"Help me pick a British Sherman unit" Topic

Hi all -

I have a dozen and a half M4A1 Shermans that I'll likely do up as a British or Commonwealth unit for North West Europe 1944-45. I've already got two companies of M4s and M4A3s that will comprise American units and, I'm working up Cromwell and Churchill units (Welsh Guards and Coldstreams, respectively) so this lot of Shermans will be in His Majesty's service.

Here are the criteria:
1. I like the model building and detail painting aspects as can be seen here: link
link
link
link

2. I prefer to use Dom's Decals domsdecals.co.uk but that's not an absolute.

3. No "funnies". I don't want a unit or markings that was only at Juno Beach, for instance.

The models are 1/87 (18.5mm) but I've been using 15mm decals. I don't want to have to buy five sets of the same sheet of decals to make this work while leaving me a bunch of left overs (ie; the sets offered by Battlefront are rather limited.)

Links to references and products are appreciated.

Wyatt

Hi Wyatt,

If you've got M4A1s (Sherman IIs in British parlance) that pins you firmly to 4th Armoured Brigade, as they were the only major unit to use the Sherman II in NW Europe. A good briogade that fought right through the campaign from Normandy to Germany. Regiments were the Scots Greys (red scquadron signs), 3rd County of London Yeomanry (3 CLY, which later became 3/4 CLY when they absorbed 4 CLY from 7th Armoured Division – yellow squadron signs) and 44th RTR (blue squadron signs).

The brigade sign was the black jerboa on a white square.

You'll need some Sherman Vc Fireflies – troops were organised as 3x Sherman II to 1x Sherman Vc Firefly.

Dom does the black jerboa here: link

And he does the AoS signs here: link

Intriguing! Thanks Mark.

I have Sherman Vc Fireflies done up for the Coldstream Guards so I should be able to second those to this unit when needed.

Let's see what else shows up – unless there really only was the 4th.

Wyatt

Yup, that really was the only major unit with Sherman IIs, unless you count Sherman II DDs (two squadrons' worth with 13/18th Hussars, 27th Armoured Brigade) and some used as command tanks for Grant CDLs in 1st Tank Brigade. Other units might have received the odd Sherman II as a battlefield replacement, though that was rare.

Oh, that said… The Poles replaced all their Sherman V with Sherman IIa (M4A1 76mm W) at the end of 1944, which is the same basic hull-type, but a totally different turret and main armament.

Here's a detailed breakdown of who had what: link

They never built a Firefly variant of the Sherman II for some reason (not that it stopped Command Decision from making one…). All Fireflies were initially therefore Mk Vc, with Mk Ic Hybrid (i.e. the M4 with a cast hull-front welded on) appearing at the end of 1944 and into 1945.

Well that would appear to be it, then.

And, as for the Niehorster link, I haven't seen any of his stuff so neatly laid out before.

I think I'm going to need another Firefly.

Thanks!

Wyatt

To be accurate the Sherman IIA Hull differs from the regular Sherman II hull. As it is a wet stowage hull it has no appliqué armor, the glacis is different as are the driver's and co-driver's hatches. No British unit in NWE used it but they were used in Italy.

A better link than the Niehorster site link
Niehorster missed a few.

No British unit in NWE used it

The Poles used it when they were rebuilt post Normandy.

with Mk Ic Hybrid (i.e. the M4 with a cast hull-front welded on) appearing at the end of 1944 and into 1945.

33AB had Sherman IC instead of VC. There are also photos of Sherman IC Hybrid in service in Normandy in late July.

They never built a Firefly variant of the Sherman II for some reason

Nor the Sherman III. IIRC it was because the engineering/manufacturing effort put into the Firefly conversions was not really that large in terms of manpower/capacity. The conversion was based on the Sherman V and would only work on other Shermans with a similar internal layout – specifically the turret traverse motor. Apparently there were three different makes of this piece of kit, all of different dimension and (slightly different) location. The Sherman II and III had incompatible TT motors which meant that the gun mount would need to be redesigned to fit. Similarly, only some of the Sherman I (depending on which factory built them), and most (if not all) Sherman I Hybrid had the same TT motor as the Sherman V. This also applies to the Sherman IIA. The larger internal volume of the T23 turret should have been ideal for mounting the 17pdr, and inquiries were made, but the bottom line was that with the engineering/manufacturing resources available it would be a year before a start could be made (ie mid 1945).

cheers

However as the Polish Divisions were not British Divisions, although they fought alongside them, I stand by my remark that the British did not use the Sherman IIA in NWE. Indeed Montgomery did not want the Anerican 76mm gun deployed to the British Army . This is per Hunnicutt and Steven Zaloga's book Armored a Thunderbolt.

Choice is obvious. Scots Greys!

Go the Greys… and the best regimental march, plus a tradition of never getting to fight until it really mattered, and then kicking a@se…

My fathers regiment – he used Centurions.

Scots Greys it'll be. I don't have Sherman IIa tanks. I just have the bog standard M4A1 with 75mm gun:

Wyatt