Thursday, January 17, 2013

Armor Conversion and Detailing Projects


The Sherman tank wasn't the biggest or the best, but it was relentless in both numbers and reliability. It carved its name in history, "Built like a Sherman tank!" The Sherman rivals the Russian T-34 as the most-produced tank in history; more than 49,000 were built. I wanted to build the first of the line, an M4. (The M4 wasn't the first version produced—the M4A1 and the M4A2 actually came off the production lines earlier—but the M4 was the first Sherman standardized as a production design.) Research. Information on the M4 Sherman is a good-news bad-news situation. The good news is that many excellent books and articles exist dealing with the Sherman; the bad news is that none of these sources is definitive and you may need several publications to find details on a particular variant. Many examples of Shermans still exist and can be studied, but many of these are test vehicles, one-off modifications, or other deviations from production standards. I found only one photo of the particular version I was interested in, so I assume few actually were produced.

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