I am in need of some help identifying this Sherman in the foreground. I know the one in the rear is a M4A3 (76)W from the 761st Tank Battalion but is the one in the front a M4A3 105? However, the muzzle looks a little too narrow to be a 105. Also if so what unit could it possibly be from?

Any help would be highly appreciated! Thanks everyone!

P.S. I hope I don't get addicted to Shermans

Hey Sean
The front tank is actually one of a couple I am currently building!
It is a M4 radial engine from the 4th AD.
The identifying features are as follows:

~Applique armour plate added to the front protruding hoods (where the front hatches are)
~The small front hatches themselves.
~ The angle of the front plate (47 degrees measured off horizontal) Later 'wet' stowage M4s had a 56 degree front plate, which due to its' steepness allowed more interior room and the elimination of the protruding hoods (shot traps)
~Straight return roller arms on the running gear (The M4A3 would have slightly upswept arms to increase track tension, not that obvious due to the photo quality)
~The turret would be a low bustle in its' final configuration with deleted pistol port and cast-in cheek armour over the turret gunner's position.

The transmission cover is the latest double brake type with a sharp-nosed appearance and would most likely be fitted to the M4A3 next to it. This is perhaps the latest/last version of the dry stowage welded hull M4, and I have been recently informed that the 4th AD was issued with quite a few for their arrival in Normandy after D-Day.
Both tanks appear to have extended end connectors (EECs) added to the tracks to increase width and therefore flotation. The Shermans had terrible trouble on wet sodden or muddy ground due to their narrow tracks and many were bogged due to the heavy rains in late '44 onwards.
It has a 75mm gun. You would definitely recognise a 105mm howitzer in it's place.

Cheers
Brad

Thanks Brad! Now the big question is, where can I find a kit that best represents this version or gives me a starting point when building this vehicle?

The Tamiya M4

Actually you need the Dragon M4 Normandy kit to do it right:
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/3936

The Tamiya kit has the wrong front end - they modelled it on an M4A4 which has different drivers hoods and radio pot. However, the Dragon kit is twice the price...

Tom

Well fiddle sticks!!!!

I have 3 Tamiya m4's sitting on the shelf and one almost done

Actully, you're both wrong. It's a M4DV https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/4940 that has been uparmored. You can tell by the plates on the driver's hoods lay back farther than on a later M4. Also it has the welded radio pot, not the cast one as on a later M4. Lots of these had the one piece tranny and late low bustel turret. The problem with the DML kit is it has the wrong radio pot for this version, the cast one, and the wrong turret to do this tank.



Here is a British one.




M4 with cast radio pot.



M4DV with welded radio pot. While this one has the earlier turret and 3 piece tranny, like I said and as it shows in the picture above of the Brit M4DV above, the late ones had the late turret and 1 piece tranny.

Yup Tony is right here... I have the M4 DV which I am going to convert to the same configuration as the photo and quite possibly from the 4th AD. This will require the removal of the antenna pot as per the kit and the addition of th U shaped version as per a Baldwin hull. The Cheek armour will have to also be added and the pistol port removed.
I tell you what Sean, I am about to continue work on it tonight and I can create a new thread solely regarding that build and can highlight the alterations I will make?
Brad

Tony, well spotted! I bow to your superior picture-zooming skills. That definitely is a DV hull, and the Dragon DV kit is the way to go.

Tom

First I want to say thanks everyone! I went from knowing nothing about Shermans to knowing something about two variants

You guys have been a great help and yes I would love to see the build log.

Hard to see until the photo was blown up, but the rear hull also sits at the 90 degree angle. In addition to the welded antenna pot, it also has a welded hull MG mount.

The tank in the foreground appears to be a Baldwin DV M4. Baldwin, for reasons unknown, never altered the driver's hood castings to eliminate the driver's vision port in favor of a periscope housing, so that hull was used all the way until they left the M4 program at the beginning of 1944. That meant that these apparently early hulls could appear with the very late sharp nosed transmission casting seen here, as well as the round one-piece or the original three-piece transmission housing. It also has the M34A1 gun mount, probably fitted at the factory, though many early M4's from other manufacturers received these as an upgrade while they were stockpiled in the UK for the upcoming invasion. And like the other M4's stockpiled in the UK, it has received a set of applique armor plates, including the blanking plates closing off the direct vision ports.
Dragon's DV M4 kit can be modified to represent a Baldwin version, though it is closer to an early Pressed Steel Car (PSC) version. The hull MG should be a welded rather than cast, type, and the several small panels welded together to form the glacis were eliminated over the production run in favor of a single, sideways E-shaped plate with cutouts for the driver's hoods and antenna pot. This means that most of the glacis welds can be removed from the kit part. You'll need to saw off the round cast radio pot on the glacis and replace it with a forged one made of a U-shaped piece of steel (make it from .040" styrene) with a recessed U-shaped insert a scale inch below the top and round blanking plate with four bolts to close off the antenna opening (these antenna pots were only used when the tank was converted to a command vehicle). At the vehicle's rear, the bottom of the lower rear plate should have a quarter-round profile, rather than a sharp, 45-degree angle bend. Again, an easy conversion with some putty and sandpaper. It could be seen with the mid-production suspension, though it's possible that a late model would even have the upswept return roller mount introduced in late 1943. For this specific tank, you'll need the M34A1 gun mount (included in the kit as "not for use" parts) and the sharp nosed transmission casting (if you have been building Dragon's Shermans for a while, you'll have spares lying around).
The tank in the background is either an M4 105 or an M4A3 105. The latter version is available from several manufacturers.

Try again. It's a M4A3 76MM as Sean had correctly identified in his initial post.






Sure would like to see a picture of that. Got one?

Nope, just allowing for the possibility based on production dates. Other factories had the new suspension units by the end of 1943, so it's possible Baldwin got them before they ended their production run.

More info on the Baldwin. welded lower hull, rounded bottom rear hull plate, eliminate the weld across the front hull between the two hatches. For a Pressed Steel tank, keep the weld, add rivets to the lower hull and give it an early rounded single piece transmission cover. In the Kitmaker photo gallery there is a nice walk around of an M4 DV from Baldwin, which I found posted over at Missing Lynx. http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/14409

For a Pressed Steel tank you'll also need to change the welds on the deck over the sponsons. Instead of two transverse welds dividing it into three rectangular sections, you need one weld that follows the diagonal bend on the deck. It's probably easier to substitute a riveted lower hull tub than to try to add hundreds of rivets to the kit's welded tub. The tub from either of the Dragon M4A1 Direct Vision kits can work, if you saw off and swap the sponson bottom inserts (the M4A1 can be completed as a Lima-built M4A1, as they used the welded tub from the beginning of production). Alternatively, one could order the riveted lower hull parts from Tasca's M4A1 kit direct from the manufacturer.

Yay! knowledge abounds! People have more fun with their models!

I bought a couple of Tasca M4A2 dv hulls and some of the M4/M4A1 engine deck sprues from their sprue sales site. This is the quick and easy way to make the Baldwin variant. The parts drop right on to any of the other lower hulls. All I have ot do now is scrounge up some old DML rear plates with the round bottoms and I have all the pieces necessary.

Mike Canaday