I'm just about done building my Tasca Firefly and was wondering if these decals would be appropiate?

Decals


cheers

Hi Rick ...wasn't it them who had the M4 and M4 composite fireflies? I'm just thinking out loud here ,so I might be off here .

Rick

I am not an expert but I believe most Canadian Armoured units had the VC (which I am assuming you have built) as their standard firefly as it was the most common. The M4 variant (firefly IC) which I am currently building was not very common. For instannce I was going to use the Sherbrooke fusiliers markings since I have these from ultracast but was advised by Alan McNeilly that the sherbrookes never depolyed the IC. only the VC. The Fort Garry Horse had both the IC and IC composite versions as well as the most common VC. So, I would say yes you could use those markings since probably every late war canadian armoured unit had VC's.

Perhaps if Alan sees this post he can provide some input as he was very helpful to me.

Hey Rick,
I believe you could go with the Lord Strathcona's Horse markings.
There was a real shortage of Shermans available for conversion to Fireflys in late 1944-45.
According to my resources, production of the M4A4 Sherman V was halted in September 1943 with 7499 built.
Construction of the M4 Sherman I and Sherman I "hybrid" was stopped in January 1944 with 6748 built.
The LSH probably wouldn't be issued with Firefly IC's, if any, until they were moved to NW Europe in February 1945 and were re-equipped.
The Governor General's Horse Guards were the only Canadian unit equipped with Sherman I's and the M4A1 Sherman II's as they both used the same Continental R 975 engine, other Canadian units were primarily issued with the Sherman V with the Chrysler A57 multi-bank engine.
As Canadian units drew their tanks from British depots, the V's were the most common type issued.
Oddly enough, I've found a photo taken on April 20, 1944 of a bunch of brand new M4A2 Sherman III's with the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.
The diesel powered Sherman III was the type preferred by the British as it didn't brew up as easily as the other types.
While not impossible, it would have been very unusual for a unit to have used vehicles with mixed engine types like the Sherman I's, II's, III's and V's.
Cheers

jjumbo

Thanks a bunch everybody!

I will order those decals today.


cheers

Rick,

You are on the right track with the Strathcona markings. From all the images I have seen in the Regimental archives of the Strathcona Fireflies in NW Europe in 1945 (they never had them in Italy) they are all the VC version.

The Sherbrooke Fusiliers did have at least one Ic hybrid. Here is a photo and the website caption from the old Canadian Tracks website (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.magma.ca/~tracks/shermans.htm)


"Sherman Ic Hybrid of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, churns through the mud of the Rhineland in the spring of 1945. Uncharacteristically, this Sherman carries very lttle [sic] external stowage, although it has plenty of spare track to act as supplememntary [sic] armour. Note the two types of helmet hanging on the track on the turret. The infantry style helmet was not usually used by tankers as the brim was far too wide and the helmet itself offered very little practical protection. The paratroop style helmet on the other hand was very popular with tank crews as it was reasonably light and offered good protection, while well shaped and less liable to interfere with the activities of the crewman. A similar helmet to the para helmet was designed for tankers, but it was heavy and had poor ballistic properties and was soon discarded in favour of the airborne version. (PAC)"

Here's a marking template I made. Note that the actual tank has a high bustle turret, unlike my laine art, which shows a low bustle.


I suspect that the Ic Hybrids were actually fairly common throughout all tank units in the 2CAB, as the 21st Army Group practice seems to have been to segregate equipment marks by Brigade rather than by regiments. If there is archival documentation listing the Sherbrooke Fusiliers' tank types during the NWE campaign (I have seem some for other units listing strength by type for a particular date) that shows that there were no Ic Hybrids then my suppositions would be wrong.

Mike Canaday

Hi Mike ....I was wondering about that firefly IC Hybrid picture ...Is that a phone box on the rear with the number painted over it?You can see a cable running out of it into the tank. Just wondering...

Rick

I think that must be what it is. Not sure if it unit manufactured from a ammo can or if it is an issue item. Some US units just ran a splice from the crew intercom out to a hand set they stuck into a .30 caliber ammo can. I think I read somewhere that British and Canadian units did something similar.

Mike Canaday

Thanks for the confirmation ..sorry for getting off topic a bit here .

Rick

Just a quick comment: be careful! I have the pictorial history of the 8th Canadian Hussars (Princess Louise's), which shows a photo of a Firefly lC captioned as a unit vehicle. However, I also have the 8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars Regimental war diary for WW2, the ancestor unit to 8CH(PL). The only Firefly noted in the WD is the "Sherman V (C) tanks..." All through March 1945 there are comments about the "new Sherman V (C) tanks," and stowage, and ammunition, and training...and not one "Sherman lC" in the bunch! Needless to say, I have a subject for the Tasca kit!

