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M4A3E8 'Thunderbolt'

Introduction

In general I followed the steps set out in Dragon’s instructions except where it would make painting difficult. There are a couple of omissions from the instructions that I have drawn attention to, and one misleading illustration that I have corrected. The suspension is a bit fiddly but the rest of the build is straightforward enough.

The Suspension

I followed the assembly steps set out in the kit instructions so we begin with the suspension. The idler wheels and the drive sprockets go together simply. The kit offers a choice of fancy or plain sprockets and for Thunderbolt VII use the fancy sprocket part Q28.

Each bogey is made up of 28 separate parts and my advice is to read the instructions and dry fit each sub assembly. There are four sub assemblies to be made up for each suspension unit and I recommend letting the cement on these dry thoroughly before putting the suspension together. The instructions are unclear about the construction of the bogey arm and where to attach parts Q13 and Q14 to Q1 so I have included a corrected scan to help the unwary. I would also advise modellers to print out a couple of pics of a HVSS suspension unit from Tanxheaven or another site to refer to during the build.

The suspension when built is workable but the tracks are not, which is puzzling, I suppose if you wanted to portray the tank crossing rough terrain you could make the suspension conform to the terrain and then glue it in place. Beware! Real springs (part MB2) are included to mimic the action of the Horizontal Volute springs. The instructions say not to glue them in place and I didn’t. This resulted in a few hair-raising moments when two of the springs launched into space. Thankfully my eyesight was good enough to track their trajectory but be careful, - there are no spares. The next time I build this kit I will put a drop of CA glue on one end of the spring when adding it to part Q4.

The sprue attachment points are on the rear of the wheels and are hidden when the suspension is assembled which is a nice touch. I left the tyres off to paint separately.

Step one of the instructions also includes the exhaust deflector, which is a really subtle piece of plastic engineering made up of six pieces and really looks the part when assembled. The late war deflector is also included in the kit but marked not to be used and really shows the advances in plastic as it is really heavy and would require a lot of thinning if you wanted to use it. There are knockout marks on the pieces that make up the deflector but these are hidden when it’s assembled so I didn’t bother cleaning them up.

LOWER HULL

Step two shows the assembly of the lower hull and this goes together without any problems. I left the idler mounts part Q31 off until I was fitting the tracks.

I skipped most of step four - the fitting of the suspension to the lower hull, until I had the suspension and lower hull painted and only fitted part B35 (which is I think the exhaust for the generator) to the lower hull.

UPPER HULL

Step 5 and 6 show the fitting out of the upper hull. The first thing that needs to be done is the removal of the grouser box covers, which are a hangover from the M4A2 kit. These should be shaved off and the area sanded flush with the hull. The sanding needs to be done carefully so as not to ruin the raised weld beads on the hull edge. There are also two big chunks of plastic to be removed from the inside of the lower hull. I took these off with a razor saw. On the rear upper hull plate the location points for the spare track holders (Absent on HVSS tanks) are still there and need to be filled.

As I was building the kit as Thunderbolt VII I had to shave off the travel lock attachments and the headlight mounts on the front glacis to let me fit the add on armour. I shaved these off with a sharp no 11 blade. No need to be careful sanding these down as they area will be covered with the add-on armour.

A nice feature of this kit is that the tool location points are not marked on the outside but need to be drilled though from the inside if you are using them. I had intended to use the kit tools but broke the sledgehammer when removing it from the sprue so I replaced it with one from the Formations Sherman tool set. Then, as I had it out, I decided to replace the rest of the tools as well. For the first time in plastic we also get the rectangular engine door stops (part A61 & A62) and the location holes for these need to be drilled from the inside also.

There is an omission in the step showing the subassembly of the hull hatches which leaves out part A16 the periscope cover which is marked not to be used on the sprue layout but this is, I think, a mistake. The covers, A16, should be glued to the top of part C1, the periscope, after C1 is attached to part A12. The hatch handles are simplified and I shaved them off and replaced them with handles made from wire.

Step 7 & 8 shows the attachment of the etched brass fenders and the add on armour to the upper hull front. This add on armour was cut from the hulls of destroyed Sherman and so came complete with gun travel lock headlights and siren. Part D5 comes with a textured edge representing the torch cut edge of the original steel armour. There is a seam line in the cut out area that fits over the hull machine gun and I got rid of this by roughing up the edges of the part with a razor saw. Thunderbolt VII’s siren was attached just between the driver and the gun travel lock, and not in its correct place on the lower right of the add on armour - so I filled the attachment point and moved the siren up. The siren brush guard I put in its normal position. No etched parts are offered in the kit for the headlight or siren brush guards. In the past I have made these brush guards from flattened copper wire soldered together but on this occasion I used the kit parts.

I don’t have any etch bending tool so I bent the fenders into shape by sandwiching them between two steel rulers and bending the edge against a flat surface. This wasn’t entirely successful but photos show the fenders on Thunderbolt VII as very beat up so I didn’t worry about it too much. The front fenders (Ma3 & MA4) should not be fitted now as the tab on the fender is too large and if fitted will not allow the upper and lower hull to be mated. So you can either wait until the lower and upper hulls are together or cut part of the tab away. This is what I did, using a sharp scissors.

Part D1 the side armour is shown in the instructions fitted over the fender braces (part Q30) but any photos I’ve seen show the braces cut down and attached to the outside of the armour. This is not an option with the kit part as D1 when in place extends to the edge of the fender. A rear view of Thunderbolt VII in Steve Zaloga’s Sherman at War 2 shows the armour as roughly half the width of the fenders and so I cut it back and also roughened the edges with the razor saw. I placed the fender braces according to the photos of Thunderbolt VII that I have and cut the ones over the armour to fit.