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Sherman BARV conversion questions.


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I managed to pick up Resicast’s Sherman BARV conversion for Tasca’s sherman III. While i have the base kit needed in the stash, I dont want to sacrifice a great kit for this build if necessary due to minimal use of parts.

A quesion for the shermanholics out there, can I use Tamiya’s M4 Sherman Early Production kit 35190 as a base donor kit? No engine hatches or the rear deck/hull will be exposed as seen in the images below.

 

https://www.ultracast.ca/Resicast-351126-Sherman-BARV-Conversion-for-TASC-p/res35.1126.htm

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Absolutely not.  The glacis is all wrong (even for an M4!!) as it is only correct for an M4A4 or Ford-built M4A3, and that will be seen. The lower rear hull is also wrong and that will also be seen.  No doors on the M4A2.  The angle of the upper rear hull will be wrong too.

 

AFAIK the BARVs were mostly converted on Fisher built M4A2s with the square-edged welded drivers' hoods as these lent themselves to the window more so than the cast hood types, and also made fitting the superstructure somewhat easier.  Looking at photos the welded hoods are very much more common on BARVs than cast.  Fishers predominated among M4A2s anyway.  The Ultracast kit is designed for the less common cast hood as found on the Asuka kit.  At least some of the cast-hood vehicles still had the bolted final drive cover.

 

Your other base kit options would therefore be the Dragon Sicily or Tarawa M4A2s, which are Fishers.  But the Ultracast parts will not fit properly around the hood area.  Dragon's other Sherman III (6313) might work.  That has cast hoods.  But you're looking at £40-50 for these kits these days.

 

In most of those cases you will need new tracks as BARVs all had steel tracks for traction and the kits except Tarawa have rubber types: Tarawa has T54s, the Asuka kit has T49s.  But the Dragon kits will have the unloved DS tracks anyway.

 

As it happens I'm having a massive stash clearout right now and I do have both Dragon Sicily and 6313 Sherman IIIs surplus plus some suitable Bronco and Masterclub tracks.  PM me if those might be of interest.

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