Yet another Sherman: early M4A1 (75)

[Jakko]

With the M4A3E2 built, but not yet painted, I decided to start on the next one, an early M4A1, with the idea that I can then paint them both at the same time in a little while. This is what Asuka calls a “value kit”, meaning you don’t get etched parts, decals or even a box-top painting:



In the box, you get the following sprues:



(I left the instructions and the sprue with poly caps out.) As per usual with this brand, it’s all very modular to suit the particular variant of the Sherman, and you get plenty of leftovers for the spares box — for example, this kit has both a three-piece and a one-piece final drive housing, but you only need the former.

The kit represents an early, but not a very early, medium tank M4A1 as built by Pressed Steel Car Company (PSC). It has the riveted lower hull that was unique to PSC, as well as the early medium-duty suspension bogies with the return rollers on top rather than behind the bogie. These were more commonly seen on the M3-series medium tanks, but were also used on early M4s. Because the springs weren’t quite suitable for the heavier M4, though, the bogies were soon redesigned with bigger springs that needed more height, so the roller was moved back to accommodate them. The kit has an upper hull with periscopes in front of the drivers’ hatches, though, rather than vision flaps, meaning it’s not a truly early production variant. It probably represents a tank from mid-1942 or so.

As for what I’ll actually build from this … the usual subject would be something like an American tank in North Africa, or from a training unit in the USA, or perhaps in Italy in 1944 or so. My subject will be slightly more unusual, for a Sherman anyway. Look at this photo, from a Sherman book by Steve Zaloga (title not available at the moment because the book is in my hobby room and I am not ):



The Sherman on the right is an early or very early M4A1 — you can’t really tell which because the sandbags obscure whether it has the direct-vision flaps or periscopes for the drivers. The interesting part is that this tank seems to have almost no upgrades that would (should) have been applied in 1943 or 44 in preparation for the Normandy landings, like armour plates on the hull sides, and it still has the medium-duty bogies and spoked idler wheels — yet this photo was taken in Alsace on 1 February 1945. It does have replacement drive sprocket rings, with the simple circular centre hole rather than the elaborate pointed style, and a replacement road wheel on the second station.

All I’ve done so far is build the lower hull and final drive housing:



As you can see, the lower hull is riveted, and this photo shows Asuka clearly did their homework: the frontmost plate is thicker than the rest of the floor, which is a feature of early PSC M4A1 tanks.

 

[Jakko]

Wheels are always fun for armour modellers … I removed the seams on those of the M4A3E2 with a lathe, but found at the time that the spoked wheels wouldn’t grip well so I couldn’t use that method here. To save myself physiotherapy for my thumbs, I put them one at a time in a modeller’s vice instead, so I could scrape down the seam with a knife:



At least I’m building Shermans here rather than Panzer IVs or Tigers or something, so I only had fourteen wheels to do



I decided to go for three “stamped” wheels, one for the left-hand side like in the photo and two for the right. This is pure conjecture, of course, but entirely plausible.

I also attached the upper hull to the lower after completing the fixtures on the rear hull plate:



The kit comes with two types of air filters (the canisters to either side of the doors), rounded as here and square. The instructions say to use the former, which are usually described as “early” but either type would be suitable for all M4 and M4A1 tanks regardless of production time, except those made at Chrysler. Still, I decided to use the rounded ones anyway.

On the upper hull, I managed to cut a corner off the rear engine deck cover when removing the sprue attachment point. This was fairly easy to repair by glueing an oversized bit of plastic card to it, and trimming and filing it down to size after the glue had dried.

The instructions are typical in that they would have you fit all kits of detail parts to the upper hull before installing it. This is just asking for trouble, if you ask me, so I tend to do it the other way around.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Another interesting Sherman project. Is that the only reference photo for this tank? I know you have in the past rooted out a few references to work with. Unusual camo - just brush painted in the field?
Jim

 

[rtfoe]

Nice progress Jakko,

Although I like Shermans I have yet to finish one after 34 years from the last three I made in '84. An M4A3, M4A1 and an M4 76mm following Verlindens sandbagged version. I now have five in mothball and your interest in Shermans have maybe given them a chance of getting off the shelf.

I think what you're doing is interesting and the references you dig up is helpful. I don't think I will be able to detail as much as what you're doing. I would probably drop in time to time to refer to your builds when I work on mine if that's ok. Definitely pulling up a chair for this.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Jakko]

Another interesting Sherman project. Is that the only reference photo for this tank?

