LeonAdler | 05 May 2018 12:23 p.m. PST |
Finnaly got these finished, only things left are the fitting of the .30 cals, crew and making the bases for them.
As outined in other posts combination of two PSC Sherman kits, largely diy stowage with some of the excellent Value gear bits and some nice bits from Modelltrans. Excellent decals from Dan Taylors Workshop and PSC with the terrific Firefly barrell camo being very useful. 1/72 or 20mm. L |
Joes Shop | 05 May 2018 12:46 p.m. PST |
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Frederick | 05 May 2018 1:20 p.m. PST |
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Andy ONeill | 05 May 2018 3:28 p.m. PST |
You're going to have to do some more indifferent or bad stuff Leon. All your wotk is superb. You're showing the rest of us up.😁 |
Herkybird | 05 May 2018 5:58 p.m. PST |
Subtle weathering, I like it! |
wrgmr1 | 05 May 2018 7:28 p.m. PST |
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LeonAdler | 06 May 2018 1:12 a.m. PST |
Andy ONeill, Got plenty of that around just dont take photos of em lol L |
Lion in the Stars | 06 May 2018 7:39 p.m. PST |
Wow, Leon, if you hadn't said so I would have thought they were 1/35! Very nice indeed! |
Trajanus | 08 May 2018 2:00 a.m. PST |
Just as a matter of interest, why were the originals of these tanks produced? Who got up one morning a decided it was a cool idea to put cast fronts on welded bodies? Great work Leon, as usual! |
4th Cuirassier | 08 May 2018 2:15 a.m. PST |
@ trajanus It happened because there were not enough foundries able to cast a whole upper hull as one piece, but a number that could cast a piece the size of a glacis plate. So they fitted cast glacis plates to otherwise welded hulls. I'm not sure why this was a better than idea than all-welded. |
LeonAdler | 08 May 2018 4:13 a.m. PST |
I believe ( always a dodgy start to a sentence) that the welded types were more costly in time terms as the welding was tricky, so the hybrid exchanged one big weld for a larger number of more complicated ones needed to finish the hull front of an all welded type. Saying ANYTHING to do with Shermans is a hostage to fortune……………..lol L |
Marc33594 | 08 May 2018 5:46 a.m. PST |
Leon is correct as is 4th Cuirassier. Cast hull Shermans were preferred since they were cheaper and faster to make. However not enough foundries could cast a single piece that large. Chrysler came up with a way to cast just the front end. Since a good amount of the welding time and labor was devoted to the front plates on the Sherman this cast front, with its single large weld, was a compromise and saved time and also was cheaper as it saved on material. The Chrysler design could be cast by smaller capacity foundries. |
Trajanus | 08 May 2018 10:48 a.m. PST |
Thanks guys that makes sense. Saying ANYTHING to do with Shermans is a hostage to fortune And that's why I asked. Once upon a time I used to think WW2 German AFVs were a nightmare – then I tried to understand Shermans/Grislys/Rams and the general use of M3/M4 running gear for TDs and SPs. Now I just ask. |
LeonAdler | 08 May 2018 1:22 p.m. PST |
Trajanus, Very wise……………if cowardly lol Reckon Sherman 'history' is way more complicated than German stuff. L |
LeonAdler | 10 May 2018 8:18 a.m. PST |
Just put a basic pdf Hybrid how to guide up on the website via the British 20mm page. Let me know if you think theres something missing from it. L link |
Mark 1 | 10 May 2018 11:17 a.m. PST |
As to: "Just as a matter of interest, why were the originals of these tanks produced?" It was all cost, and simplification of the manufacturing process. Marc33954 has given a good account of the issue. But there is one more piece of information that might address the incremental question: "I'm not sure why this was a better than idea than all-welded." ALL welded hulls were in fact hybrids, until the later 47 degree ("Large hatch") hull design was adopted. The bulges for the driver and co-driver hatches were always cast pieces. In all of the early-war and mid-war production welded-hull models (M4, M4A2, M4A3, M4A4) these cast pieces had to be welded into the flat plate of the hull front. Chrysler had the facility to cast the whole front slope. The front slope would have to be welded on anyways. That was, after all, how a welded-hull Sherman was made -- you welded together the various pieces of the hull. But the Chrysler hull front didn't need to have the cast bulges welded into it, since they were already cast in to the hull front that was welded on. This resulted in simplified (and lower cost) production. Or so I've read. -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
4th Cuirassier | 10 May 2018 12:47 p.m. PST |
Shermans are slightly less baffling once you absorb the fact that the various marks were production variants and not development variants. The next thing to absorb is that the British called them Mark 1 starting with the M4, while the US called later M4A1, A2, etc. So deduct 1 from the British 'Mark whatever' and you get the US designation. Finally, the US and UK added a suffix to denote the weapon type, eg W for the US 76mm and c for the 17-pounder. It then all falls better into place, because a unit could have its Mark Vc Fireflies replaced by Mark Ic Fireflies which were substantially equally capable whatever you tend from habit to infer from the Mark… |
Marc33594 | 10 May 2018 2:46 p.m. PST |
Actually W indicates wet stowage. Weapon type was listed. For example an M4A1(76)W would indicate a cast hull M4 armed with a 76mm main gun and utilizing wet stowage. An M4(105) would be a model M4 armed with a 105 howitzer. No letter designation was necessary for dry stowage. Another example would be the M4A3(75)W and the M4A3(76)W. Both would be M4A3s with wet stowage but one armed with the 75 and one with the 76. |
Mark 1 | 10 May 2018 3:56 p.m. PST |
And … let us not forget to tag on the change to the suspension system at the end. So M4A3(76)W HVSS, which is popularly referred to as the "Easy-8" because the horizontal volute spring suspension system was the 8th experiment in the Sherman program to go through limited production for full testing … making it the "E8". -Mark (aka: Mk 1) |
LeonAdler | 10 May 2018 11:07 p.m. PST |
Errrrr Gentlemen, you are rather making my point………….shh now. Just play with the nice toys and shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lol L |