Sherman III of 3 County of London Yeomanry, Sicily

[BarleyBop]

British four-gallon water can

Hmmm, now discontinued from Accurate Armour, British 4 gallon flimsy can used for fuel, and I thought I read somewhere also for water.
Can't say I didn't try!
The shiny one is from Resicast, a Shell 4 gallon fuel can.

There is a discrepancy in scale between the two manufacturers.

 

[Richard55]

Great progress Jakko.Some great Scratchbuilding,Ive always liked how they used the side skirts as racks on the rear hull,Ive made a 4th Armoured brigade Sherman 2 in 72nd.Must do 35th as its a version the u.k used i like.Sadly id have to sniff around to get all the necesssary stuff as U.K ones in Normandy were later m4a1s but its fun researching and sourcing stuff.

 

[Jakko]

Hmmm, now discontinued from Accurate Armour, British 4 gallon flimsy can used for fuel, and I thought I read somewhere also for water.

Those are only for fuel, AFAIK. They're easy to find by a wide range of manufacturers, in both resin and plastic, but the cans I need are these:

(With thanks to Jan van Harn for the photo )

This Sherman III (slightly later than Churchill, as it doesn't have direct vision flaps) has a six or eight of them on the hull front:

Though I'm starting to doubt they were four-gallon cans now, as they seem to be quite a bit smaller than the jerrycan. That held 20 litres, and 4 Imperial gallons is 18 litres. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, as long as I make something that looks convincing for my model

Can't say I didn't try!

Certainly

Some great Scratchbuilding

Thanks This sort of stuff is simple enough once you work out how to most easily make it.

Ive always liked how they used the side skirts as racks on the rear hull

It's one of those inspired improvisations that makes you wonder why it was limited to only a few units, really.

Ive made a 4th Armoured brigade Sherman 2

Another one on my to-do list: an early Sherman II DV at El Alamein or thereabouts … Someday

its fun researching and sourcing stuff.

Definitely

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention is that I removed the taillights. When figuring out the jerrycans on the back I was already wondering whether they were still there, but decided to leave them on as I wasn't sure. However, photos of other 3 CLY Shermans usually show them without, so I pried off the guards (easy to do accidentally, but oddly difficult on purpose) and removed the lights.

 

[BarleyBop]

starting to doubt they were four-gallon cans

...well, if that's the case, then Resicast has 2 gallon cans that look a lot like your examples...

Only, their Intermediate (also called 'simplified') water cans have straight handles, and their petrol cans have angled handles.

Included a British gerrycan for reference.
Seems their resin handles are pretty delicate...
The rounded edges seem to match your photos.

Also found one on a SAS jeep in NA... can see the diff in size with regular gerrycan:
(thanks for the discussion, I hadn't noticed until now!)

 

[Jakko]

I suspect now that the can in the photo I posted, is from that Resicast set, then. Too much trouble and expense to go and order, though, for something with a shape as simple as this

 

[Richard55]

Those are only for fuel, AFAIK. They're easy to find by a wide range of manufacturers, in both resin and plastic, but the cans I need are these:

View attachment 156108

(With thanks to Jan van Harn for the photo )

This Sherman III (slightly later than Churchill, as it doesn't have direct vision flaps) has a six or eight of them on the hull front:

View attachment 156109

Though I'm starting to doubt they were four-gallon cans now, as they seem to be quite a bit smaller than the jerrycan. That held 20 litres, and 4 Imperial gallons is 18 litres. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, as long as I make something that looks convincing for my model


Certainly


Thanks This sort of stuff is simple enough once you work out how to most easily make it.


It's one of those inspired improvisations that makes you wonder why it was limited to only a few units, really.


Another one on my to-do list: an early Sherman II DV at El Alamein or thereabouts … Someday


Definitely

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention is that I removed the taillights. When figuring out the jerrycans on the back I was already wondering whether they were still there, but decided to leave them on as I wasn't sure. However, photos of other 3 CLY Shermans usually show them without, so I pried off the guards (easy to do accidentally, but oddly difficult on purpose) and removed the lights.

