hi all,I just picked up revells 1/35th calliope now i know there are not many kits of this vehicle bout so for £6.00 I thought it would be worth a try.Does anyone know the history of this kit i know revell are reboxing a lot of stuff.please excuse me if i dont reply staight away as i am in between england and France at the moment and my own computor is in storage till the end of the month,borrowing my sons and daughters machines when i can.

It is a reboxing of the Italeri M4A3 Sherman Calliope first released in 1996. I was stationed at Ft. Leavenworth and I bought it at the PX there. The rocket launcher and turret were new tooled items in 1996, but the upper hull was released a few years earlier (1989 or 1990) as the upper hull to the Italeri misnamed M4A2 Jumbo and the Italeri M36B1 Jackson.

The lower hull is from the 1980s era M4A1 Sherman. The 89-90 issue included new tracks which were added to the 1996 kit. I don not know what tracks the Revell kit comes with.

For only £6 you've got a decent M4A3 and a reasonable depiction of the rocket launcher - I thought I did well finding it for £8!

It's the Italeri M4A3 (which is also available as their Marines Sherman) with the heritage Sabot listed. The decals match photos of the M4A3 demonstrating the rocket rig so there is precedent, but many combat pics show the rockets on older M4s with the projecting drivers' hoods on the front. Fortunately you can build it with or without the rockets.

The rocket rig can use extra detailing (cabling etc) and the tank can benefit from any number of details to make it unique, but the big fit issue is where the nose meets the upper hull. I found it took some fiddling to eliminate a gap. And a common modification was to move the front pivot for the rockets from its location on the gun barrel to somewhere above the gun on the gun shield, since with the collar stuck on the gun it couldn't be fired. (To replicate this, just glue the circular collar onto the shield just above the gun opening - the real ones were welded on in the field...)

Tom

There are plenty of later M4A3 75w pictured during the war with the T-34 Calliope rocket system. Yes there were some on M4s but in my collection, I see as much if not more M4A3s.

Roy,

Thanks for that - I wasn't sure how common the A3 version was. Given that the A3 was pretty much the standard arriving by late '44 I suppose it makes sense that there'd be a lot of them converted.

Tom

hi all, many thanksfor the great info,I had a look at it the other day a little basic but nothing a bit of imagination cant put right.