Sherman M4A1 76mm 1/35 Dragon, Cologne March 1945

[M3talpig]

On 11/07/2022 at 23:14, Marco1965 said:

After having installed the upper segment of the tracks, I encountered one of the most frustrating issues: upon completing the track, the final track needed to be like 2/3 of a track...🙄

Anyway, everything was already glued in pace, correct sag (or lack or sag, it is a Sherman), correct location of the tracks, segments around the wheels, etc.  and didn´t want to see my tracks with a crooked segment, no way.  So... as 2/3 are needed, filed one track to 2/3 width and inserted it in place. Done, both sides the same.

 

 

I glued the links of the shorter segments in place, sanding them short until they fit properly.  Painted, weathered, and voilá, issue fixed.  The debris in the streets of Cologne will provide the final touches disguising the culprit shorter track segment.

 

 

Then I had to backpedal because I had made a mistake assembling the 0.50" MG travel supports at the back of the turret.  I followed Dragon´s instructions for an M4A1 76mm WITH ventilator at the back of the turret, but I converted it to an M4A1 76mm without ventilator, which requires changing the MG supports as well.   I performed some minor surgery detaching and reattaching the supports and the result is now proper for the early M4A1 76mm.  Most of the MG and supports will be covered with canvas in the end, therefore I did not really bother adding details to the MG.

 

 

 

And completed the commander and loader´s hatches.  It had bothered me all the time not having changed since the beginning the loader´s hatch external handle, represented as a simple plastic tab, well I ended up changing it.  Some might notice that the loader´s hatches are barely open and might say that those hatches in the early M4A1 76mm were either closed or open at a 90° angle.  But... I am assembling my Sherman with the loader actually pushing the hatches open with his head and arm, exactly as seen in a picture of another Sherman in Cologne, same time.  Nice detail from Dragon providing periscopes and visors in clear plastic, saves me the pain of discussing the color of those.

 

 

And finally started looking for the logs that "my" Sherman carried on each side.  I managed to find the proper branches, many more than what I needed, no painting required, ready to use, "0" cost, no shipping.  On the picture below mi first tries, collected branches from different bushes, and I selected the one being held with the tweezers as the correct one.  Got all the others that I need already, immersed them in flat coat for several minutes, and they are now ready to get tied on each side of the tank.  I am really enjoying this part of the assembly (after the mess with the tracks!).

 

marco

I have just realized that i have been commenting on your build on Facebook..... and didn't realize till i saw these pics.

[Marco1965]

I wanted to finish the diverse accessories found on the Sherman, like bags, sleeping bags, food boxes, etc.  I selected some from the ones I have in stock, as most would end up covered under canvas, I did not put that much attention painting them.  Mostly resin accessories and couple cardboard boxes.

 

 

And some additional things up front.

 

And then... canvas.  Made with Kleenex, soaked in diluted white glue, painted.  It covers everything according to references.  Still missing is the colored canvas that was used as ID from the air, will be bright red.

 

 

 

And the machinegun is gone as well, it was covered in canvas as well.

 

By the way, I am in the process of scratchbuilding the antenna base, not provided in the kit.  Halfways, the antenna is not in place yet, just a wire to keep me from losing the base.

marco

[edjbartos]

That's looking great Marco, you have added a lot of lovely additions to the model, superb work...

 

Ed

[Marco1965]

It is so exciting to find more details to add to the Cologne Sherman.  One thing that I didn't know about, was that bright colored sheets for aerial identification were carried on the engine deck of these Shermans, bright red, bright yellow, white, and "my" Sherman was no exception, as clearly seen in the reference pictures.  Thanks for the collaboration from several friends, I managed to find the size of the colored sheet and could replicate it with kleenex treated with white glue and painted bright red.  it looks the part!  I painted it bright red because that is the only reference the I have, but could have been other color.

 

 

 

Apart from that, I corrected some issues with the empty track racks.

 

And started assembling and painting the figures that will be in and around my Sherman.  I got one Soga Infantryman, a set of heads from Alpine, and a couple figures from Tamiya.  A Tamiya figure with an Alpine head transpant will be the tank commander (less lower limbs, don't need them), and the other Tamiya will be the almost completely hidden loader. 

 

 

Alpine head transplant done, no more legs either.

 

I always paint the heads/faces first, in this case I used mostly MiG acrylics.  The awful loader will be almost hidden, with the helmet on, so I was not willingly to sacrifice another Alpine head for this one.

 

The Soga head is a beauty, paint falls in place almost by itself, highly recommended.

 

And started working on the diorama layout.  If you have read about the Cologne Tank Duel, you´ll know that this Sherman was rolling direct to the Cologne Cathedral, when a mountain of debris blocked its way in Komödienstrasse.  It stopped, moved to the side to allow for space for the bulldozer that would open the road, when suddenly BLAM!!! BLAM!!!, two hits from a Panther tank knocked the Sherman out of combat.  What I am trying to replicate is the moment when the Sherman reached the road blockade, and moved to the side of the street, basically surrounded by debris.

marco

[Model Mate]

excellent canvas work - a simple approach, but completely convincing in my opinion. The figures are coming on nicely and the vehicle itself looks stunning. Looking forward to the diorama developing!

