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Pacific Sherman with improvised armour


gmoss

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Hi

 

Here is my recently completed Tamiya M4A3 with improvised armour. It was painted with Tamiya and Life Color acrylics and weathered with oils and pigments.

 

Scratch items:

 

  • Timber armour - popsicle sticks
  • Steel plate armour -  .5mm styrene sheet, styrene rod (weld seams) and nuts/bolts from spares box.
  • Tarp - lead foil from wine bottle
  • Nails welded to hatches - stretched sprue (cut to scale at 4mm lengths)
  • Cast steel texture - Tamiya putty mixed with extra thin cement

 

Thanks for looking - Cheers, Greg

 

History  taken from <https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2-usa-improvised-armor-on-m4-shermans-in-the-pto>

 

"In the Island hopping campaigns of the War in the Pacific, the major threat to tanks of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was Japanese infantry. The stubborn island defenders had various grenades and mines at their disposal. These were often used in suicidal point blank ‘Kamikaze’ style attacks with infantry charging the American tanks armed only with an explosive device. The attackers would also climb aboard the tanks and claw open hatches so they could throw grenades and explosives inside.
By the Okinawa campaign of 1945, the tactics of the Japanese had been identified. Come May of that year, it was determined that at least 64 tanks had been knocked out by infantry & mine attacks.
Men of the United States Army’s 193rd Tank Battalion recorded the attack method as such:

 

“Japanese squads of three-to-nine men attacked individual tanks. Each man in the squad filled a role. One man threw smoke grenades to blind a targeted tank. The next man threw fragmentation grenades to force the tank’s crew to close their hatches. Another man placed a mine on the tank’s track to immobilize it. A final man placed a mine or explosive charge directly on the tank to attempt to destroy the tank.”

 

These direct, ferocious and desperate assaults led to a number of unique improvisations in appliqué armor by the USMC. The US Army would also employ these improvisations as more troops and tanks from this branch were deployed to the Pacific."

 

 

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Edited by gmoss
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Great work, and interesting back ground info too.

Really nice touches,  I particularly like the wood effect on the side armour, the cut marks on the shields over the suspension and the painting of them.

 

Super modelling of a Sherman in an unusual scheme.

 

Cheers

Darryl 

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I know zip about afv  modelling but to my untrained eye that looks super good.  Interesting history behind it too that makes the model doubly interesting. 
 

It brought to mind my reading of Centurions in Korea when the Chinese infantry managed to get on top of some tanks and the remedy the tankers used was to use the coaxial Mgs to hose each other’s tanks down. 
 

I like the pigeon pricker details !

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As other folks have posted, this is a real tribute to your building and painting skills.  I've seen a few photos of the adapted Shermans before. I wonder if the crews had to be very careful when they were climbing out of the tanks? Those nails look like they could give you a serious injury - not ideal in a warm, tropical environment. with lots of diseases floating around. 

 

Thanks for sharing with us. 

 

Chris.   

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On 11/23/2020 at 2:05 AM, spruecutter96 said:

As other folks have posted, this is a real tribute to your building and painting skills.  I've seen a few photos of the adapted Shermans before. I wonder if the crews had to be very careful when they were climbing out of the tanks? Those nails look like they could give you a serious injury - not ideal in a warm, tropical environment. with lots of diseases floating around. 

 

Thanks for sharing with us. 

 

Chris.   

I had the same thought Chris.

 

Cheers,

Greg

On 11/22/2020 at 11:32 PM, JohnT said:

I know zip about afv  modelling but to my untrained eye that looks super good.  Interesting history behind it too that makes the model doubly interesting. 
 

It brought to mind my reading of Centurions in Korea when the Chinese infantry managed to get on top of some tanks and the remedy the tankers used was to use the coaxial Mgs to hose each other’s tanks down. 
 

I like the pigeon pricker details !

I've read about that too - a very effective solution!

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From what I've read, the Germans had a similar problem with Soviet soldiers climbing on to their tanks and trying to mess them up. I've seen photos of Tiger 1's in Russia with coils of barbed wire garnished all around their upper hull, in answer to this. How effective this was, I have no idea. 

 

Then you had the factory-applied Zimmerit paste on German AFV's. This was applied to stop magnetic mines from sticking to the vehicle's skin. Apparently, this was a solution without a genuine problem. I believe there is no record of the Russians ever having used magnetic-mines, so the Germans went to a lot of effort for nothing.

 

The Soviets did train dogs to run under tanks with explosive-charges strapped to their backs, which I believe might have been magnetically-triggered. From today's perspective, this seems like a very cruel tactic, but considering what the Russians went through during the German invasion, you can see why they did it. They were incredibly desperate times.

 

Chris. 

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