Sherman Mark V with Tulip Rockets

[Retired Bob]

I have been thinking about building one of these for a while now. The Coldstream Guards made these alterations to some of their tanks as they approached the German border in 1945.  Taking an Idea that the Germans had used of fitting rockets to an AFV, they attached 60 Lb rockets and their launch rails (from Typhoon aircraft) to the side of their Sherman tanks to deal with bunkers and other targets of the Siegfried Line.  The main problem with this conversion is that there is not a lot of detail available, quite a few grainy photo's of tanks fitted with them, but no clear pictures or details of the rail fitting to the turret.  Looking at all available information I have three Sherman tanks to use, Firefly Mk 1c (hybrid), Firefly Mk Vc  and Mk V 75mm.  I will use the Mk V 75mm as I have it in the stash and will probably make the Firefly Mk 1c (hybrid) later.  The 60 Lb rockets will come from the Bronco Staghound kit, along with an RB Models barrel and some  Bronco workable track links.

 

Let the fun begin. 

[Hamden]

 

Not seen a Sherman with this type of rocket fitting before only the calliope version so will follow with interest

 

    Roger

[Retired Bob]

10 minutes ago, Hamden said:

 

Not seen a Sherman with this type of rocket fitting before only the calliope version so will follow with interest

  

    Roger

Hi Roger

There are several photo's out there, mainly on www.tank-encyclopedia.com, unfortunately they are small, grainy and taken from ground level so that the rocket and rail are in the way of how the rails are attached to the turret, but I think I have it worked out.  With the rockets and launchers from the Staghound kit and some plastic "angle iron" I hope to have it cracked in a week. 

 

Bob

[phildagreek]

This looks interesting, something a bit different.

[Retired Bob]

Started off assembling the flat pack hull, it goes together with no problems, the suspension units are designed to be workable, but it is best to glue everything up, especially if using the rubber band tracks supplied with the kit as they will pull the front and rear units up and the suspension will end up banana shaped.

There are two types of wheel supplied, spoked and solid.  The British Mk V tanks all used the solid pattern wheels, each of the 12 wheels is supplied with 12 rivet heads to glue to each wheel, that's 144 rivets and not one extra is supplied so no feeding of the carpet monster is allowed.  Damn I've turned into a rivet counter. 

Suspension units and bolted front end attached.

 

The upper hull is straightforward with etched brass dust shield attachment strips supplied, I will fit the rest of the etched bits and make the rocket brackets tomorrow.

[Bullbasket]

Good start Bob. You've picked the best kit for this build, although I don't envy you the work with those rivets. Have thy got to be sliced off of the sprue?

 

John.

[Retired Bob]

8 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Good start Bob. You've picked the best kit for this build, although I don't envy you the work with those rivets. Have thy got to be sliced off of the sprue?

  

John.

I am afraid so John, you can just make them out on the sprue between the spoked wheels and the solid wheel inner discs.  On the Sherman they hold the rubber tyre to the steel wheel, but they are quite noticeable.  Here is how they look.

 

I am pushing on with this build as I want to display it at The Sword and Lance Show at Darlington at the end of this month.  The only weak points on this kit are the drivers and machine gunners hatch springs, they are a solid moulding and look better replaced with a wire spring.  I wrap thin wire around a 0.4mm drill bit and then thread it through the hatch fittings, a bit of a pain but it does look better.  The green bits are the moulded springs.

 

 

Here's what they look like after fitting:

 

That's all the etched brass fitted, now to  add the "angle iron"onto the turret.  On the real Sherman, the angle iron would have been butt welded to the top of the turret  curved edge,   I am cutting into the turret to make a stronger join, well that is the plan.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Retired Bob
photo did not load.

[Retired Bob]

Hi Roger, are you at home or at sea.  For some reason some photo's are not loading properly. I will try again.

Here is the turret suitably butchered to attach the angle iron, looking at photo;s the rockets do not extend past the tank hull sides so that provided the side extension, it was then easy enough to work out the positions of the other beams to intersect with the launcher rail.

After glueing and filling of the angle iron the rails are attached at slightly different angles so that it was possible to fire both rockets and bracket the target at a range normally set between 600 to 800 yards.

