I've been searching in vain around the web for a decent in-box review of this old kit - anyone know where I can find one? I know it's been superseded as a kit, and it'll have some flaws, but I'm hoping to find an objective review that points them all out...

Thanks in advance!

Tom

I was looking for one too a few weeks ago (or might be months, time flies...) and couldn't find one. I'm tending to think there are none.

Cheers!
Stefan

Stefan,

Thought as much - I may have to inspect it and write my own...

Tom

The old DML Sherman IC Firefly kit varied according to when it was boxed. The original version had the same problems with the turret shell that the original Dragon Firefly VC kit had: it had a strange bulge under the bottom of the turret bustle that need to sanded to a round section, and the front opening for the gun mount was too high. Upper hull was marginally too wide. The forward hull had a "cast armor" texture that was actually based on museum examples that had years of crusted, chipped paint that had been painted over, creating a scabby surface that had nothing to do with US steel casting techniques, so the kit hull needs to be smoothed out with body putty, sanded, and retextured in a more subtle way. The rolled plate section also had gouges supposedly indicative of rolled steel, but inspired by Francois Verlinden's short-lived 1990's fad of randomly gouging the plastic kit's surface with a round burr in a Dremel tool. Real plate has small imperfections when seen close up, but the effect was drastically overdone, so again, more body putty and sanding was required.
The suspension was the original Dragon suspension based on Italeri parts (all of the 9000 series kits were based partially or entirely on other companies' molds), and the tracks were individual links with separate end connectors. These could not be assembled dry, like AFV Club or Panda tracks, as the pins were too short, so they had to be assembled and glued with a slow setting cement like Testors, and draped in position while still flexible. An alternative was to glue only one set of pins per track block leaving the other to pivot freely, so the tracks remained flexible. This didn't allow the end connectors to bend properly around the idler and sprocket, though.
As Dragon reissued the kit, incremental improvements from other Sherman kits would be inherited. The final reissue, by Cyber Hobby last year, had a cleaner, somewhat smoothed out upper hull, and the corrected turret shell from the Firefly VC reissue (though with the pistol port, a rare, possibly incorrect configuration for a Chrysler M4 Sherman). It also had the newest version of Dragon's much refined suspension and a set of DS soft plastic track.
The Cyber Hobby kit has a distinctive box, of course, but if you get a 9037 DML kit, you really don't know which set of Sherman parts you're going to get until you open it.
The new Smart Kit has the correct low bustle turret with reinforced cheek armor and no pistol port, as well as the all-new upper hull previously issued for the composite M4 kit. It also has the new suspension and the DS tracks.

Gerald, the original 9037 did not have the Italeri Suspension on its own. They also included for the first time in any Sherman Kit new suspension with horizontal (seperate) Return roller brackets which were very well recieved at the time . These were also used in DML legendary M4A1 kit (6048). The US released kits had an excellent High Bustle 75mm turret with cast in cheek.
Tracks supplied in the kit were the indy link with pads for both T62 and T48 supplied. No EEC's were included. There were 6 Marking options for Canadian, Brit and Polish vehicles.
CHeers
Al

Gerald & Al,

Many thanks for these pointers! I take it since there is no external packaging difference to say which version of 9037 is in the box there's no hope to write a sensible comprehensive review...

Tom

The boxes labelled 9037 have blue band around the bottom IF they have the extra turret so you can differentiate between them. it was a grat kit for its day but long past it's prime now. The later DML Composites leave it for dead and I can see no reviewer wasting his or her time with a long OOP kit when it has been replaced by the newer 6228 kit and the Orange Box version which have little in common to 9037. The original is a mid 90's kit
Al

Al,

Thanks - I didn't know about the blue band. As for the value of a review, these kits are still out there (ebay, swap meets, old shop stock, etc) and if like me you stumble across one and don't know all the details of Dragon's production history it helps to be able to find a review somewhere on line. Usually PMMS is good for these oldies, but not this time...

Regards,

Tom

Hi Tom, Terry did review this kit many years ago and there were reviews on ML too. I'll ask Brett if the ML is still available somewhere. The other source of Info on this kit is the Phil Dyer Article in Military Modelling VOLUME 31 # 4 2001
Cheers
Al

Al,

Thanks for the reference!

Tom