M4A1 76mm Sherman

Manufacturer: ESCI andAL.By

By Michael Hatch andStephen Hodge (photographer).

Here is my ESCI M4A1 witha Al-By late production T23 76 mm turret.

The ESCI kit is very niceand easy to build. The Al-By resin turret is just fantastic. Theturret itself is hollow and all the detail is crisp. I lookforward to using another one of these for my late production M4A376 mm project.

I back dated the turretinto a early production one by taking the large round crewcommander's hatch from the ESCI 75 mm turret and mounting it overthe small oval loader's hatch position. The crew commander is awhite metal MMS figure. The American jerry cans are also MMS,while the ration boxes are Leva resin. Tow cable is heavy threaddipped into Humbrol Steel paint. Helmets stored on the vehicleare soft plastic cut from various vinyl figure sets. The radioantenna is soft steel wire.

This model is marked andpainted as belonging to the US 2nd Armored Division, circa July1944. The decals were cobbled together from Microscale's 1/72 USarmor sheet and Aeromasters yellow lettering sheet.

After completing thisproject (of course) I learned that Leva produces a very niceearly production T23 76 mm turret. If I was to build this modelagain, I would use that turret instead. (It too, is very nice andwould save me some time.)

The one thing that I amconsidering going back and changing are the headlights and theirguard frames. Since completing this model I have experimentedwith M.V. Product's clear lenses and photoetched guard frames. Sofar the results are good, very small but good.