"The Ultimate Sherman?" Topic

Well historically far from it, but surely one of the toughest. After showing one of the earliest (the M4A1 at Alamein), and the burnt out M4A2

TMP link

let me show work in progress on a Jumbo M4A3E2.

Several kits gone into this. Black Dog resin, UM plastic hull and much of the suspension, Heller wheels, OKB tracks but the real surprise the much mocked Italeri wargames pair. All the UM resin went in the bin, but the mantlet from Italeri is excellent. Indeed, I plan to enhance one of them to make a 76mm armed Jumbo next. Much work to do on that, but great potential in a very cheap product.

Very nice!
I'm full of admiration because I'm trying to combine kits right now for the 'perfect' suspension on a Russian vehicle. It's a bloody nightmare and I think I'm about to bin the whole thing!

Tell me about it. UM parts do not even fit into the intended UM component, so introducing several other kits drove me mad. Superglue is essential for metal and resin parts, but only sticks one's instruments and fingers together. It has no influence on kit parts.

Just added the smoke discharger which I had forgotten and about to spray the undercoat.

The hull top and chassis are not yet stuck together (if they ever are!)

Another great conversion underway!

As always, you can not have to many Shermans!

As for too many Shermans, I now have an M4A3E8 to add to the DD M4A1, the Desert Sherman M4 welded hull (was that a Sherman I or II? I can never remember), not to mention the 76 Jumbo. I cannot get over the potential for the "rubbish" Italeri wargame-only snap together models. Take off what you do not want and raid the scrap box to replace it…..my next project.

But at least the first Jumbo is done. It had to be Cobra King (but other Jumbos are available you know). The snow is from that German company and much better than this photo suggests. Is it Nochs or summat like that? Really expensive and sat in the garage for five years or more, unopened. Still worked! The transfers (decals) from Braillestrike would have been better, as slightly smaller and with more detail, but I got bored to be honest. The crew are AB (just how good are they? The Commander is Brad Pitt posed perfectly for Fury.