Champagne Today - A French M4A3 (76mm).

[AgentG]

Magnificent!

 

G

[FrancisGL]

Good job with accuracy...nice! , cheers John 

[Bullbasket]

One final job to do at the back was to make the two small brackets that fit onto the rear of the hull for the sand shields. I made these from 10thou card and drilled the holes in each one with a .4mm drill bit. Fortunately, I had a set of etched brass for a Firefly which had the exact sand shield brackets needed for this build, which saved me having to cut them from thin card and then drilling them.

 

 

 

On the right side of the hull, I added a couple of brackets that still exist, namely the one for the crow bar and the pick axe wooden shaft. Champagne was a very early M4A3 76mm and featured several items that marked it out as such. One of these was the forward tow cable clamp on the left side of the hull. It was moved further forward on later models. The casting numbers, just forward of the tow clamp, are incorrect for Champagne, but I had to compromise somewhere.

 

 

 

The brush guards have been added here for the left hand headlamp and the horn, but the lamp and the horn were removed. The headlamp plug holder, fixed to the side of the brush guard, was made from a piece of sprue with the end drilled out. Where the horn would have been, there is a small pad which I cut from 10thou card. The lifting rings are another feature of early M4A3 76mm's. They were fixed inboard as opposed to later versions being near the edge.

Moving to the middle and right side of the glacis plate. The two brackets at the bottom of the plate are for the gun travel lock. This will be added once the turret and gun are in place. Higher up the plate is a small U shaped bracket which was the locking mechanism for the lock when stowed flat. It doesn't look like how one of those locks should look, so I am assuming that it is broken! The ball for the hull machine gun is still in place. It appears that the barrel of the gun was removed, leaving the cooling jacket behind which has been snapped off near the ball.

 

 

 

I didn't have a suitable part for the front part of the track guard. All that I did have was a pair for an M4 Composite hull which is moulded to go around the cast hull. But needs must when the Devil calls, so I took a scalpel and cut the rear portion off, just behind the three rivets. I also removed the side walls and made new ones from 10thou card, along with the strengthening plates. By scraping and filing I thinned down the leading edge to a more acceptable thinness and then glued them in place.

The final jobs on the hull were the two forward hatches. The left hand one still retains the grab handle, which I added from brass wire, and the securing hasp, which I cut from thin card, but they have been broken off on the right hand one. The rotating periscopes are both missing. Fortunately, the ones provided in the Dragon kit are the ones with separate periscopes, leaving the rotating parts open. The two drivers auxiliary periscopes have also been removed. To replicate this, I drilled them out and squared the holes off with triangular and flat files. Champagne has two more early features, the first I can do something about, the second, I can't. Early M4A3 76mm's had long bullet splashes in front of the auxiliary periscopes. On the kit, they are short, but I can remedy that. Early glacis plates were bevelled at the top, but later ones were cut square. Unfortunately, the kit features the square cut and I can't do anything about that. Everything is a compromise!

 

 

 

That just leaves the turret and the tracks.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

[clive_t]

Stupendous levels of detail yet again John 

 

 

[Blaubar]

Nice detailing John! I'm lovin it!

 

Not joining in with Champagne though, alcohol break after Oktoberfest😂.

[Bullbasket]

2 hours ago, clive_t said:

Stupendous levels of detail yet again John 

 

 

Many thanks Clive. Appreciate it.

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, Blaubar said:

Nice detailing John! I'm lovin it!

 

Not joining in with Champagne though, alcohol break after Oktoberfest😂.

Thanks a lot. Yep, best to abstain for a while.

 

John.

[Badder]

Again, well beyond the level of modification I'd be capable of.

Again, well beyond the level of modification of which I'd be capable.

Again, a level of modification well beyond that which I'd be capable of.

Again, I couldn't do that.

 

Fantastic stuff.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Bullbasket]

I love paraphrasing! Thanks Badder.

 

John.

[Kris B]

Nice details John. 

[Bullbasket]

3 hours ago, Kris B said:

Nice details John. 

Thanks Kris.

 

John.

[Hewy]

Some very nice mods there john, its  coming on a treat

Glynn 

[PlaStix]

Absolutely superb project John! Very impressive modelling. 

Kind regards,

Stix

[Ozzy]

Very nice scratched building John.

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, Hewy said:

Some very nice mods there john, its  coming on a treat

Glynn 

 

22 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Absolutely superb project John! Very impressive modelling. 