El Alamein Shermans are cool looking and great for weathering

 

[Richard55]

Maybe have to do a dual build someday of El Alamein Sherman 2s and 3s.Id like that.

 

[Jakko]

That would be interesting to do side-by-side, though OTOH you would end up with two very similar models, just one more rounded than the other

 

[Richard55]

Rounded?,I dont follow,Hulls?

 

[Jakko]

What I meant was: if you build a very early M4A1 and a very early M4A2, both at El Alamein, the two models will look very similar except that one has rounded contours while the other has sharp ones. The light-and-dark camouflage will even make that difference harder to see, at least from a distance.

 

[Richard55]

Yes i see your point Jakko.Ive seen some El.Alamein Shermans at Shows and couple have been a pinky colour like a flesh tone,Also Portland stone colour overall,John in our club painted a panther pink along with a toy Pink Panther.There is a model club who are " Just for fun" and gosh they do all kinds of wacky stuff.If you ever get the chance to visit Telford for the annual ipms show you are likely to see a very large man on a mobility scooter dressed as a lobster or Octopuss.Im chomping at the bit to get some Shermans but must resist till November at Telford,If i had my way id have around 20 Sherman kits but wife said i have to sell 20 or 30 kits if i want to do that.A guy Dave who is in our sister club has nearly 550 kits!!!.He buys 2 of everything and has i believe 50 M4s alone!!!!.

 

[Jakko]

Telford sounds one of those shows that would be really nice to go to, but I'm rather unlikely to ever go there For starters I would have to get a passport, when I just a few months ago got a new ID card instead — thanks to Brexit, you can't enter the UK anymore on an EU national ID card

---

With the water cans made, I also added the bracket (whatever that may be for) on the side of the hull and hung three helmets on the turret. Oh, and I finally added the handles to the drivers' hatches:

The cans and track aren't glued on yet, I'll only do that after painting. The photos of the real tank also show something on top of the ammo box, but I can't figure out what that was. I want to say it's a saw, but that seems rather unlikely.

 

[BarleyBop]

can't figure out

...hmm, strange indeed.
It looks like something thin, rectangular, rigid and in a case/satchel perhaps? And it has been pushed through the raised handles of the box.
...the right length for a saw, but on a tank?

 

[Jakko]

There are plenty of reasons for a tank to carry a saw, but why would you stow it like that? Which is why I think it isn't one, but I can't (yet?) work out what it is.

 

[Edbert]

thanks to Brexit, you can't enter the UK anymore on an EU national ID card

I do not beleive that is specifically true. From what I am reading there are folks in France/Belgium/Holland that will get you on a boat really cheap.

 

[Jakko]

Unlike those people, I wouldn't want to stay in the UK, though

Also:—

Holland

I suspect you mean "the Netherlands" there From Holland proper, it's a mighty long way to the UK by boat, though that didn't stop people 80–85 years ago. Oddly enough, people are nowhere near as negative about them as they are about their modern counterparts.

 

[BarleyBop]

The Engelandvaarder story is an amazing instance of courage and determination: escaping a terrible situation against all odds, with many then returning to change it!
Thanks for the link...

 

[Jakko]

The 1970s film Soldier of Orange is about basically that.

 

[Jakko]

For a while now I had been unhappy with the left rear stowage rack. It held two helmets and a jerrycan. Who puts helmets and a jerrycan into a stowage rack? My modelling saw made short work of them:

When I took this photo, I had already carved what remained of the front helmet into something that can pass for folded cloth or similar, but the rest is harder to transform into more plausible items, and also to remove completely to allow other items to be glued in their place. But this afternoon I got an idea when I was eating a biscuit-chocolate-bar-thing:

These Aldi bars are in a wrapper of aluminium foil that's clearly thicker than the kitchen kind, so:

Also, I built a commander to go in the turret:

He's from the MiniArt set of British armoured car crew, and picked because the real Churchill's commander was also wearing an officer's cap He has a pin in his foot, that goes into a piece of drilled-out sprue glued to the support for the seat:

As you can see, I did have to amputate one of his legs before he fit. Because he stands with his feet apart, they wouldn't fit through the hatch, and as he also has his arms wide, he couldn't go through from underneath either.

