Tasca
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On D-Day, June 6th 1944, the Firefly VC was first used in action. The very first VC tanks were those of the 13th/18th Hussars that rode ashore aboard a modified LCT. These tanks were able to fire directly from the LCT, however it is doubtful that either did. The first confirm combat use of the Firefly came later when tanks of the Staffordshire Yeomanry with the Firefly met the counterattack of the German 21st Panzer Division. Typically these Fireflys were similar in appearance, featuring cast-in cheek armour on the turret, an omitted pistol port and no applique armour on the hull. The cast in cheek armour turret is actually a mid-later type of 75mm turret, with the deleted pistol port too. They were not fitted with the applique armour on the hull sides and front as the British did not think this was required as the ammunition was not stored behind these sections the VC. The regular M4A4 75mm had them installed. The "later" VC, as depicted in Tasca's original Firefly kit, is typical of rebuilt VCs with factory installed applique armour kits and the older non-cheek armour turret. Tasca's new kit depicts this early type. The Kit This new kit is almost exactly the same as Tasca's previous VC kit, which I reviewed last year British Sherman VC Firefly (no.35-009). There is a new turret (obviously) and one new sprue, sprue "K". The new sprue contains another type of lid for the armoured radio box and the turret stowage bin. A new decal sheet with four marking options is included. The instructions are a copy of the original VC kit with separate sheets that cover this new kit. This may cause some confusion so careful study before assembly is probably a good idea. The most striking difference is the new style of box art that Tasca has chosen, it is a hand drawn illustration similar to those cartoons that appear in Japanese modelling magazines such as Model Graphix. See photograph no.1. The kit is moulded in olive styrene with a few clear styrene parts, photo-etched brass and glue-able synthetic rubber tracks. Overall the moulding is excellent. In fact I haven't found any flash or poorly placed knockout pin marks. There is even a minimum of sprue attachment points on the parts; the turret for example, has only two. However did they manage that! Clean up of the parts will be quick. I have been using a set of flush-cutting shears to remove a few parts without any problem. The styrene is of a high quality similar to Tamiya's. In my sample there was no warping or short-shots (common with pre-production kits) either. The photo-etched brass (at least I think it's brass) fret is also well formed and sharp, (see below). The tracks are likewise well moulded.
Since I previously reviewed the earlier kit it is pointless to re-describe the kit, so having now assembled the original VC kit I can pass on a few comments on specific areas of construction. In general the assembly was good, I used both Testors Liquid Cement and Tenax-7R, both of which the styrene responded well to. Squadron Green Putty "sticks" well to the styrene too, (I may be mocked for stating that... but some styrene types don't respond well to certain glues and putty). I don't recall having any major fit problems, warp problems or embarrassing ejector pin markings to fill in. There were a few areas that could do with some extra attention, these I will address in each section below. Running Gear Included are a full set of Tasca's early M4 bogies, refer to Tim Streeter's review http://www.track-link.net/reviews/k1548. I must admit that I am getting a little bored of building these bogies, not that there is anything wrong with them, they're excellent, but I use them on every Sherman-esque project. Including my original VC, my Burma M4A4 and my Ram II OP. They are complex and cleaning up the mould lines on each part is the tedious part. I find it less tedious to build one complete bogie at various points during the project rather than all at once. That said however, they do represent the most detailed M4 bogie units in styrene and resin. A few details should be added. There should be four bolt holes on the leading side of each housing, these are the holes that the idler arm base was bolted into. The bogie support could be bolted to each side of the housing. I drill these out with a no.32 bit using a small template that I made to ensure that the holes line up in the same position on each housings. Small bolts are supposed glued inside the rim of each road wheel, that's 2×6×2×12 = 288! The little bolts are moulded to the sprues and are supposed to be cut off and glued on, after having tried this on just one side of one road wheel I gave up. Now I use after-market road wheels. Either from Formations or Tiger Model Designs. The gimmicky rubber pads that Tasca include to simulate a working suspension tend to compress too much, I now use the set of inserts from Formations. These