I'm in the middle of a series of platoon gaming builds at the moment for our '46 and Skirmish Tank gaming and these Pershings are to provide a bit of US steel.

These (and some Easy 8's) are actually the first Trumpeter kits I've ever assembled and I wasn't sure what to expect especially after hearing some horror stories about Trumpeter tracks.

Well the good news is these are actually pretty decent kits. The quality of the moulding is very good and surprisingly the tracks didn't put up much of a fight, succumbing to a combined attack of bending, stretching and superglue.

The downsides to these kits are mostly closed hatches (only the TC's turret hatch is open) and the clumsy moulded solid lifting rings, especially as the rest of the moulding is so tight. Anyway the lift rings are easily fixed and the drivers hatches not so, so I'm leaving that project for a later build, concentrating on getting these guys mobile and on the table.

cheers
Brent

And so ..... the build pics so far ....

Looking good so far. Keep the posts coming
Cheers
Charlie

Thanx Charlie !!!


And I decided to convert two vehicles to the "pilot" configuration with the add on armour and turret mounted balance cylinders.

I know the result isn't strictly accurate and to make matters worse I eyeballed all the measurements off photos, but I think they'll make a nice looking and diverse unit.

Next is to replace all the lift rings, make up some tow cables and think about stowage and some crews ....

Brent

It's totally your call on how accurate you want to make your Super Pershings but here are 3 tips (2 easy, 1 hard).

1) Remove the shell ejection chute from the left turret wall. 2) The T26E4 had narrow fenders -- they should be almost flush with the fender stowage lockers

and for the hard one 3) the T26E4 had a split loader's hatch, not the oval one.

Thanks Roy! I think I'll attack the first two issues, and I may have one spare split hatch in the spares box ... if so I'll add it to one.

Ideally the rear turret bustle should come off and have the extemporised counterweight too ... hmmm.

cheers
Brent

Brent,

Nice job on the Pershings, especially the up armoured ones.

It’s odd that I built the Trumpeter M26A1 a while back and it came only with link and length tracks (how I dislike those things). Here’s a few shots:





Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan,

thanks for looking in .... and dang!! I didn't know the A1 had link and length. I just checked the sprue shots on Henkofholland's site and yup, the A1 has them but the other three Pershing versions have band tracks ....

I know what you mean about link n length as I'm working on 5 Revel PzIVjs and assembling the tracks on those is taking me longer than doing the pilot model conversions !!!

cheers
Brent