 

[kevin]

How was the biscuit? Looks tasty

 

[Rockin' Rob]

How was the biscuit? Looks tasty

Shoot, I just want to know what he's eating. Biscuit and chocolate? Never heard of it

 

[Jakko]

They are quite good, but then, Aldi has some of the best chocolate anyway. These are a bit odd, though: they're basically chocolate bars with a filling of a complete biscuit and some cream-type stuff with a different flavour depending on the exact type.

 

[Richard55]

I like a jaunt round Aldi and Lidls which are on opposite sides of the road in town.Wife likes the Cherry yogurts Lidl sell.

 

[Jakko]

"Can't you ever do something right the first time?" If I looked more closely at photos, perhaps … I noticed that Churchill had bogies with "short" bolts on the underside, which is normal for relatively early ones, so I cut them down on the kit parts. Before on the left, after on the right:

And then I noticed something else: Churchill also had early roadwheel arms, without holes in them for the bolts that hold the rubbing plates on top of the arms — on M3 mediums and early Shermans, those were attached by screws through the top rather than with bolts from underneath, as they were later on, OK, so how to solve that? One option is to cut away the bolts and putty the holes closed, but is a lot of work because it's all in a hard to reach spot.

I then recalled that I have a full set of bogies from a Takom M3 mediums, which someone gave me because the whole undercarriage of the Vargas M2A1 medium resembles nothing from reality. And because the M2A1's wheels were narrower than those of the M3, I won't need the wheel arms for that once I get round to building it. And what do you know? The Takom arms fit the Asuka bogies, although you need to shorten the axle pins slightly because the holes for them are slightly less deep in the Takom parts.

On the left a Takom wheel arm, in the middle one with the central rod cut away, because Churchill didn't have those: if it had, there would have been a bolt head visible on the outside, and those aren't in the photos of Churchill except on the spare wheel — compare them to see what I mean. On the right, both sides of the wheel arm with a wheel glued between them. The wheel is from MiniArt because it's better than the Takom ones:

Left to right Takom, Asuka, Miniart, Dragon and Italeri. The holes in the Takom wheels are clearly too small, if you ask me, and the sides of the tyre are vertical instead of sloping inward slightly. Vertical sides are correct for early wheels, but I don't think Churchill had those.

Before and after:

Happily, I only glue the wheel arms into place on Shermans once the bogies are on the tank The only snag is that I couldn't keep the wheels as revolving here, because MiniArt's are a fraction wider than Takom's, because of which the inner arm didn't quite reach the axle. Only by glueing the three parts together do they stay in position as they should.

All together now:

And in the spirit of "Also show your mistakes": the bogie at top right. I had cut the axle down too far by accident, allowing the wheel arm to just slip out. By drilling a hole in the bogie and enlarging that in the bogie, I could just a bit of plastic rod in as a replacement axle. I do still need to cut it down because the bogie doesn't fit against the hull like this.

 

[BarleyBop]

I can appreciate your attention to detail, but I am equally glad that I don't have your in-depth knowledge that would warrant the effort!

 

[Edbert]

They are quite good, but then, Aldi has some of the best chocolate anyway.

If a Hollander/Orangeman/Dutch-dude/Netherlander says it is good chocolate...

Take that to the bank!

 

[Jakko]

I can appreciate your attention to detail, but I am equally glad that I don't have your in-depth knowledge that would warrant the effort!

One leads to the other, is my experience I notice things in photos and wonder why/how/what, which leads to reading up on them or people telling me about them when I ask on forums, which leads to noticing things I didn't before, etc. …

If a Hollander/Orangeman/Dutch-dude/Netherlander says it is good chocolate...

Most definitely not a Hollander Not sure how much value anyone should place on my appreciating Aldi chocolate, though

 

[Richard55]

This is one ive always been keen on modelling.I am very keen on the Pacific island hopping campaign and the myriad of atolls and islets that U.S forces had to fight on."Jungle jim"

 

[Edbert]

I am very keen on the Pacific island hopping campaign and the myriad of atolls and islets that U.S forces had to fight on.

 

[Jakko]

A tank like that is another one on my mental to-build(-sometime) list