are especially useful if the kit-supplied loop tracks are used. See photograph no.15. Lower Hull I have now assembled two of these hulls, the original VC and the original M4A1 kit. They are a little tricky to get perfectly aligned, at least in my case I have managed to slightly mess mine up. I tend to do my model building while watching TV and don't really pay as much attention as I should. However I have now assembled this kit's lower hull while paying full attention and have succeeded! I have a perfectly true and gap free lower hull. I assembled the hull plates with Tenax-7R applied with a small brush from inside the hull. This prevents any embarrassing glue spots from appearing on the outside of the hull. See photograph no.12. The three-piece transmission housing is very nice. The final drive housings are separate from the transmission itself and some care is needed to get a smooth joint between the two parts, this is desirable as this was actually one casting so no joint should appear. In my case I did end up with a seam. I had to carefully sand this down and them apply Mr. Surfacer to replace the cast texture effect. Care must be taken as to not damage the casting number details. See photograph no.13. Upper Hull While building the previous Tasca VC kit I found a few areas that could be improved. Starting at the front, the driver's hoods need some refinement, the face needs building up so that the slight overhang is more pronounced. Although I didn't bother with this on my previous VC because I used the applique armour pieces. On this kit I would just layer a piece of 0.010" styrene and flare the edges in with epoxy putty (which won't warp the styrene). The armoured plug that fits over the hole for the deleted MG will need some weld beads added around the base. Finally on the front, I feel the join between the glacis and hull sides needs more definition. I added a thin strip of 0.005" styrene, softened it with liquid glue and then textured it with an X-Acto blade. Moving to the rear the engine deck could do with some extra detailing. First the air intake grill lacks the 3D appearance, I simply cut mine out and made a new grill from strips of 0.010" strip styrene. The little grab handles on the grill were made from styrene rod stock. There are some missing weld beads at the rear, they should go on the sides and rear of part E31. I make these weld beads with Slater's PolyRod soaked in Tenax-7R. The rear stowage box could do with some enhancement to make if look like it is made from sheet metal and not a sold block, I added thin strips of styrene around the ends and sanded them down. See photograph no.13. Turret The turret cheek armour "bulge" was to make up the armour thickness removed from the inner surface to make room for the firing control mechanism. Earlier turrets have applique armour welded over this area. These mid to late 75mm turrets, which the VC was based on, had the bulge. Tasca includes the turret applique pieces, these are left over from the original kit and should not be added to this model. A new turret moulding is included which features this cast cheek armour. Compared to photographs this is accurate, this may be something of a first for an injection moulded Sherman kit too. Included also is a turret stowage box, this was missing (much to the dismay of Jim Wechsler) in Tasca's original VC kit. There is another type of cover included for the armoured radio box now, this one is the type without access panels. The commander's cupola is not accurate for "Carole" with had two MG mounts (with a 30 cal. MG in the front one). Currently there is one available from Resicast but modifying the kit's cupola should be simple. While detail in the kit cupola is good there is now a new cupola available from Tiger Models that is superb, I chose to use this on my VC which it fits perfectly. The commander figure is the original kit, he is wearing coveralls which would be correct for a VC as used in Normandy. I added weld beads between the turret and armoured radio box extension. These are along the side and (I assume) the bottom. I didn't add any along the top as the box roof was removable. I used a thin "sausage" Milliput laid in place and textured. The little camouflage netting stowage tie downs are included as photo-etched parts, these are to be glued to small dimples moulded into the turret side. They do appear to be incorrectly located too far forward. For correct positioning I referred to the Hayward plans and simply replaced them with thin copper wire inserted into drilled holes. See photograph no.14. Markings Options Included are four British tanks in NWE, three are from the Normandy campaign and one from Holland. "Carole" 13/18 Hussars, 27th Armoured Brigade, July 1944 Normandy. This was one of the first VCs in Normandy, it landed as part of the follow up waves. There are only a few known photographs of "Carole" and from those I have seen none are dated "July", the latest being June 13. The kit markings are somewhat inaccurate, starting with the tank name "CAROLE", this is way too big, by almost twice! This is obvious in photographs. The 27th Armoured Brigade emblem are completely wrong, being misshapen and the incorrect in detail. The emblem should be a more "shield" shape, it is too triangular, and the seahorse is facing the wrong way, he should be facing left. The squadron sign, a yellow circle, is the wrong colour, it should be red. 13/18 was the senior regiment (1st) in the brigade, and as we all know the first regiment's tanks had red symbols. Yellow was used on the 2nd regiment's tanks, which in the case of the 27th Brigade, was the Stafford Yeomanry. Basically, the kit decals for "Carole" are useless, those from Archer are accurate and should be used instead. Incidentally, "Carole" is also depicted on Dragon's (most recent) VC kit and the decal sheet could be borrowed from, although it does suffer from a couple of errors too. There are a few details specific to "Carole" that are not in the kit, first the commander's cupola should have two MG mounts, the kit only depicts one mount. There appears to be a .30 cal. MG in the front mount, it is covered up in most photos however. I am pretty sure that "Carole" was equipped with a wading stack, which was removed after landing. This is evident because of the re-located stowage box. In the photographs taken before the D-Day landing the box is in the temporary location on the glacis and the photograph that shows "Carole" a few days after the landing the stowage box is located in its correct position. The wading stacks could not be fixed when the box was in this position. References for "Carole" appear in Hayward pages 65 and 66, ref. 2995/F2 (Tank Museum) and B5470 (IWM). There is also an accurate colour profile. B5470 (IWM) is particularly useful as it shows "Carole" after D-Day, although "Carole" is in the background the distinct "71" on the turret is visible. Another of 13/18's VCs is in the foreground. This tank show some (likely) unit-wide modification in the form of a rack welded above the transmission to hold spare road wheels and track. No doubt "Carole" was very similar to this. The two tanks also seem to share other common stowage features. There were some distinct weathering effects too, there was a fuel spill on the port side of the hull that obliterated the front half of the serial number. The chalked-on loading information would no doubt have worn off a few days after D-Day. The starboard side had a large "smudge" just behind the tank name halfway down. After D-Day the tanks appeared rather dusty and muddy. Further weathering details can be found on other VCs in Normandy too. "Alla Keefer" A Squadron, 4th County of London Yeomanry "Sharpshooters", 22nd Armoured Regiment, 7th Armoured Division. 13 June, 1944. Villers-Bocage, Normandy. "Alla Keefer" was one of the unfortunate victims at the famous Villers-Bocage battle. The markings appear accurate as do the suggested options in the kit, sand shields, lack of towing hook, etc. There are two shots of "Alla Keefer" that I am aware of. Both show some SS troopers crawling over it. "Charlestown 1" C Squadron, 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, 11th Armoured Division. October 1944, Netherlands. There is a photograph in Hayward page 97 of this tank. 144th RAC, 33rd Armoured Brigade, July 1944, Normandy. Again this is a British VC as used in Normandy. There is a photograph in Hayward (page 75) that shows "37" from the rear. The left side of the stowage box is crushed in and there is a large wooden box sitting on top too. There is another photograph on the page that shows a VC from the same unit, it is the same type and it may very well be the same tank. Hayward also features a colour profile of this tank. The same photographs are in Fortin and other books. Conclusions This is an excellent kit and is very highly recommended. Beginner modellers will enjoy building a highly accurate "early" Firefly straight from the box while more advanced modellers will appreciate the challenge of making the few enhancements that I suggested.Those who are fans of after-market accessories will enjoy the robust selection now available, and not forgetting the collectors who will surely treasure the unique box art for years to come. Tasca supplied this kit to Track-Link as a review sample. Other Reviews
After-Market Kits As it's been over a year since the original Tasca VC came out there has been plenty of time for the after-market producers to release items that are also suitable for this kit. I have tried a few after-market kits and here are my favourites.
References Since I wrote my review of the first Tasca Firefly there have been a couple new reference book published, I have also found a few other good ones. In order of usefulness I referred to the following.
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