It reproduce the well known tank named "Fireball" from of 'F' Company, 33rd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, knocked out by a Tiger I at Elsdorf, Germany on 28th February 1945
I used the follwing aaftermaret items:
- Eduard PE,
- WWII Productions resin tracks (now OOP),
- RB Model M3 gun barrel and M1919 MG barrel,
- Tiger Models gun shield cover;
- Browning M2HB from Bronco,
- Archer shipping data water decals,
- Some parts and resin copies from a Dragon M26A1 (side boxes and their handles), Formation Sherman kit and some homemade parts.
Reworked final drive housing to obtain the early model. They were later texturized with MR Surfacer 500 putty.
Rebuilt tank's track connector jacks
Pilot and copilot hatches.
Reworked suspension with new shock absorber and bumpers resin copy.
Hull at its first stage
Some problem with gun cavans fitting
Ready to paint! I try to reproduce the small tie down handles. Not very close to the real ones but better than nothing!
The finished model. I am a little disappointed of this pictures because they are bad contrasted so it is very difficoult to see the transiction betweeen lower hull mud color and upper hull olive drab.
Note also I made a mistake on the front SN using Tamiya decal without cutting it. Tamiya printed it as a single number but in the original pictures you see a space between first four digit and the next four. The right decals shuold be 3011 9848 and not 30119848. I didn't note this.
Bye
Pierantonio
