Hey Guys,

I'm trying to look for a good Sherman hull to replace an Italeri
hull with a calliope rocket launcher. I got the kit
assembled already and won't bother with the fuss of disassembling the launcher from the turret, that is why I'm retaining it (since it already looks good).

Here in the Republic of the Philippines especially in my province of Iloilo, the
only available kits we have is the old tamiya m4a3, the italeri m4a1, the tamiya early m4 sherman, and the new tamiya m4a3 that comes with 3 infantry figures.
Regardless of price which is the best kit? They say that the tamiya m4a3 is a little large for it's scale does this also apply on the newer Tamiya M4A3s?.
Can you give comments on the kits?

A reply from you would be great. Thanks and more power.

Rakurakugid

Hello and welcome to the world of Armorama

The only Tamiya M4A3 that is out of scale is the very old M4A3E8 which usually comes with an electric motor.

Looks like this

http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/misc/michaelsshermanpreview.htm

All the other Tamiya M4A3s are the same basic kit.

The Italeri M4A1 hull is an unlikely base for a Calliope, so the best basis is the newer Tamiya M4A3 (the M4 early would have been fitted with a slightly different turret to the one you are going to use).

This is interesting since the two other Calliope models that have been on the market both used the M4A1 hull. The old Monogram Scremin' Mimi and the 1/72 scale Esci Sherman Calliope used the cast hulled Sherman. I know this doesn't make it correct, but just makes you wonder why they chose that particular hull when both companies also had a welded (Monogram had an M4, Esci an M4A3) hulled Sherman in their lines.

Okay, I was little too brief (posting while working )

The only M4A1 Calliope I can (vaguely) remember seeing was the early hull (small hatch). Most late hull (large hatch) M4A1s ended up as DD tanks and I can't remember seeing that many of them, let alone fitted with Calliopes (but I'm not going to say 'never').

Calliopes I can remember seeing in pictures are mostly M4 (early hull) and M4A3 (late hull). As Gian Francis has his Calliope already fitted to a high bustle turret from the Italeri M4A3, the Tamiya M4A3 is the best bet for a new hull, and even then a little plastic surgery will be required.

As to why ESCI fitted a Calliope to their M4A1, I'm baffled

Yes, I could also never figure out why they discontinued their M4A3 yet the A1 remains in production to this day (as an Italeri kit).

The Monogram M4A1 was a small hatch variant and the turret was an early one (no loader's hatch). Interesting vintage kit.

The ESCI M4A3 looked a lot more like a Sherman than the M4A1 which copied the rather toy-like lines of the Bandai version a little to well.

There were a few question about the exact scale of the M4A3 IIRC.

The Monogram M4A1 was a very early DV hull too, not many of them in plastic sadly as they would be great for El Alamein.

BTW I found the instructions for the Bandai M4A1 a few weeks ago and the photo on the front page is really a composite hull M4!