First off THANKS guntruck for the input on those 105 photos, and Thanks to you a others for prying my nose away from Shermans, to look at other U.S. armor, caught the fever again.
I have not received my reference material on Pershing's yet, but I need to ask a couple of questions. When they talk about the counter weight on the back of the turret, was this a new turret design, or did they just weld/bolt weight on the back? I am also going to build this with all hatches open, even the pistol port, if anyone out there, has done a conversion for the Tamiya and has an extra pistol port hatch please let me know, need an extra. Last question, I am planning on turning my own barrel, does anyone know of a site that has the length, so forth,of the barrel so I can convert this to 1/35, want to get a jump on this.
Thanks for the input, and sorry it is long.

The counter weight was added to the standard turret.

depends on which one, the pershing test vehicle had the counter balance welded to the turret, but tamiya's turret is correct for a standard combat vehicle at the end of '45. now i have a lot of left over stuff about to be trashed from converting the tamiya kit to the "Super" Pershing test vehicle so send me list add i'll see what's left, i have most of the turret parts intact, the only thing missing is the lower turret half which got canibalized to rack a retaining ring for AA's new turret. my e-mail is [email protected] good hunting stug