[Marco1965]

The logs that the Sherman crews tied to the sides of their tanks are one of the most attractive aspects to me.  After checking the resin and plastic options available in internet, well I thought why not trying with the real thing, there must be branches in the garden with the correct width and aspect, and indeed, there are!   I chose the ones closer to the ones seen in the reference pictures, cut to the correct size, and soaked them in gloss varnish to seal them.  Mother nature provides the correct texture and color!

 

 

Then I tied the logs together using Humbrol thread for shipmodels, and then tied them to the tank´s hull.  The thread tips still have to be glued to the surfaces so that they are not "floating" over the hull.

 

 

I will not glue the logs to the hull, they are hanging nicely from the threads.

 

 

Marco

[Marco1965]

Slowly but never stopping!  Some work done on figures and base.  I continued painting the figures.  Soga infantryman is beautiful, easy to paint.  I preferred to use a shade of faded olive drab for the pants, I have seen in references that color mixed with the Field Drab-Brown color (like in the picture below), and I preferred it due to the more "worn out" impression.  I have applied shadows with artist oils (Burnt Umber), next step will be the lights, artis oils as well, coming soon.

 

 

 

I liked the diverse colors-shades of the uniforms, that is what I want my figure to look like.  Probably colorized picture.

 

The figure of the tank commander (Tamiya torso, Alpine head) same stage as the infantryman.  Most of this figure will be inside of the tank, only like the upper half of his head will be outside.

 

And the loader, have not done much to it, almost nothing will be visible under the almost closed hatches, but it will be decently finished as the other ones (the 75mm shell was only for the picture).  

 

And continued working on the diorama base, specifically on the Streetcar rails.  I sacrificed a couple of HO scale electric train tracks, which are close to the "Strassenbahn" tracks size.  But there is a detail that I hadn´t noticed before, the tracks are not as simple as the train tracks, they have a rim opposite to the rail, on the inner side of the track. 

 

So in order to simulate the rim, I used two rails, one in normal position, the other on its side.  Once covered with putty, only the rail and the metal rim will be visible.

 

Like this, I applied Faller´s putty, couple layers and this thing shrinks (too much water in the first mix... )

 

When dry, I "punched" the shape of cobblestone on the street with a makeshift "punch"

 

It looks like this when finished, next comes some sanding to smoothen the surface, and sealing with acrylic varnish before proceeding to painting.

 

And this is the general idea of the diorama.  I already applied the acrylic varnish to the cobblestone street, which hardens the putty even more.  The Sherman is basically done, only need to add the figures and some weathering effects, threads to the rear area.  First time simulating cobblestone, so we´ll see how it look like after painting.  Lots of it will be covered under debris and dust, in random patches.

 

Marco

[dnl42]

The work on the many details and features of this model is fabulous! 

[Marco1965]

No advances in the Sherman itself this time, just want to share my first time ever simulating cobblestone streets.  After i finished pressing the stone shapes, I painted all the surface light gray, almost white (simply mixing common enamel paints), and then mixed at will the base color with black, or brown, or touch of blue, etc, different proportions, until I got the irregular finish in the pictures.

 

 

Then I sealed with gloss acrylic, and applied a dark grey wash.  When dry, proceeded to highlight the grey colors almost hiding the browns/tans of the previous layer.  As far as i can see from picture of the streets in Cologne, cobblestone has a dark bluish gray color, which i will keep adding only additional washes and drybrushes.  I retouched several stones with different shades of gray.

 

It'll need some additional dark gray paint to darken the spaces between stones, and of course a good part of it all will be covered in debris and dust in the end but want to leave some representative areas visible to represent the typical cobblestones the Sherman circulated on in Cologne.

Marco

[Model Mate]

Excellent diorama work to match a great looking vehicle - lovely stuff!

[Marco1965]

I think that armor dioramas have this issue that you always want to add more, and more.  I will add the brick wall that is seen in the original picture of the destroyed Sherman tank in Cologne.  First of all, I had never tried to make a brick wall, and had to try several materials, watched several tutorials, and was unsuccessful as many times.  Then went back to my well-known Faller putty... I applied a layer of putty on illustration cardboard, let it dry, and patiently scribed the lines of the bricks.  Could make the bricks the size that I needed, and it worked well for me!

 

I simply scribed the lines with a graphite pencil, making pressure as needed, easy to do in the dry putty.

 

And done with the scribing, but of course the color was not the correct one.  I tried different mixes, not really satisfied with any of those, too red, too orange, too brown. 

 

Until I found a dye sold in hardware stores, has all the brick type colors, water soluble, mixes perfectly with water colors, and proved perfect as base color for the brick wall, applied with brush. When dry, applied a coat of acrylic gloss to make work with shading easier.

