M4A6 Sherman

Manufacturer: CommanderSeries Models (Kit #3020)

This is a complete(almost) resin kit of a fairly esoteric version of the Sherman.The kit is basically a kitbash between the ESCI M4A1 and M4A3Sherman hulls, to produce a composite hull style. Changes werealso made to the engine deck to correctly represent the A6version. Applique armor was attached to the hull sides andturret, with excellent simulation of the welds. Although themodel-maker combined the ESCI M4A1 and M4A3 hulls, the realvehicle was actually based on the M4A4 hull, which was alengthened version. I never measured this kit, but from theappearance of the tracks and wheels, I suspect that it is tooshort to accurately represent the M4A4 lengthened hull.

The kit consists of sixparts: the hull, two wheel/track assemblies, the turret, gunmantle, and gun barrel. Although it is such a simple kit, thereis a great level of detail to the parts, thanks mainly to thehigh quality of the ESCI parts to begin with, but also themodel-maker did a great job on the new engine deck. All hatchesare molded closed, because this is a solid body kit. The turretand hull each had large pour-blocks of resin on their bottomsurfaces, which are easiest to grind off with a mototool.

A couple of pioneer toolsare molded onto the hull. Headlights and headlight guards, andthe hull machinegun need to be fabricated by the model builder. Ialso cut off the solid representations of lift rings on theturret and hull, and replaced them with bent copper wire. I madethe headlights from styrene and the headlight guards from brasswire.

Each set of bogie wheels,idler wheel and sprocket wheel were one piece, held together bythe tracks. The piece was cast with a backing of thin resin flashthat was easy to remove, as long as one did it carefully andpatiently. I believe that the cannon barrel on my kit wasshort-shot, but I never took out a ruler to measure. I drilled ahole in the end of the barrel, and that's pretty much all I didfor this kit.

I painted the tank in thestandard US Olive Drab (Polly Scale), and added a single star onthe forward hull from a Microscale sheet (no decals are includedwith the kit).