Time for some primer.

[FG2Si]

Really nice work. I did a similar build a few years ago using the old Dragon 1C hybrid kit as that's all that's was available at the time. The kit actually came with the 60lb rockets in it but they were marked as not for use. The rockets themselves weren't that great so all I used were the rails themselves.  I used Bison decals for the Coldstream Guards.  Here's how mine turned out:

 

 

Carl

 

 

[Retired Bob]

Hi Carl

I have that Dragon kit and the newer one that came out, but although the newer one included decals for a rocket carrying Firefly, no rockets or rails were included in either kit.  The Taska/Asuka kit of the Firefly Mk 1c (hybrid) also does not come with rockets so this was the only way to include one in my collection.  The Bronco rockets and rails are not too bad, but do not include any decals for the stencils that the rockets carried.  Getting the information is frustrating as even books that specialise on Shermans and Firefly's do not mention them, I know they were only used for a few months at the end of WW2, but I would have hoped for more information given as it  was so unique to use aircraft air to ground rockets on tanks.

 

Regards

Bob

[Retired Bob]

Everything given a coat of Vallejo olive drab primer, while that hardens I can crack on with the tracks and tools.

 

 

[Hamden]

 

This is really coming together now. It will certainly look different with the rockets added to the turret! 

 

    Roger

[Roger Newsome]

16 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

Hi Roger, are you at home or at sea.

Hello Bob, I think you might be getting two Roger's mixed up, Hamden and myself. 

However I'm at sea till Friday so hopefully I'll get to see this at Sword & Lance, nice work by the way. 👍

Roger. (Stapleton Close Roger. 👍🙂)

[Retired Bob]

1 hour ago, Roger Newsome said:

Hello Bob, I think you might be getting two Roger's mixed up, Hamden and myself. 

 However I'm at sea till Friday so hopefully I'll get to see this at Sword & Lance, nice work by the way. 👍

 Roger. (Stapleton Close Roger. 👍🙂)

No I was asking You (Bedale Roger) not (Dorset Roger) if you were at home or at sea after you had reacted to my post (I can multitask and I'm not sure if Dorset Roger has any maritime connections).  Well I am hoping to get it all ready for the Sword and Lance Show, as long as nothing goes wrong, as things usually do when you try to finish something ready for a deadline.  I have just been having a poke at any imperfections that the primer has revealed so a quick touch up and back to the tracks, which are the T62 type with extension plates fitted. ( I'm Matthews dad by the way, if you did not know).

 

Bedale Bob

[Roger Newsome]

2 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

No I was asking You (Bedale Roger) not (Dorset Roger) if you were at home or at sea after you had reacted to my post (I can multitask and I'm not sure if Dorset Roger has any maritime connections).  Well I am hoping to get it all ready for the Sword and Lance Show, as long as nothing goes wrong, as things usually do when you try to finish something ready for a deadline.  I have just been having a poke at any imperfections that the primer has revealed so a quick touch up and back to the tracks, which are the T62 type with extension plates fitted. ( I'm Matthews dad by the way, if you did not know).

 

Bedale Bob

Lol, so it was me that was confused not you!

S&L has crept up on me too. My plans have gone bit awry and any excuses aren't really valid considering I have to wait two years between shows because of work.

Yes, Gemma said you were Matthew's dad. 

[Ozzy]

Nice job.

[Retired Bob]

10 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

This is really coming together now. It will certainly look different with the rockets added to the turret! 

  

    Roger

When I was dry fitting everything using tape, I hung the rockets on to work out all the positions and lengths of the plastic "angle iron" and it did look good with the rockets in place, I just have to find or make the stencils for them.

 

Bob

[Retired Bob]

5 hours ago, Roger Newsome said:

 Yes, Gemma said you were Matthew's dad. 

I was not sure if you knew, Retired Bob of North Yorkshire is a bit of a tenuous link.  I will have the tracks finished tomorrow, then I can start spraying some paint, I have a Life Color olive drab contrast pack so I will have a play with that.  How is life on the North Sea, have been able to carry on with your modelling, there were occasions when I would be able to do some modelling while at work, weekends and on crash cover you could expect several hours of solitude, and making tracks link by link certainly passed the time.  That's the problem, doing something you enjoy like modelling makes the day, the week, the month fly past.

