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IDF M1 Sherman. Back from the dead.


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The Kangaroo is temporarily sidelined for now, so I’ve been looking in the stash to find something that I can build whilst working on my new room. And guess what? I decided on a Sherman, only this time it’s 1/48th scale. I have the Hobbyboss kit of the M4A1 (76mm) and by chance it contains decals for an IDF version. It’s the same tank which Star Decals depict on one of their 1/35th sheets. Trouble is, I can’t find any photographic info on this tank, so a lot of it is going to be guess work.

One thing that troubled me though with the kit is the fact that the turret is the one with the large round loader’s hatch. Now every photo and drawing that I have seen of IDF M1’s show them with oval hatches.

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Fortunately, I also have the Hobbyboss M4A3 with HVVS, and this does have the turret with oval loaders hatch, so happy days. Sadly, what neither of them have is the exhaust deflector, so I’ll just have to fudge one.

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This is the decal sheet instructions showing the IDF markings (Actually, there are markings for two IDF tanks, but the instructions don’t mention that). If anyone has any info on the tanks with these markings, I would be very grateful.

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Hopefully, I’ll get started on this over the weekend, so I’ll be back when I have something to show.

 

John.

 

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Nice looking project John mind if I take a seat and watch you work your magic!

 

   Stay safe           Roger

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Patron saint of Shermans turns to another. I'm sure it will be a stupendous job. And all those superlatives. Now get to it please, I love your work

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12 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

Nice looking project John mind if I take a seat and watch you work your magic!

 

   Stay safe           Roger

 

12 hours ago, Longbow said:

Looks like Fun, John !!

 

I'll be following along ;)

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Steben said:

Great project.

But .... do they really say Gunze H81? Man ....

 

5 hours ago, Vaastav said:

Patron saint of Shermans turns to another. I'm sure it will be a stupendous job. And all those superlatives. Now get to it please, I love your work

 

45 minutes ago, edjbartos said:

Looks interesting John, looking forward to seeing you start

 

Ed

Glad to have you all along. I won't be taking any notice of the colour instructions in the kit. I've got a bottle of IDF Green from AK or Vallejo (I can't remember which at the moment), so not a problem. It's details of the actual tank which are going to be a problem as I've no photographic evidence. Maybe an email to Dr. Robert might help.

 

John.

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1 hour ago, Mike Mcellaney said:

Keep them coming John, I enjoy every Sherman you build 

 

1 hour ago, M3talpig said:

Yep yep yep I'm on board to watch another mini masterpiece.........

 

40 minutes ago, beefy66 said:

Well I will get my goodies ready to watch this one.  :popcorn:

 

Stay Safe

beefy

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I just hope that I can live up to it.

One correction to a statement I made earlier with regards to there being no exhaust deflector. Seems that I'm as blind as a bat and have a lousy memory. Well, the last part is certainly true, because not only is one included, but I used one in the build of my Super Sherman. Hey ho!

 

John.

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I managed to get a couple of in on Saturday and Sunday and I'm reasonably happy with the progress so far.

Lower Hull.

First job was to remove the five studs each side, which are meant for the attachment of HVSS units. Hobbyboss have made the lower hull common to both suspension units.

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FDH glued to the lower hull along with the sponson fillers and the gaps filled with putty and rubbed down.

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Rear hull plate added, along with the tow hook and bracket and towing shackles. I used the air cleaners from a Tamiya M4 as they were more suitable than the round ones in the Hobbyboss kit. I didn’t bother replacing the fasteners as Tamiya have moulded them reasonably thin and the PE ones were no better.

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I replaced the hull side extensions as they were the wrong shape, with new ones cut from card. I added a false roof to the exhaust area, and added the twin pipes from the Tamiya M4, and extended them back, using Slaters tubing. PE mesh will be added once the upper and lower halves are joined.

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That's it for now. Thanks for looking and any comments are appreciated.

 

John.

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This M1 comes up a lot.  Here it is.  The kit seems to be a different configuration.  This tank is one of the very early M4A1(76)s built: Op Cobra era.  One of the first 300 or so.  It has the plain M1A1 gun barrel (no threaded collar) and therefore has no rear turret vent.  It also has the large loader's hatch/cupola.  British-style spare track brackets are intriguing.  We did have about 1,100 M4A1(76), almost all in Italy, but I'm not sure we had any quite this early.  It is most likely ex-French.  French forces under US command did have some and several hundred were supplied post war.

 

I'm not sure that the IDF unit has been identified.  There are many other pictures of M1s out there, including the dozen welded M4A3Ts.

 

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10 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

This M1 comes up a lot.  Here it is.  The kit seems to be a different configuration.  This tank is one of the very early M4A1(76)s built: Op Cobra era.  One of the first 300 or so.  It has the plain M1A1 gun barrel (no threaded collar) and therefore has no rear turret vent.  It also has the large loader's hatch/cupola.  British-style spare track brackets are intriguing.  We did have about 1,100 M4A1(76), almost all in Italy, but I'm not sure we had any quite this early.  It is most likely ex-French.  French forces under US command did have some and several hundred were supplied post war.

 

I'm not sure that the IDF unit has been identified.  There are many other pictures of M1s out there, including the dozen welded M4A3Ts.

 

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Many thanks for that Peter. That's very useful, especially the info about the large loader's hatch. At least I can use the kit's turret now. I had thought that only oval hatch Shermans had made it to Israel. Any chance that you can give me a link to that photo please?