Kind regards,

Stix

 

5 minutes ago, Ozzy said:

Very nice scratched building John.

Thanks very much to you all for the encouraging comments. I'm pleased that it's going down well.

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

Next up, the turret. Asuka split the turret along the same lines as the original, and on the original, the weld lines can be seen quite clearly. Before joining the upper and lower halves, I chamfered the edges all the way round so that I could fill it with Milliput to represent the weld bead. Once it had hardened, I just gave it a light rub down with sanding sticks as I didn't want it to be completely smooth. The armoured ventilator cover has been added to the rear and had the Milliput weld treatment also.

 

  

 

Although I'd purchased two sprues from Asuka for the turret, not all of the parts were on there. They spread them out over other sprues, I suspect to get you to buy more. Not this tight wad!! It was back to the spares box for the two hatches and these came from Dragon's M4 (105). Not much needed changing on these. The loaders hatch had a pintle for the .50 calibre mg moulded to it, but it was a short one. So I removed it and added a taller one, again courtesy of Dragon. The moulded on grab handle was sliced off and a brass wire one added. The hole in the turret roof had to be enlarged slightly, and once done, the hatch sat in nicely. I added the rotating part of the periscope, but not the prism itself as these have all been removed. The commander's hatch, again came from the Dragon M4(105) kit. The only alterations that I made to it were to use brass wire for the grab handle and to replace the rod that runs between the hinges with some 40thou rod as the kit's one is too short. I had to carve off some lumps from the bottom of the hatch moulding, but once done, this allowed it to sit flat on the Asuka turret.

Three items on the turret which mark this out as an early version are the “extra lifting eye” on the left side, just forward of the loader's hatch, the forward antenna socket and the 2 inch smoke mortar hole. I covered this in an earlier thread when I built Champagne as it appeared during the war, but for those who didn't read it (or don't want to), I'll just go over it briefly. The extra lifting eye actually wasn't that. It was a left over from the aborted T-23 tank project (hence these turrets being referred to as T-23 turrets) and was intended to be used to support the boom that was used to lift the power pack from the tank. It was present on early 76mm turrets but was subsequently removed. Later turrets also had the smoke mortar and the antenna mount removed. The boom support came from the spares box, and I drilled a hole at an angle and inserted a piece of plastic tube for the mortar. The antenna mount was a bit more involved. I had to drill a hole using ever larger bits, until it was about 2.5mm wide. A plastic disc of the correct diameter was present on one of the Dragon sprues, so I glued this in place, along with the antenna mount itself. I fitted the forward periscope from the Dragon kit after first removing the moulding on the Asuka turret. The reason is that once again, the top part of this periscope wasn't included on the turret sprues, so it was easier to start from scratch.

 

 

 

 

Final turret jobs were to fix the mantlet in place and add the two lifting rings each end, which came from Dragon. The main gun is just push fitted at the moment, as I want to see how it comes out after painting. I never like main guns that are split down their length as invariably you're left with a seam line. I painted Tipex along the seams and rubbed it down. Now I'll reserve judgement until the paint goes on.

 

 

That's the majority of the build completed. I just need to wade my way through the Panda tracks now.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

 

 

 

 

[Kris B]

Can't wait to see the painting. 

[Ripaman]

Brilliant John, 

 

Regards

Richard

[Bullbasket]

13 hours ago, Kris B said:

Can't wait to see the painting. 

Hopefully, it won't be long, unless Telford gets in the way first.

 

John.

2 hours ago, Ripaman said:

Brilliant John, 

 

Regards

Richard

Thanks Richard.

 

John.

[Jim Wasley]

Way beyond this mere mortal,it's really great to see your work,better than my Sunday drives Cheers.

[Bullbasket]

2 hours ago, Jim Wasley said:

Way beyond this mere mortal,it's really great to see your work,better than my Sunday drives Cheers.

Many thanks Jim. It's amazing what you see the minions up to on a Sunday drive.

 

John.

[FrancisGL]

As say Badder, I could not do that!!!, very niiiice..., cheers John 

[Bullbasket]

Thanks Francis for the encouraging words.

 

John.

[PlaStix]

Great work on the turret! 

Kind regards,

Stix

[Badder]

I could actually cry..... I wish my fingers worked properly! I couldn't ever hope to make those brass grab handles nowadays, let alone pick them up with tweezers and glue them in place. They make so much difference, and yours are works of art in their own right.

 

Off to mash some spuds with my fists.

 

 

Rearguards,

Badder