 

Mixing the stuff with different water-colors ("Acuarela" from my kids´ long-gone school days!) I achieved the looks that I wanted.

 

Only missing thing was the concrete lines between the bricks, which I simulated with light gray water color.  Notice the change in color of the finished wall vs the base color, at the bottom.  Quite satisfied with this, my first brick wall, like the porous surface, gives a very realistic appearance.  Still ahead some weathering and other structures that are seen on top of the wall, still working on that.

 

Sorry not that much about the Sherman itself, next time!

marco 

[echen]

Great brickying!

[Model Mate]

I like that! - your wall looks very convincing.

[edjbartos]

Caught up again, this is really looking brilliant. The tank and figures look great, but with the added diorama this will look outstanding...

 

Ed

[Bullbasket]

Marco, that wall is marvelous! You've got the spacing of the bricks spot on, and the same for the colours. First class.

 

John.

[Marco1965]

Thank you for your comments!  Hope to finish this one soon, and start working on the Pershing, Eagle 7!

 

Marco

[bigfoot]

That brick work is spot on, looks very natural. Tank is great too.

[Maddoxx77]

This is really looking great! I love your attention to detail. It really shows in the model and the diorama. 

[Marco1965]

Back to the crew and infantryman figures.  I finished the light areas using artist oils (a mix of doo-doo and light yellow), and sealed with flat varnish.  Interesting that the helmet sizes vary from brand to brand... Sega the biggest, Alpine mid-size and Tamiya the smallest.  Not much will be seen of the loader's figure (to the right), and the commander figure (left) will show basically his head and collar only out of the hatch.  Neither torso nor arms will be visible.

 

The infantryman will be walking along the Sherman, the Soga figure is very nice, and easy to paint.

 

The M1 Garand is beautiful, and I prefer to have the hands molded to the rifle as done by Soga.

 

 

The eyes look quite funny in this picture, I think it is the iphone trying to find the better contrast according to light.

marco

[Marco1965]

Difficult to stop working on this!  I glued the commander and loader's figures in place.  The loader is almost hidden and pushing the clamshell doors of the hatch open with his head (in the early M4A1 76, those doors were two-position only, either locked in vertical position, or closed.  In this case as shown in references, it is the loader who keeps them in that almost closed position).    The commander is peeping forward keeping his head as low as possible. 

 

Perspective from above, is shows with better clarity the position of both figures.  Notice that a 76mm cartridge held by the loader is visible through the crack between the clamshell doors of his hatch.  The kit provides two metal cartridges, did not have use for them, and it was a good detail to put one in the loader's hands!  The shoulder patches of the figures would not be visible so I did not add them.

 

 

Some backpacks were added hanging from the machinegun rack.

 

Antenna was glued in place.

 

And started working on simulating the rubble on the street.  Close to finishing my Sherman!

marco

[dnl42]

This is outstanding work!

 

It's very instructive to see something well beyond my abilities come together like this 

[Marco1965]

It is always advisable to have experts looking at your pictures, and I got a comment about a cover of an antenna base being wrong in my Sherman, the one in the middle of the picture, cone-shaped (learned that it is called a "gum drop"), it was not used in this type of Sherman that I am assembling.  

 

Should look like this, a round plate with a hexagonal nut in the middle.

 

So I removed the previous part (I was lucky enough that, when I was boring the part with a drill, it simply snapped lose, HA!  I got a clean hole to put the correct part.  Which, by the way, is not provided in the Dragon kit, I had to modify another circular plate from the kit.  And this is the shape that i got.  I issued the hexagonal nut with melted plastic and a "nuts and bolt maker" plate. Painted, weathered and this is what I managed to do:

 

It looks pretty decent once in place.

 

And there is another item that the kit is missing and I am still thinking how to issue it: the commander "Sight vane".  Should have been a PE part but somehow Dragon missed it.

 

marco

[Marco1965]

The Sherman kit from Dragon omits another part that is quite noticeable on the turret, the "vane sight", an aiming device right in front of the tank commander.   I decided to scratchbuild the part, although I don´t have the proper measures for it, I had several reference pictures, and a computer drawing.  So, plastic sheet, metal sheet and some patience, and this is what the result is:

 

The vane signt assembled, not painted yet, neither glued.

 

And painted and glued in place.  Needs some weathering to match the tank.

 

 

 

Marco

[Marco1965]

Well, I think I am done with this... last pictures in "Work in progress"!  I added bent "steel" columns and wiring (all plastic, painted).

 

Finished detailing the Garand M1, adding the strap and some minor paint touches.

 

Added a 4th pack and additional pieces of canvas to the rear of the turret.

 

Finished adding more debris near the wall.

 

And voilá!  I think it is complete now!

 

Close to its final destination in Cologne.

 

The Panther hidden to the left of the Cologne cathedral will hit the Sherman any moment now, and the rest is known history.  Thank you for following!

Marco

[dnl42]

Bravo!

 

That is quite excellent work!