what would I get if I mixed the early tamiya turret with the m4a1 hull of the old italeri kit? or the turret of the other 75mm tamiya turret sorry not so clued up on different types aprt from the firefly also would the italeri hull have the extra side armour on it like the tamiya kit?

Okay Mike..Here we go ...Now if you want to do a M4A1 75mm with large hatches ..You can do it but...You will need the Turret from either the Tamiya M4A3 or you can use the Italeri one from their "M4A2" You will have to fix the missing thickened chin because no plastic kit has got this right yet..As for the large hatch dry stowage hull the hull was cast with bulges added over the ammo stowage and was not soldered on afterwords. there are also a few changes to the engine hatch .there was one less filler cap ... You do know that this was quite a rare bird ...a few were used for the American DD tanks ,but there are very few pictures of an ordinary M4A1 75mm late..
hth
Rick

Here's a link to Mike Canaday's extensively-researched site on the elusive M4A1(75mm) big hatch: http://mmcalc.tripod.com/Shermans/Large_Hatch_75mm_M4A1.html

Note that some mods need to be made to the hull for the cast-in armor.

Hmm ...I love the work Mike has done on the Sherman tank but are you wondering about a few of those pictures ? the first one and the one of the Parade looks to me to be a DD with all the fenders removed ...look on the side of the turret there is a fitting I have only seen on DD tanks before..Just a thought ...The info is still exactly what you need to do an M4A1 .

Rick

Right, Rick. There were several extensive discussions of these photos on Missing-Links. The top photo was judged the "most conclusive" -- but not definitive -- proof that a non-DD M4A1(75) bighatch existed. Judgement was split on the parade pics -- I tend to agree with you that they are very likely ex-DD tanks.

I wish someone would come out with a small conversion kit to make an ex-DD. All it would really need are the DD idlers, plus some of the hardware (minus props and linkages) for the rear end. A diagram of assorted hull fittings would allow the modeler to add as much of the welded-on hull fittings as one wished. Maybe Formations or one of the other decent resin companies have this in the works. I'd buy one.

Yep I'd buy one too...I know Rob is bringing out an up armored "cast in "hull for the M4A1 ..Now is it a big hatch or small(I think it's a small) I'm not sure but after that it wouldn't be too hard to go from there,now would it? ROB PLEASE!

Rick

Sherman kit bashing: The large hatch M4A1 hull from Italeri would not have the welded additional side hull armor. As the other posters have said they existed (mostly used in DD work) but they had the side applique armor cast-in.

There were these later M4A1s with cast in armor that had the small hatches as well (cf. Zaloga's Sherman at War #2 of the M4A1 with T1E3 minerollers, p. 51 (bottom 2 pics)). There are others as well.