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This is the new rebox of the Asuka M4 Composite Hull kit with the "Last Chance" markings and a few updated/corrected parts. The tank belonged to Company B, 762nd Tank Battalion and took part in the Battle of Saipan (15 June – 9 July 1944), which also featured the largest tank battle between the United States and the Empire of Japan. Aftermarket was minimal, just a DEF Model rotor shield and metal barrel, Master Model M1919 barrels, and Panda Plastic T51 plastic workable tracks. The kit was painted with the Mr Color OD modulation set and various Ammo/Vallejo/Lifecolor acrylics for the details. The markings were masked and sprayed. It was weathered with Ammo Oilbrushers, Ammo enamels, 502 oils, and Ammo pigments. And yes, the taillight was painted after I took these photos! 😉 Comments and criticism welcomed as always!

I have been collecting some of the Tamiya 1/48th armor kits to go with my 48th aircraft kits. I finally finished a couple of them. They are a nice break from aircraft since they go together so much easier, I don't have to worry as much about filling seams, and weathering is whatever you feel like doing. There's no such thing as too dirty when it comes to armor. I built the Sherman M4A3E8 first, then the M4A1. These are the first armor kits that I've built in over 40 years. First, the Easy 8, M4A3E8 Here's the M4A1 Why I like 1/48th armor, it's the same scale as my aircraft.

It's hard to write anything new on a topic as ripped as the M4 Sherman. Sherman was synonymous with the word “tank” for the Western Allies, whether in Africa, Europe, Asia or on the Pacific islands. For every 10 tanks produced in the USA in 1935-45, 6 were Shermans. Even the Russian T-34 (55%) did not achieve such a degree of polarization, while the German Panzer IV (30%) and the British Valentine (25%) are a completely different league. Basically, the Sherman is the lower hull, engine and running gear of the venerable M3 Lee, on which a real turret (with a 75mm gun) has finally been seated. Admittedly, a few months earlier the same trick was used by Canadians (with no tank construction experience at all), but it was the American M4 (a bit more refined than the almost identical Canadian Ram) that became the standard Allied tank. Even the Canadians, after manufacturing 2,000 Ram tanks, took up the licensed production of the Sherman, but after building just 200 tanks (named Grizzly), they focused on producing (on the same chassis) the successful Sexton SPG (over 2,000 units). The vehicle's namesake was the ruthless Union General William Sherman. Crewed by five men and powered by an air-cooled 420hp Continental (née Wright) R-975 9-cylinder radial engine, the original M4, armed with a single 75mm gun and two 0.3” MGs (the external pivot-mounted 0.5” AA Browning was added later), it weighed about 30 tons. Combined with the combat proven reliability of the vintage M3, the Sherman was finally the tank the Allies had been lacking until now. Orders for the US military (about 45% of production) and for the Lend-Lease fund (for Britain, Russia, France and China) have gone into tens of thousands of vehicles, and such quantities always mean dozens of variants. There were 3 types of hulls (welded, cast and hybrid), 3 types of main gun (75mm cannon, 76mm AT gun and 105mm howitzer), five different powerplants (3 petrol engines: Continental radial, Ford V8 and 30-cylinder Chrysler Multibank, and 2 diesel engines: double-inline GMC and a Caterpillar radial) and two different suspension designs (with vertical and horizontal volute springs). Moreover, each of the ten (Alco, Detroit, Federal, Fisher, Ford, Lima, PacCar, PressedSteel, Pullman and Montreal) manufacturers implemented their modernizations over the course of 40 months of production. But here too - as with the previous M3 - there is a significant polarization: over 25,000 tanks had a welded hull, over 20,000 had a Continental aircraft engine, over 30,000 had a 75mm universal gun, and over 40,000 had the original vertical volute springs. In other words - a typical Sherman should have a welded hull, Continental engine, 75mm gun and vertical spring suspension. So it is supposed to be the original M4 (not the M4A1, A2, A3 or A4). The 2014 Heller tooling is considered the world’s best Braille scale M4, surpassing even the fairly decent 2006 Dragon offering. The #79892 boxing contains 149 styrene parts (seriously understated by Heller as 91 on the box sidewall) on 4 sprues and two continuous rubber tracks. As the full-size M4 in Normandy actually used T48 rubber-coated tracks, the solution provided by Heller is apt. Luckily (for me at least) there is no PE fret to bother with. The decals are provided for three US "bare" (i.e. welded, R-975, 75mm, VVS) M4s that fought in France in the summer of 1944. Two of them are plain Olive Drab, and the third has about 80 Earth Yellow "worms" painted on the OD background. This was the scheme used by the tanks of the 4th Armored Division, although the actual pattern differed from vehicle to vehicle. Instead of modelling the #3039164S from the 14th Platoon, Company B, 8th Tank Battalion of the 4th AD (provided by Heller), I decided to build another machine from the 3rd Platoon of the same company, serialled #3039798S. Here, the Earth Yellow lines (probably applied with a roller- or a bench-brush) intersect all over the vehicle, building a yellow mesh and leaving only the OD "islands". The paints are (as always) Humbrol enamels: 155 for No. 9 Olive Drab (~FS33070) and 225 for No. 6 Earth Yellow (~FS30257) - painted with Italeri brushes. Then the Vallejo matt acrylic varnish was brush-applied overall. The model was made OOB with the exception of the Aber 0.3 mm steel wire antenna. All decals were taken from Heller's original sheet, only the OD stars on the hull and turret sides had to be painted over as Heller OD was far too light. The pictures are taken with an LG smartphone. Comments welcome Cheers Michael

Looking for some OD+Earth Brown No.5 camouflaged US Army M4 Shermans from Northern Europe in 1944-45 I just found the strangely camouflaged M4 Shermans from (as said) 4th Armoured Division. One is portrayed by Heller 1/72 kit (#49892, 56892 and 79892) and another (maybe it's another interpretation of the same vehicle - I can't see the serial number precisely) by EasyModel as # 36253 http://www.easymodel.net/index.php/Index/ProductDetail/id/421.html AFAIK the Earth Yellow No.6 (~FS30257) is not listed as being the complementary camo colour for the Northern Europe - correct me if I'm wrong. IMHO the two-coloured US tank schemes there consisted of OD No.9 (~FS33070) plus either Earth Brown No.5 (~FS30099) or Black (~FS37038). Mind that this division landed in France in July 1944 (some 5 weeks after the D-day) and had never fought in any tropical or desert environment. So what do you think about it? Cheers Michael

Looking for the early (i.e. vertical driver's front plate) M3 Stuart multi-colour camouflage from MTO I have found such an article at War Thunder https://warthunder.com/en/news/2952--en featuring the computer renderings of both M3 Light (Stuart) and M3 Medium (Lee) tanks from the US 753rd Tank Battalion in something looking like standard OD with large areas of Earth Sand (or is it British Mud?) superimposed. The Stuart has no hull guns, so this is probably the M3A1. The question is whether are there any photos existing of similarly camouflaged American M3s or M3A1s from MTO (Tunisia or Italy - does not matter)? In the meantime I have recalled the Star Decals set for the US M4A1 Shermans fighting in Italy https://www.star-decals.net/35-983.html with several vehicles from the 191st Tank Battalion sporting the same camo (StarDecals says "either Earth Sand or mud - do as you like") and even the three-colour (OD+ Earth Sand + Earth Red) M4A1 from another 5th Army unit - the 752nd Tank Battalion. And again - are there any documents describing such camo for the 5th army tanks? Was it applicable also for the M3 Light Tank? Do any pictures exist? Cheers Michael