I’ve got DML’s “orange box” M4A4 meant to represent an American tank in Burma but not references to go along with it…Does anyone have any or know where I could find some?

Thanks,
Noah

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the U.S. only used the M4A4 for training. And those were later sent to the British when production ceased.

Of course, with Shermans anything is possible.

Some M4A4s were used by the U.S. Army on the CBI Theater of Operations alongside Nationalist Chinese troops :

http://cbi-theater-6.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-6/1ptg/1ptg.html

HTH

Frenchy

Thanks for the link Frenchy – you’re the best!

BTW – do you have any idea what these might be? DML’s Orange Box U.S. M4A4 in Burma contains a bunch of ‘extra’ parts intended for British Fireflies – could these be one of them?

http://data3.primeportal.net/tanks/robert_de_craecker/m4a4_sherman_vc_17pdr/images/m4a4_sherman_vc_17pdr_04_of_14.jpg

Thanks again,
Noah

They are smoke grenade dischargers

If I remember right the US army also borrowed some M4A4 DD from the British army tanks for the Rhine Crossing.

Yes, those are British smoke emitters, fitted after delivery to the UK, not at Chrysler's plant. The tanks in Burma were officially Nationalist Chinese tanks. They were crewed by US troops only until the Chinese soldiers were sufficiently trained to take over, after which they acquired the "fierce cat" face markings on the mantlet and turret face. Dragon's original M4A4 kit included those markings.

Thanks Pat –

I thought that might be what they were. I’d seen something similar on Churchill’s…

Any idea if the U.S. army used those types of smoke dischargers of if they were unique to British and commonwealth vehicles?

It was a UK design. The US tended to lay smoke with the main gun (there was a chemical smoke round available for the 75 mm, though oddly, not for the later 76 mm gun). Some M4A3 units in Italy kept an old 75 mm gun tank in the column with a smoke round loaded, so they could blind an enemy if necessary (a smoke round was often fired right at an enemy vehicle or antitank position, blinding it, while the US tanks withdrew or outflanked it--in some cases, the smoke would be drawn into the hostile tank's ventilators, sometimes forcing the enemy crew to bail out, as the chemicals were pretty toxic).
Later Shermans incorporated a small mortar into the left turret roof, which could also launch a small smoke grenade.

Sometimes US engineering units got ex-British M4A4s. There are photos of Crabs (mounted on M4A4s) in use by Americans. I recently modelled a dozer-equipped M4A4, acquired by an engineering unit in the MTO from the British and it took part in the Dragoon invasion. They placed a mine plow on the M1Dozer. I've also seen another Dozer equipped M4A4 in a color photo with US Coast Guardsmen on a beach -- I believe it's Southern France as well.

IIRC, I read somewhere that with all the material losses during the Battle of the Bulge, the U.S. was forced to draw Shermans from British depots in January 1945.
Some of if not all of these tanks were Sherman V aka M4A4's.
Cheers

jjumbo

British Stock, it is interesting to note that these vehicles have British T Numbers so must have been supplied to a british order and diverted to US use in theatre
Cheers
Al