 

John.

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I can't find an "original" of it.  The 2 copies I found online both come back to Britmodeller and Missing Lynx. Here's a larger copy I found that I had saved from somewhere.  There's a very much clearer copy on p110 of the Gannon book.

 

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1 hour ago, Das Abteilung said:

I can't find an "original" of it.  The 2 copies I found online both come back to Britmodeller and Missing Lynx. Here's a larger copy I found that I had saved from somewhere.  There's a very much clearer copy on p110 of the Gannon book.

 

Thanks for that Peter. I can work from that. I looked in my Gannon book, but I must have a different edition (2001), as there's no photo of this tank in there. I've seen a couple of photos on line where people have built this tank and both of them have depicted it with the white with black outline air ID stripe running front to back on the turret. One of them continued it over the engine deck also. What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks again.

 

John.

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Sometimes you wonder if new editions really are.  Clearly it is in this case.

 

The photo is apparently dated 1960.  You can clearly see the stripe on the turret top even in the photo above, so that's correct.  The Supers used in 1967 clearly had the stripe on the deck too.  But I can't find anything to support that at the earlier date.  In fact the stripe on VVSS M1s seems to be unusual.  None of the photos in the late 50's show it.  As far as I can see that is the only photo in the Gannon book showing it on an M1.  The stripe is often said to be a 1967 recognition mark, which makes me wonder if the M1 photo is correctly dated.  But I wouldn't have expected to see an M1 still serving in 67: by then they had surely all been converted to Supers or M51s?

 

That being said, I can't see that the stripe on the turret top alone would have served a useful purpose for aerial recognition and I imagine it would have been on the deck too.  Photos show that it stopped on the round-down at the rear of the upper hull and was painted up the protective shield around the engine intake.  It was not painted down the back of the turret or onto the mantlet cover.

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35884_01.gif

Here the tank is set in a "Maneuvres in 1961" theme.
I'm bracing for impact but .... again colour seems an element of identification here by star decals. Perhaps misidentification I don't know. The picture might be interpreted as a darker vehicle than tan/sand.
How many tanks had olive drab in 1967 and are those markings still in use in 1967?

https://www.scalemodellingcentral.com/participant/braille-2008-05/м1-sherman-1961
e643a439-ef1c-4209-86a6-7a0271e3a90a.jpg

Man I am really falling in love with this theme... IDF tanks and markings have a very attractive style and aura.

Edited by Steben
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13 hours ago, Das Abteilung said:

Sometimes you wonder if new editions really are.  Clearly it is in this case.

 

The photo is apparently dated 1960.  You can clearly see the stripe on the turret top even in the photo above, so that's correct.  The Supers used in 1967 clearly had the stripe on the deck too.  But I can't find anything to support that at the earlier date.  In fact the stripe on VVSS M1s seems to be unusual.  None of the photos in the late 50's show it.  As far as I can see that is the only photo in the Gannon book showing it on an M1.  The stripe is often said to be a 1967 recognition mark, which makes me wonder if the M1 photo is correctly dated.  But I wouldn't have expected to see an M1 still serving in 67: by then they had surely all been converted to Supers or M51s?

 

That being said, I can't see that the stripe on the turret top alone would have served a useful purpose for aerial recognition and I imagine it would have been on the deck too.  Photos show that it stopped on the round-down at the rear of the upper hull and was painted up the protective shield around the engine intake.  It was not painted down the back of the turret or onto the mantlet cover.

Once again, thanks for the info Peter. It's going to be very useful with the build.

 

John.

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11 hours ago, Steben said:

Here the tank is set in a "Maneuvres in 1961" theme.
I'm bracing for impact but .... again colour seems an element of identification here by star decals. Perhaps misidentification I don't know. The picture might be interpreted as a darker vehicle than tan/sand.
How many tanks had olive drab in 1967 and are those markings still in use in 1967?

https://www.scalemodellingcentral.com/participant/braille-2008-05/м1-sherman-1961

Yes, I have the Star Decals sheet, but I wanted the markings and stripe verified by photographic evidence. That model which you linked to is one of the ones that I mentioned and will also prove to be useful with the build. Thanks.

 

John.

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Just a quick question in the hope that someone will know. Who makes steel chevron tracks in 1/48th scale? I've used them on a couple of my previous models, but I'm damned if I can remember the source.

TIA.

 

John.

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49 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Who makes steel chevron tracks in 1/48th scale?

Specifically, I don't know, but I think the only AM tracks made were by Fighting 48th (so unavailable), and Gasoline.  As you are in France,  I'd ask Quarter Kit shop.   Others may know more.

HTH

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3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Specifically, I don't know, but I think the only AM tracks made were by Fighting 48th (so unavailable), and Gasoline.  As you are in France,  I'd ask Quarter Kit shop.   Others may know more.

HTH

Thanks Troy. Yes, I've used a couple of sets from Fighting 48th, and it's a shame that they are no longer in production. (I wonder what happened to the moulds??) MR Modelbau used to do tracks, but they don't appear to be doing any anymore, but I've been onto Quarter kit and they have them in stock. Trouble is that they have a minimum amount per order, so I may have to order two sets.

Ironically, I looked through my 1/48th stash and I have a set on the Gasoline T51E1 tracks. Trouble is, they have duck bills attached and I don't fancy the job of breaking all of those off without damaging them.

 

John.

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