Hi, All!

I need some advice on which Dragon Sherman M4A2 kit would be my best bet for building pretty close to "OOTB" to depict one of the USMC M4A2 tanks landed on Iwo Jima.

Why? I am helping my local club to support an Iwo Jima veteran's get-together happening in Feb 2012. Each of us will build one or another US or Japanese vehicle / type as used on Iwo as part of a group display effort for this affair. I'm a notorious "All German" armor-builder and have no experience with any US WWII stuff... And I need to do this mostly OOTB as I have little time nor funds for lots of AM stuff. I do happen to have the Dragon M4A2 "Tarawa" kit 6062 on hand...

Any opinions or suggestions you might wish to offer would be most sincerely appreciated!

Thanks!

Bob

Most of the M4A2 tanks were the mid production with welded hoods, like the Tarawa kit. There is video footage of at least two late production M4A2 tanks rolling off an LST. As for markings, Bison does do a decal set for the welded hood M4A2 from Iwo Jima. I'm sure there are others. There are also resin sets for the wading stacks.

Dragon's M4A2 is the best to represent the tank used by the USMC Third Tank Battalion on Iwo Jima. Nearly all, if not all, the M4A2's used by the Marines had the welded hoods built by Fischer Body.

Tank Workshop has the wading trunks. I used the "improvised" 55gal drum style as I have seen this in most photos of the Third Battalion.

G

Russ / Wayne;

Thank You for the quick return!

Sounds like "2 votes" for the Dragon Tarawa M4A2 kit with those welded hoods. That's encouraging as I have that kit on hand and now I won't have to try to get another into my already-full house right when SWMBO is putting her dainty foot down on further stash-growth!

Barring other voices saying strongly different, I'll go with the Tarawa kit.

Now for further advice to a panzer-guy...

You gents mentioned this "wading stack" - and I've seen some PTO pics showing same (The USMC version of the "Tauch-Panzer" LoL!) , and some build pics also showing these - both with boxy vent-hoods and with those seconded oil-drums apparently done up by some CB or ship-board engineers...

These look pretty cool, but my questions are A) "Did all or most Iwo Jima / 3rd Batt. USMC M4A2 sport these" (or am I pretty safe if I skip them)?, and B) "are there any good diagrams or drawings or even good pics available to show how they went together and attached" (so that maybe I can scratch them from sheet styrene and go from there, as versus trying to find the AM kit and get it in time for to do this build)?

Some other questions pop up:

Some pics show what appear to be nails welded around hatches to keep Japanese from attaching (magnetic?) bombs - the USMC "zimmerit"!. Are these appropriate for an Iwo Jima M4A2 early or mid tank from the 3rd Batt.? What about those wood planks (more USMC "zimmerit" LoL!) seen on some Shermans in PTO pics (and indeed provided on the Dragon "PTO" kit)? Were these fitted to any of those 3rd Batt. early / mid M4A2 with the welded hoods?

Regarding paint schemes: Did any of these Iwo 3rd Batt. M4A2 get any of those "fancy" tri-color paint schemes, or were they all pretty much monochrome "olive"? Any options reasonably available to me on painting?

ANY guidance and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Bob

Third Battalion tanks were pretty bare. Add on applique armor and a rebar rail welded to the back deck. They were monotone green M4A2's.

4th Battalion sported some fancy camo, mesh screens, and wood plank sponson armor. They used M4A3's

5th Battalion had the nails welded to the hatches. They used M4A3's with wood sponson armor, and planks across the bogies.

All appear to have come ashore with some form of wading trunks attached. They ditched the stacks themselves early on but retained the lowers as protection.

Here's a photo of the three Battalions side by side.







G

Here's a rear view of "Demagag", a 3rd battalion M4A2.



Here's a rear view of "Doris", a 4th Battalion M4A3.



Photos of Davy jones revealed they removed all the trunking at some time before it was destroyed. I left off any wading gear.



Hope this helps.

G

Wayne;

THANKS! That's GREAT-looking stuff you posted!

From what you have said and shown, it looks like "Demagag" will be "me" - or at least the sort of thing I'll shoot for based on the Tarawa kit. Sadly ( ) it's in the plain olive jacket... but that's the breaks (waaaa-waaaa)!

OK - Dema's stacks... did you scratch those trunks (boxes)? IF so, maybe you have some scale or other drawings which you could share so that I could fabricate something of about the right size and dimensions ( )? I'll guess that the drums are from some 55-gal US drum set- maybe Tamiya? or something? They look really "right" - looks like I'll need some drums... Wait! I have lots of drums in my stash.... 200-L GERMAN type drums! Fat chance those will work!

Any further guidance on the stack assemblies would be greatly appreciated!

I see what looks like square applique armor pieces welded onto the hull sides of Dema.... Those are definitely something I can readily do - so, did most or all of those 3rd Batt. Iwo M4A2 sport these applique bits?

Thanks for the nice assist so far!

Bob

Bob, the trunks on Demagog came from the Tankworkshop site. The adapters, and barrels are from their set. It's a nice casting that requires little in the way of modification to the base kit.

I scratched the lower on Doris, and added the upright portion from Tank workshop.







It's not 100% accurate under there however it certainly looks the part.

The applique armor was made by me from some plain old flat sheet. Photos reveal the Battalion maintanence folks seem to have added these themselves. You find all sorts of shapes welded to the sides of the tanks in the 3rd battalion.





Here's the trunk in place and a view of how I built the rebar rail. I used .020 styrene rod. It drove me crazy but turned out well.







G

Wayne;

Thanks yet again and some more!

So it looks like I may want to get involved with that T-WS kit...

Yeah... It's happening ... Here I started out dreaming that I would actually really stick pretty much to OOTB on this one, and then of course I asked some questions and got some great answers... I should remember to be careful what I ask for! I LOVE it!

OK, so I'm in for a penny, maybe for a pound... ! Now for the next obvious question sparked by your cool builds...

I see that you have added on some - what? "1/2 inch re-bar"? - rails around the rear deck... THAT looks GREAT! Just my kind of thing - grabs, rails and racks! So, were these rails pretty much a common shop add-on to those 3rd Batt. tanks? 20-thou styrene rod seems about right...

So far, it looks like a Tarawa kit with some side applique welded on, maybe a stack kit, some rails, and I'm sure that I'll end up tinkering here and there with little details.... happened to every build I've done to-date; why stop now! But at least I'm learning what-all I might do early-on and can maybe get this done by Feb! And hey! The base kit actually has maybe 1/2 the parts my current flakpanzer 38(t) project has (and DS tracks - wooo hooo!)!

Cheers!

Bob

PanzerBob is gonna turn to ShermanBob by the end of this...

I will make a Shermaholic out of him yet..............................



G

"Good Luck, Gents, Good Luck!" with that!

I'm already getting all numb and googly-eyed and dreaming of a nice wallow in something clear and simple like some Pz IV ausf X mit rear-decken-gepanzerter aus-haus - and I've only just touched one toe into the almighty Shermie ocean for one day!

But I'm always open and a glutton for punishment, so bring 'em on!

Bob