I don’t know of any others. Not that I have all that extensive a library on the subject, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single photo of a Sherman of this early a variant, in France or Germany. The photo isn’t sufficient to make an exact replica, of course, but it should do for “close enough”, which is what I’m aiming for here. The thing that got my attention here is the odd appearance, to someone who knows a little bit about Shermans, of a tank with very early suspension units but whitewash camouflage and sandbags on the glacis plate. In Italy, this tank would probably have had spare track “armour” instead, and no winter camouflage.

Unusual camo - just brush painted in the field?

It looks like it. Somebody probably just took some white paint or whitewash and a big brush (broom?). This will be fun to replicate, with all that dripped paint

Although I like Shermans I have yet to finish one after 34 years from the last three I made in '84. An M4A3, M4A1 and an M4 76mm following Verlindens sandbagged version. I now have five in mothball and your interest in Shermans have maybe given them a chance of getting off the shelf.

Good luck! It’d be interesting to see how you finish them To be honest, for years I wasn’t all that interested in Shermans myself, largely because everybody and their dog seemed to be building them. But researching the few left in my area and purchasing some reference books (chiefly Sherman by Hunnicutt and Son of Sherman by Stansell & Laughlin) made me see more interesting variants than the run-off-the-mill ones. Couple that to discovering the very good Asuka kits …

I think what you're doing is interesting and the references you dig up is helpful.

Thanks

I don't think I will be able to detail as much as what you're doing.

These ones are largely built straight from the box, with just a few missing bits added, because I think the kits are good enough that they don’t need much work at all. This certainly makes it easyier to actually finish the models.

I would probably drop in time to time to refer to your builds when I work on mine if that's ok.

Of course

 

[Graeme C.]

Another Sherman Jakko? An early tank like this, still going late in the war, would have had a few replacement parts. Watching with interest.

 

[Jakko]

Another Sherman Jakko?

I seem to have a surplus of them in both my stash and plans at the moment

An early tank like this, still going late in the war, would have had a few replacement parts.

Agreed, that’s why I went for three stamped wheels instead of just the one you can see in the photo of the real tank. The kit also forces me to assume it has a replacement gun, which I’ll explain when I get to the turret here

 

[Jakko]

More progress. I completed the suspension bogies:



If you compare them to those from the M4A3E2, you can see the evolution they went through in about two years.

The details on the front and rear of the tank:



This still needs a number of bits added, both from the kit and home-made. Stuff like the straps on the tools, the headlight mounting plug holders on the headlight guards, etc. I didn’t install the headlights, because those were removable and could be stored inside the tank. Since this one had sandbags on the hull front, I doubt the crew would have left the lamps mounted. I also used the plastic guards, both front and rear, because the kit doesn’t have any etched parts and the plastic ones are pretty acceptable. A bit thick, but nowhere near as badly as on the old Sherman kits from Italeri and Tamiya.

I had to backdate the drivers’ hatches by cutting off the locking devices and filling the holes for the balance springs, both of which were introduced later than this tank would have been built. The yellow periscope is from the old Verlinden set of American tank periscopes. For some reason, kits usually mould the forward periscopes shut, but I wanted to show one open. That meant a lot of awkward scraping to get rid of the moulded-in lid. Also, I decided to use the green periscopes instead of the clear ones, because I’m not very keen on clear ones in general.

On the back deck, I wanted to use the etched gratings I had spare from a Dragon Sherman kit for the air scoops on the rear corners. That meant trimming the lower edge down a bit at an angle so they would fit, but when it came to actually fitting it, the damned thing pinged off my tweezers and into the air scoop! Since there’s a mostly-enclosed compartment underneath and there was superglue on the grating by this point, there was no way to get it back out Moral of the story: next time, glue the gratings onto the scoops before glueing the scoops to the tank.

And similar shots of the turret:



I used solvent to melt the plastic on the untextured turret parts, as well as where I had to scrape down seams, and then stippled it with a stiff brush. The cupola is still loose, and also had its locking devices cut off, again because they were added later.

Earlier, I mentioned I’d regard the tank as having received a replacement gun. This is because the barrel has straight sides (not parallel, they taper) — this was a feature of later 75 mm M3 guns. The early models, which this tank would have left the factory with, had a slight flare to the muzzle, that isn’t on the kit part.

