowledged the issue arose from their own expedient decision to use lower grades of steel to circumvent wartime shortages.

[18] With the arrival of the improved M48 Patton in 1953, the M47 was declared "limited standard" in 1955, and examples in tank units were replaced with the M48 series before long.

[5]: 47 [20]: 6, 12–38, 44–45 Out of the 8,576 M47s built, 8,552 (99.7 percent) were transferred to other countries through the Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) during the 1950s, forming the backbone of the NATO tank force for nearly 15 years.