Sherman IB

This is Sherman IB of the 20th Armoured regiment, 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade in Italy, April 1945. The basic conversion is from ABM, of excellent quality. As “donor” kit for the rest of the model, i.e. lower hull, running gear and transmission housing, ABM indicates the venerable Italeri M4A1 (ref 225), and indeed the fix of the lower hull and transmission cover with the resin upper hull and rear plate is perfect. I did not use the bogies and running gear from the Italeri M4A1. For the bogies I had a set from Dragon, the ones with the raised return roller arm. Wheels, drive sprockets and idlers are from Academy, which I think that are the best ones available in plastic, especially the wheels. The tracks are from AFV Club, the T48 type with rubber chevron (ref. 35038). The comprehensive Aber photo etching set for the M4/M4A1/M4A3 (ref. 35042) was also used. The ABM conversion does not include pioneer tools, and certainly the Italeri ones are very poor, so I used a Verlinden set for US vehicles (ref. 1476). The Browning cal .30 MG on the turret is another Verlinden item (ref. 1735) detailed with the excellent Karaya gun barrel (ref. B03) which consist in two parts: The barrel itself, made of fine tube, and the perforated shirt, as much as in the real thing. With all these components, the Sherman IB became the usual “Frankenstein model” made from several different sources. Of course, I also used the usual “home made” stuff, mainly plastic rod, metal wire for the handles, siren wiring, tool straps tie downs and specially, for the periscope guards, which were made from four pieces of fine wire glued together.

The model was painted with Tamiya acrylics, and treated with enamel filters, oil washes, Vallejo acrylics and Mig pigments. The figures come from the excellent Ultracast range (refs 35033 and 35035) and they are painted with a mixture of Vallejo Model Color acrylics and Humbrol enamels. The 105 ammo, cartridges and cases are from Verlinden (ref. 0093).

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