 

[Jakko]

More details on front and rear:



I added wire grab handles to the hatches, put plugs into the headlight holes (plastic rod to fill it with a punched disc on top) and made empty plug holders on the headlamp guard from 1 mm brass tube. The tow cable is twisted copper wire from an electrical cable with eyes from the spares box, because one of the Asuka ones disappeared from my fingers as I was test-fitting it I have no clue how or where it went — all I know is I was holding it, felt it slip from my fingers and couldn’t find it anymore. In the middle of my work surface, where I was doing this specifically so I wouldn’t lose it on the floor Anyway …



On the rear deck, I replaced the tanker’s bar (big crowbar) with a smaller one from plastic rod with card mountings, as I noticed in references that early M4A1 tanks had a shorter one. The tie-down straps are thin plastic card. I’m still looking for a way to make the gratings for the air scoops, though.

 

[Fernando N]

Making good progress Jakko, nice detail to alter the crowbar

 

[Jakko]

What do you do when you lose the mesh for the air scoop? After thinking about it for a while, you make your own:



I stretched some sprue, deliberately pale grey so it’s easily visible against the green, cut it into lengths and stuck it to the scoops in as good an approximation of the etched pattern as I could manage without measuring anything Deliberately too long, of course, both for ease of handling and to make sure it will actually fit the opening. I’ll trim them to length once the glue is dry.

For those interested, these scoops are not necessarily air intakes, though they have to be that for their primary function: cooling the fuel tanks. It was found that the M4’s fuel tanks got too hot, so by adding these scoops, air will get drawn in through them and over the fuel tanks that are directly forward of them in the sponsons, and then to the engine. They also double as covers for the compartment directly below them, behind the fuel tanks, in which the grousers are stored that can be bolted to the track for enhanced traction in soft ground.

I also added a .30-calibre ammo can on the engine access door on the hull rear:



This is from a Verlinden set, mainly because those were the only ones I had Its function on the real tank was to hold a field telephone connected to the tank’s intercom system, so that infantrymen near the tank could talk to the crew easily. This was a field modification that was quite common in France and Germany on American Shermans, and also thought up independently in the Pacific. I have no idea if the tank I’m using as my example had such a thing, but it seems plausible. It probably needs a lead that goes up onto the tank, but I’ve not found a photo yet that shows this clearly.

On the front, I “built” a rack for the sandbags:



This is also largely conjecture, because the lower support can’t be seen in the photo of the real tank, and though I can see there is something diagonal on the front left corner of the hull, I can’t make out what it is. A bit of plastic strip for both seems like a good enough solution.

 

[Tim Marlow]

Great work as always Jakko.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks, Tim. This afternoon I mixed up some epoxy putty (Sylmasta A+B, of probably 20 years old) and made it into sandbags for the hull front:



This per the usual method: make the putty into a roll, chop that into short lengths, knead those into rectangular blocks and press them onto the model. I then added tied-up openings to some and seams to most. The former proved remarkably easy by pinching the putty together with some wide tweezers from a few different directions, then opening up the centre of the resulting blob with a sculpting tool. The seams were just pressed in with the point of a knife. I deliberately didn’t scribe them but repeatedly pushed the knife point into the putty to give more of a stitched effect.

With the left-over putty (who doesn’t mix too much every time? ) I made a rolled-up something to go on the back of the turret:



This still needs straps added, but I’ll do those when the putty hardens.

Unusually for me, I then added the suspension to the model already:



Normally, I keep these loose until after spraying, so I can paint the tyres and tracks separately. Since the inspiration for this model was used in wet and muddy conditions, though, I intend to just spray the lower half of the hull with a dirt colour and won’t need to paint the tyres separately at all. For this reason, I will also put on the tracks already when the glue has dried, rather than after painting. The idlers wheels are still off the model because they need to be adjusted to match the track length.

As for those tracks, I have decided to use the AFV Club T-48 type that I found difficult to work with and impossible to use on a Sherman V (M4A4) because there weren’t enough links in the set for that. Because the M4A1’s hull was shorter than the M4A4’s, they should suffice for this model (and if they don’t, I still have an unopened second set ).

By the way, the kit comes with perfectly good T-51 tracks (with flat, rubber pads) in soft plastic, two lengths per side. With a tank like the Sherman, the tracks are supposed to be tight around the wheels, and their design is such that they won’t sag (unless the links are worn out) so I don’t have any problem with using those soft plastic tracks if they look good, like the ones in this kit do. However, the real tank had a different type of track, so I had to use an aftermarket set.

