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The „Normandy” M4 Sherman by Heller 1:72


KRK4m

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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).

 

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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.

 

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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).

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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

 

Edited by KRK4m
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