I agree, there are a lot of pictures of Ic tanks that are captioned as Canadian, British of so and so unit, that are wrong. Even wartime captions are wrong, often quite off in regards to tank type. I would not have relied on the caption at all except that the photo above is I think one of the rare ones in that the unit marks are nicely visible. While I am not much of s student of Canadian unit marks, the limited amount of data I have studied indicates that this is a tank from 2CAB's junior regiment, which was the Sherbrooke Fusiliers.

Mike Canaday

Hello Mike!

Just the man I want to talk to. Do you have much information on the Canadian M4s in Italy? If yes, please contact me off line. Thanks!

Lawrence

I thought this photo of a Firefly IC was a Princess Louise tank?

Hey Brad,
You're correct.
That's a Firefly Ic with the 8th Princess Louise (New Bruswick) Hussars of the 5th CAR, 5th CAD.
It was taken in Putten, the Netherlands on April 18th, 1945.
If you scroll down the page on this site, Canadian Soldiers, you'll see a Sherman V of the 8th PLH, covered with Churchill track-links, out in front of the same building in Putten.
Cheers

jjumbo

Thanks JJumbo, but your link doesn't work at the moment.

Cheers
Brad

Just about every Canadian armoured unit in NWE had Firefly VC's. So I think your selected markings are good to go. I am currently doing a welded Firefly IC which was very uncommon amongst Canadian armoured regiments. The 10th Canadian Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse) had IC welded and Hybrids as well as VC's. They were part of the independent Canadian 2nd Armoured Brigade.

2 Canadian Armoured Brigade:

Number: 51 6th Armd Regt, First Hussars (Senior Unit)
52 10th Armd Regt, The Fort Garry Horse
53 27th Armd Regt, The Sherbrooke Fusiliers (Junior Unit)

Here's a link that may be helpful. Armouredacorn has a good collection of vehicle marking references.

http://www.armouredacorn.com/Refs-%20Thumbprints%20&%20Images/CVM%20Index/Sherman%20Tanks.pdf

Hey Brad,
Odd, it appears to be working but here's a more direct link:

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/vehicles/tanks/mainbattletanks.htm

Cheers

jjumbo

This is the photo to which I referred above. It's a Firefly IC, but the War Diary of the Hussars mentions only FIrefly VCs...often...with not one reference to ICs at all. Is the War Diary wrong? Possibly, but not at all likely.

Just my ignorant $ 0.02...

Why would the war diary not be wrong? Were they that meticulous in keeping them?

Although it hazardous, to make the comparison, but supposedly German records show them not to be correct in many instances, especially when vehicles were quite similar. IIRC there was a thread on missing-lynx that tried to reconstruct deliveries to German units in the west. During his research into the archive he had all kinds of vehicles (tanks, tank destroyers, stürmgeschütze) disappearing en route, and appearing out of thin air at the units. About the only thing matching were delivery dates. Within a vehicle catecory (say StuG, tank, Marder) many of the data were inconsistent - on occasion what almost certainly must have been StuG's were listed under 'tanks'.

So I can imagine that war diaries did definitely confuse Sherman Firefly versions, assuming those doing the entry were interested in keeping records that detailed in the first place (and did not just simply consider Firefly = everything Sherman with the long (17 pdr.?) gun).

Cheers,

Harm

Unit diaries have been shown to be rather full of errors. Yuo have to remember, the unit diary was frequently filled out by the unit clerk, who may, or may not, have cared one whit about this particular piece of paperwork when the real job of the clerk was to get people paid, ammo ordered, replacements listed, etc., etc. Pair that up with the fact that may times batallion HQs were pretty close to the front lines, & the airborne metallic hazards that the term "front lines' usually entails, and one can see that it is actually more unusual for a diary to be absolutely correct than the other way around.

Diaries were rather unimportant pieces of paper filled out by harried clerks under the pressure of combat operations. Make of that what you will regarding their absolute accuracy...


:)

Paul

Yup, fully concur with the above comments. In the Hussar's case, however, they moved from Italy to Belgium in early 1945, and were concentrated out of the line for several weeks as they re-equipped and got acclimatized to winter in Northwest Europe. The pressure of combat was not on, and it is the consistency of the many "Sherman Vc 17-pounder" War Diary notes during that period that strikes a chord. That said, the Putten 1c might very well have been a replacement vehicle, or possibly "liberated" from some source or other. All sorts of options!