Here are the tracks I had put together for that Sherman V, and the remaining links I had already cleaned up:



The lengths I have are clearly too long if I try them on this model, but that just means I need to remove a few bits so they will fit. Then there’s the joy of building the other set, but at least the problem that they easily fall apart without glue, won’t be a major issue: I can glue shorter lengths straight to the model without having to worry about having a workable full track so I can install it after painting.

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
Nice work on the sandbags.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks Now for some improper use of tools …

On early M4A1 tanks built by Pressed-Steel Car Company, the idler wheel mount was attached to the hull with rivets, rather than bolts as was more usual on Shermans. However, Asuka supplies its standard part, that has bolt heads instead. I had been pondering how to replicate this, when I suddenly hit on the idea of checking the ends of the shafts of my drill bits … and yes, these are not flat but slightly conical. The 0.8 mm bit doesn’t fit the 0.8 mm hole in the die from my punch-and-die set, but works fine in the 0.9 mm hole, so I proceeded to punch a test rivet from 0.25 mm plastic card. (Put the rear end of the drill bit into the die and tap the sharp end with a hammer — don’t use your good bits for this but take an old set ) Checking it under a loupe, I found it was indeed domed (and hollow) rather than flat. Hurrah!



I’ve so far only done the left-hand mount, as I had had a bit of enough after fourteen of these things, but it looks like it worked!

 

[Steven000]

Nice progress Jakko, really like the look of those sandbags!

 

[Jakko]

Thanks, though they are almost surprisingly easy to do (which makes me think that people who buy resin sandbag sets for tanks have never even thought about how to make them themselves).

Earlier today, I adjusted the track I had built to fit it to this model:



First, I removed the curved bit that goes over the idler wheel, and then took out six links, two at the top and four at the bottom from the remaining lengths. After some minor adjustments to the track’s shape, I glued first the top run to the sprocket wheel and the return rollers, then glued the bottom run to the sprocket and the roadwheels. Finally, by trial and error, I made some more adjustments to the section that sits around the idler wheel and adjusted the wheel’s position to match before glueing both into place. The Asuka Shermans have a separate idler axle, so it can be adjusted like on the real tank for proper track tension, making this pretty easy.

Now all that’s left to do is build the track for the other side …

 

[Jakko]

There was more work on the turret than I thought. It was, of course, not too smart of me to build it before working out the details it should/could/might have had, so I ended up having to remove some bits from what I thought was the finished turret …



To be precise, I pulled off the vane sight and filled its locating slot, as well as cutting off the vane from the hatch lid, because these were only introduced in 1943 and this tank, to me anyway, looks sort of autumn 1942 production or so. For the same reason, the socket for the searchlight had to go, just to the left of the ventilator on the turret roof. I also removed the three little round pads, because I thought these were a feature of later turrets too. It turns out the presence or absence of these is determined by the manufacturer of the turret shell, not turret production date, but I had cut them off already As I also still needed to add casting marks, I had to find plausible ones for a turret without those pads. Eventually, I solved that by mostly copying them from a turret drawing in Son of Sherman.

The marks themselves are Archer 3D transfers, which are fiddly to work with but look good once painted. I put down some Tamiya Smoke first, mainly because I wanted some gloss paint underneath to let the decals stick better, and this was the first I had at hand. It needs a second coat over them to secure them in place, as I found last time I used these, that they come loose easily.

I also built the second track:



This was done as four lengths: flat top and bottom runs that I let dry before proceeding, then a length for around the drive sprocket that I glued to the other two (and the sprocket) as I put it onto the model, and finally, a length around the idler, so I could adjust that to get proper track tension. These tracks are fiddly to work with and just about impossible to do unless you work like this, because you simply cannot build a whole track without glue and put it onto the model Also, I had to take about 15 to 20 links (I’m not quite sure) from my second set of these tracks in order to have enough for even one tank …

Anyway, I’d say the model is finished now and ready for painting :



And here it is with its younger brother to sort of illustrate how the real Sherman evolved in about two years’ time:

 

[Tim Marlow]

Looking fine Jakko. Great work on the sandbags.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks As I was spraying models today, this one also got a coat:



The M4A3E2 from my other thread got Gunze-Sangyo olive drab neat, while on this one, I mixed Tamiya dark yellow into it to represent older paint that has faded more than what I intend to look like new paint on the other tank. As with that one, I gave it highlights with an even lighter version and sprayed the undercarriage Tamiya flat earth.

Here’s a comparison of the two models, to show the difference in colour: