Hi all
I was wondering if anyone has seen pictures of shermans with side skirts.

I've seen hundreds of photo's of Shermans and I don't believe I have ever seen a combat version with the side skirts on, not even the training pctures in the USA. I have seen one of the variant working bee ones with partial skirts

what about side skirts like the panzer 4's the long ones to protect against bazookas?

Andy, the closest resemblance to side skirts on a Sherman would be those of the Marine units in the the Pacific. They used wood planks over the bogie units to protect against Japanese attacks.
Our friend DJ, a.k.a. 210Cav, has a couple pics of one he built with the planks. Click Here

Hi,

For protection Sherman have used timber planks, sand bags and concrete most of the times, even welded steel plates.

I don't remember to see any pictures of Shermans with side skirts like the german panzers used.

Most sherman kits come with their dust skirts/ protection skirts. When not used, some guys have added a small fixing plate to show where these have been removed.

Has anybody any tips on how to replicate this. What thickness should this area be? 0.5mm wide? How far apart should each attachment point/ hole be? 0.8mm?
Would appreciate some help here. I think this looks real cool and as i have a few shermans on the go, would like to add these. Another question would be ....... where would they start and end?
Thanks for any suggestions and tips!

Never even heard of a sherman with sideskirts?
only ever seen sandbags strapped to the side.
could make a nice look having sandbags all around. send me a personal message if you want the pic, include your email and i'll send it to u.
Cheers

i've seen israely shermans with the sideskirts on.
They were the first sherman fielded by the israely : M1 super shermans, with VVSS.
Maybe I saw an egyptian sherman (with the AMX 13 turret) that had them on too.

Hi

I tried making these on my M4A176W. I used .05 thickness plastic sheet. I had a couple of photos, and I just used my eyeball mark 1 to adjust the width to match the strips to the vehicle. I used a pin to punch holes in the plastic sheet, again 'carefully' measured with the eyeball mark 1. I know that a bunch of the kits in the Italeri M4A1 group build ended up with strips, contact Adam Vukich and see if he can give you some measurements.

Of course a lot of folks are lucky enough to be at AMPs soon, so traffic is down right now...

Andy

I have seen a picture of a Sherman w/ side skirts...

In Steve Zaloga's book "The Sherman at War (v2)", pg. 46, top left. It shows a M4A3(76) getting Sommerfield matting applied by members of the 602 Engineering Camouflage Battalion. Zaloga also mentions that this is rare, the 12th Army Group having made it policy to remove them for maintenance reasons.

HTH,

Another area where the sideskirts were left on the Sherman were the ones sent to the British in North Africa. I've seen quite a few pics of these with the skirts left on. As far as modelling the mounting, I have done it a few times following much the same technique that herberta did.