just had a thought,

as the hull in the old DML M4A4 is inaccurate, can the new firefly (with the appropriate turret) be used to create an M4A4 75mm?

im sure one of the masters of sherman variants (hollowpoint etc) can tell me

cheers

joe

I'm pretty sure you can. The firefly comes with a ball machine gun mount on the sprue from the Pershing, so you could mount that, and there's full applique armor (armour?) as well. You'd just need to make sure about whether or not to include the smoke generators on the rear hull and if the gun cleaning rods are correct for a 75mm M4A4. Otherwise, I think the hull is correct.
I could be wrong, but I'm sure there are plenty of folks able to jump in and correct things as needed.

thanks war machine,

you also seem to be a master of sherman variants!

cheers

joe

p.s it is armoUr, thanks for the spelling correction

Ed's right. The hull is outwardly the same for a Firefly VC and an M4A4 75mm gun tank -- except for the hull MG and the gun cleaning rods (great catch on that one, Ed!). Not sure what the smoke generators are that Ed is refering to ... Lots of pics of M4A4 75mm gun tanks out there so you should be able to pick a nice one to model.

Joe: I'm certainly no "master" -- I consider myself more an "informed amateur." I enjoy looking stuff up to help answer questions. It helps me learn more.

While I appreciate the kind words Joe, I am no Sherman expert. I'm just an overly enthusiastic amateur with a library and a love for all things olive drab. The smoke generators I mentioned are the two small angled boxes on the right rear of the lower hull plate. I think those are smoke generators. Whatever they are, I don't know if they were installed on all M4A4s or not, so keep an eye out for them.
Glad I could help!

thanks for the replies,

well anytime i see a question about shermans here, its usually you two or kencelot who come up with an answer, so you certainly are well informed amaturs!

cheers

joe

Yes they are smoke generators...I think they were added to alot of M4A4s too so I guess the best answer is yes they might have them..A picture could help for a specific tank otherwise I think it could go either way..You see these on most British AFV's by the end of the war.

Rick

Help me out here, guys, as my knowledge of British Shermans is lacking.

I know about the twin cylindrical smoke launchers/dispensers that appear on some Brit. Sherms.

You guys are talking about something on the REAR -- is this the rear upper or lower hull? I don't have a current Dragon/DML M4A4 variant (old or new) in my current inventory, but I know what the sprues looked like -- are we talking about the clam-opening box on the lower rear hull, or something else?

Please educate me!

Yeah that 's it the square boxes that look a bit like periscopes ...They have them on the Tamiya Cromwell kits too ..Hey for once I can help you out Hollow and not the other way around ..lol..Some of this stuff is starting to sink in here ..lol

Rick

Thanks, Rick. Now I'll have to see if I can track down a clear pic of one of these.

Found a picture for you ....


took me a while but I found one ..

Rick

Once again, thanks Rick!

I thought that might be the thing you guys were talking about -- I've seen it before, but never knew what it was -- I always assumed it was for dropping something, like markers. I wonder how it worked? I don't think this was terribly common on Commonwealth Sherms -- I've gone through all my pics at home and can't even find a hint of it in most of the pics. I've found them in a few Cromwell pics -- looks like the Sherm mount put two of them back to back and mounted them on end.

That's an interesting photo. Note the mounting brackets for the tow bar and the stoppers for the engine access doors. And I wonder why the loops were added to the lower corners of the hull?

IIRC the boxes were used to hold smoke candles, sorry but I don't know any more than this, maybe somebody else can expand on this.

Happy modelling
Ant

i think u can... but who knows there's alot of things i dont know!! Ha Ha