 

Bob

[Roger Newsome]

8 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

I was not sure if you knew, Retired Bob of North Yorkshire is a bit of a tenuous link.  I will have the tracks finished tomorrow, then I can start spraying some paint, I have a Life Color olive drab contrast pack so I will have a play with that.  How is life on the North Sea, have been able to carry on with your modelling, there were occasions when I would be able to do some modelling while at work, weekends and on crash cover you could expect several hours of solitude, and making tracks link by link certainly passed the time.  That's the problem, doing something you enjoy like modelling makes the day, the week, the month fly past.

 

Bob

It was beyond all reasonable doubt when Gemma announced "Matthew's Dad has the same sad hobby as you". 😄 I assume you know her? Her and Matthew have been friends for a long time from what I gather.

I usually get quite a bit of modelling done while I'm away but at the end of December I was temporarily moved to a different ship to fill a space and for various reasons haven't managed to do any for the past couple of trips. We're relieved here later today and then it's back to Aberdeen for crew change and home tomorrow. Hopefully next trip I'll be back on my usual ship and get something built.

The Sherman's coming along great, it doesn't look like you'll have any trouble completing it before S&L a week on Saturday.

Roger.

[ewing9593]

Jumping in on this mid way through, very interesting idea and the model looks great so far. Look forward to seeing the rest of it come together.

 

Cheers,

Steve

[Retired Bob]

11 hours ago, Roger Newsome said:

The Sherman's coming along great, it doesn't look like you'll have any trouble completing it before S&L a week on Saturday.

 

Famous last words.  It was a glorious spring day here in Bedale so I was able to spray in the garage, amazingly nothing went wrong, I sprayed the Life Color paint, base colour, darker for the recesses and lighter for the highlights.  Perhaps it needs a coat of varnish to bring out the differences, I will do that tomorrow and take pictures in natural light.  The tracks are finished and primed, ready for the dirt and mud.  The rocket warheads need a red band according to the painting instructions on Eduards 1/48 Typhoon rocket set.

 

11 hours ago, Roger Newsome said:

It was beyond all reasonable doubt when Gemma announced "Matthew's Dad has the same sad hobby as you". 😄 I assume you know her? Her and Matthew have been friends for a long time from what I gather.

 

No I have not met her, just heard the name through Matthew, the present Mrs SWMBO does, but I'm just the sad modeller that is "happy" (less grumpy) to be in the shed or garage.

[FG2Si]

22 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

When I was dry fitting everything using tape, I hung the rockets on to work out all the positions and lengths of the plastic "angle iron" and it did look good with the rockets in place, I just have to find or make the stencils for them.

 

Bob

Let me check the Quickboost rockets I bought for a Tamiya Mossie.  They're 1/32 but I think they came with decals for the stencils. If they did, I can scan them for you if that helps. 

 

Carl

[Retired Bob]

7 minutes ago, FG2Si said:

Let me check the Quickboost rockets I bought for a Tamiya Mossie.  They're 1/32 but I think they came with decals for the stencils. If they did, I can scan them for you if that helps. 

 

Thanks Carl

I have the Eduard Brassin 1/48 rockets for the Typhoon, and I was using the painting and decal guide for info, however the few photos of Sherman Tulips strangely do not show markings or stencils on the rockets, but that could just be the poor quality of the photos.  With the Sherman and rockets all in olive drab and very few markings I was trying add a bit of interest.  Thanks for the offer but as I live in 1950's I would not know what to do with the scan anyway, well perhaps the 1960's. 

 

Bob

[Yorkshire man]

Is this of help.......

[Retired Bob]

Thank you Yorkshire Man for those photos, I have rummaged through my 1/35 decal collection and on an old Bison decal sheet I found just what I was looking for, a Sherman Mk V with 75mm gun and tulip rockets.  So a quick coat of Future and decals applied, now for the weathering, or do I wait for the Flory washes that I have ordered?

Best get painting those tracks.