"1/72nd scale M4A1 Sherman" Topic

Kingsleypark's Wargaming Menagerie

A look at the latest 1/72nd scale release from The Plastic Soldier Company Ltd

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Thanks for the review-- especially the side by said with Armourfast. Very useful.

no turret bin ,,,of course..as usual , yet a bloody again….
if I know so much about shermans why is it the people who actually design the kits invariably don't..it isn't rocket science takes about a day or so to sort it all out..or so one might suspect .. I would do it if somebody paid me….

That I do not understand the 15mm kit comes with turret bin but for some reason it's been excluded from the 1/72 one along with the alternate transmission housing and the narrow mantlet option.

Nice job on the Sherman. I've taken my eye off PSC recently as they have been doing a lot nice 15mm stuff but nothing new in 20mm.

Armourfast have been doing 6 boxes of tanks for £30.00 GBP lately – £2.50 GBP per tank + P&P

Is photo 13 engine parts in case you want to do a conversion with the lid off?!!?

I think they are the racks of track links that you see on the rear hull of a number of Shermans.

A useful review; I don't think I'll buy this kit though as I'm wanting something much more like a Sherman III for 8AB.
The Italeri fastbuild kits are a good alternative to PSC & A'fast.
Looking forward to seeing what the PSC Universal Carriers will be like though…

Image 5d00d406 is the so-called "luggage rack". Its attached to the top of the back of the hull. Common on M4A3s less common on M4A1 dry hulls.

Cheers guys for all the comments!

I should add that it hangs off the back

jowady has it right.

jowady has it half-right. The stowage rack was standard on A3s (Ford engine) and late production A2s (diesel engine) because the engine decks on these vehicles had cooling grills on them. You can't block those with assorted junk without having the engine overheat – hence the stowage rack. On M4 and M4A1 (radial engine) the engine deck was solid and therefore suitable for stowage. However, it was not possible -evah- to fit these tanks with the stowage rack as it blocked the hole for the engine hand crank. For the same reason Sherman 1C and 1C Hybrid had the long stowage box mounted on the hull front instead of the rear plate. No bow gun to block and the hand crank hole is kept clear.

As far as the model itself goes it really isn't to bad. They did screw up the applique armour – they only have the bottom half of the hull plates, and the turret plates are the wrong shape entirely. As well as having applique on the left side of the turret (very rare). No excuse for it. There are plenty of pics on the web that could have been consulted if Ospreys were deemed too expensive.

Cardinal Why get upset about the lack of a blanket box? The mistake here is that it comes with a British figure instead of an American one. By the time this version of the M4A1 appears (1944) only a single British armoured brigade (4th) used them in NWE, and a single Canadian regiment (GGHG) used them in Italy. It was almost excusively an American used vehicle. If you are looking to back date it for North Africa you will need to make a lot of changes: no applique, narrow gun mantlet, three piece transmission cover, sandshields, M3 style suspension units, and of course the blanket box :-). I'm sure PSC has an Alemein ready version in the works. And it will probably come with an American commander figure :-P

cheers

I notice this kit is attracting quite a bit of criticsm…

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Well thats modellers for you…

Actually spoke to Will from PSC about 'Turret Bin-Gate' as he was over at the weekend for a game. Was a series of unfortunate incidents that led to its deletion from the frame.

He also gave me an insight into just how hard it is to produce a plastic kit and he certainly found the Sherman a real challenge.

He has big plans and apparently will be returning to the M4A1 at a later date to re-do the frames.

For me, I rather like them. Very easy to build, they look great and they make up into a superb fast build wargames model, far superior to HaT. Will brought me three at the weekend so they will soon be joining my US Army!

Interesting to see all the debate about this kit.

At the end of the day I want a kit that I can bring to the table quickly (time taken in painting it notwithstanding!) and the PSC kit does that for me. I haven't the patience anymore to put together the different parts of bogie wheels and trying to stretch an ill fitting track over the aforementioned wheel assemblies only to see them pulled out of place by the over stretched track.

The kit looks like a Sherman to me and to the people I play games with it looks like a Sherman to them and the fact that I can have 3 of them for not much money wins it for me.

"unfortunate incidents that led to its deletion from the frame." something of a master of understatement going on here..

Most people just make one if they need one… Not really hard.

Tim

Go to Discussion Groups and select one (eg Axis WWII). On the grey bar above the posts is a link for Create Account.

cheers

76mm version due for release at Salute 21 April

I must hold my hand up to these accuracy issues on this Sherman kit.

For technical and commercial reasons the sprue size was restricted and i had to lose some parts from the 15mm kit (and some other issues i will not bore you with). Unfortunately i carelessly didn't pay attention to lost parts for the early "Alamein" Sherman i really wanted.

I will look at some options to correct this so that we do end up with a 8th Army Sherman

The suspension seems needlessly complicated for an easy-build model. Personally, I don't like kits that contain any pieces smaller than my fingers.

Don,

I can build the 15mm version with my hamfists so this should not present a problem!

I like the way PSC does tracks, it means you can get the required undercuts to make them look good.

If the tracks were in fewer pieces you would have to lose a lot of detail as I am fairly sure that the moulds used are 2 piece which as they have to be pulled appart in a single direction means you cannot have any protrusions in directions other than the direction the moulds separate.

These PSC track assemblies (only 4 pieces each side after all) are far better than the single piece assemblies of Armourfast and Italeri, with their "flat" look and lack of interior detail.

I see our friendly PSC member has ackowledged some accuracy issues with the Sherman. I am honestly curious why serious errors can't be picked up before going into production. Why not show your pre-production test shots on a site like Missing-Lynx? Not to denigrate this forum, but there is some serious expertise on hand over there…

For those with on-going interest, Stephen Brezinski has now published a full preview of the PSC 1/72 M4A1 at On The Way!

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