Tamiya M4A3 with Tank Workshop 76mm turret





Tamiya M4 early with Tank Workshop composite hull

Two very interesting (and well made) builds. Can't wait to see them both finished. Having just built Tamiya's M4A3 myself I'm interested to see the addition of the 76mm turret and I hope to build one of these myself someday.
Keep us posted!

James

Good work. How does the Tank workshop composite fit with the Tamiya lower hull? I was going to use the Italeri hull with mine. Nice work on the M4A3 welds as well.

I emailed Tank Workshop with that very question and Jay says it was made with the Tamiya hull in mind. I used Tamiya's M4 early lower hull as that kit gives you the correct rear deck plates, correct rear hull plates as well. I did use the front fenders from Dragons M4A1 cobra kit. It's not a click fit to the tamiya hull. I used cyano and some tape till it set up. The Tamiya light guards and drivers hatches fit as well.

Mike

M4A3 finished. I used decals from the DML kit for the 12th AD 714th TB. The headlights were drilled, painted silver and filled with clear acrylic laquer. Much more cost effective than MV lenses, especially once weathered. One thing I hate is a weathered tank with bright shiney MV headlights!

Mike;
Real nice job on the M4A3. Weather and finish is top rate.!!

I like it a lot. You've done a nice combo of one of my favorite tanks.

A few things maybe for the future:

1. To me, the turret looks a little too dirty in a "brown" way. When I think of the turret of a tank, I think of it more dusty than dirty. I try to make my lower hulls more dirty and my upper hulls and turrets more dusty.

2. There are some parts which you could make yourself or buy from a company like Formations that unfortunately don't come in the Tamiya kit that should be along both sides of the exhaust deflector. I bought a Formations A3 deflector that comes with those parts and now just copy them in styrene. Works well enough.

3. What's holding that wooden board between the front fenders?

4. Doesn't look like any of the persicopes are open (another one of those pain-in-the-butt Sherman chores!), so the driver and co-driver cannot see right now.

These are all pretty minor in the nitpick world. Overall it's a fine looking machine, and it seems modelers don't often choose those markings, so you get high marks for doing something a bit different. Keep up the good work.

Rob

Hi Rob,

. "To me, the turret looks a little too dirty in a "brown" way. When I think of the turret of a tank, I think of it more dusty than dirty. I try to make my lower hulls more dirty and my upper hulls and turrets more dusty."

Generally I do as well but I don't want every piece to "look the same"

"There are some parts which you could make yourself or buy from a company like Formations that unfortunately don't come in the Tamiya kit that should be along both sides of the exhaust deflector. I bought a Formations A3 deflector that comes with those parts and now just copy them in styrene. Works well enough"

I know, I put tons of boltheads on the suspension of my last Sherman but didn't on this one. Sometimes I just don't feel like it ya know?

"What's holding that wooden board between the front fenders?"

The wood is swollen in place :-) Actually I realised that after having looked at the photos and it's already fixed as well as having an antennae mounted

"Doesn't look like any of the persicopes are open (another one of those pain-in-the-butt Sherman chores!), so the driver and co-driver cannot see right now."

There's no one in the tank at the moment. That's why the .50 is swung over the loaders hatch. When they all get back in he'll swing it back out of the way to open his hatch.

Thanks

Mike

Mike,

Nice answers! You have an explanation for everything!

In all seriousness, I know what you mean. Sometimes you have to just get things done, make things look different, try new things, etc. I just got a 1/48th Sherman for a group build and plan to do it OOB, except for maybe some stowage, just to bang something out quickly and try out some painting techniques. In the old days I was good for 15 builds a year. Nowadays? Under 10.

Great job.

Rob
P.S. Check out my M36B1 I just posted....it's sliding down the "latest posts" page b/c no one is commenting on it. Help keep it alive. Thanks!

Where's the group build?

Hi Mike! Very nice on the paint and weathering! Would you care to share the 'dusting' effect you used? I have a Sherman that needs this look real bad!

Tanks!


Jeff

As always all weathering was done with an airbrush and paintbrush. Perhaps on a future build I'll explain. Maybe even on the composite hull, within a week or two?

Stowage:











Mike

Foolin' around

Looks great in B&W too!


Jeff

Mike,

Lookin' good! Very well done!

Lovely work well done! Some inspiration for my next Sherman here for sure!

James

WOW, it is a real treat to see this turret on a model. All the early Tank Workshop kits were designed to be used on the Tamiya M4A3 tank because at the time our largest customer was in Japan, and the only other model available was the Italeri M4A1. I used both of these models to create the masters back in 93 or 94.

I am curious to hear about the Comp hull build. That is the 3rd version of the hull that I made. How's the fit etc...

Hi Mike,

Great looking Sherman, you've done a grand job on re-capturing the vehicle in the photo. Whole kit looks great and love the swollen board answer , but a couple of small supports would look better

The composite hull looks interesting and I have a Tamiya M4 hull!!! I will have to investigate further lol, lol. Is that a large hatched composite hull can't tell from the pic but it looks like it might be. Don't know if they had large and small hatched or not, just asking.

Yip nice job indeed - keep em coming.

Cheers

Al

Nicely done A3, love the black stripe camo. Weathering looks spot on to me. Can't wait for the composite to be done.
Doug

Alan said:

Great looking Sherman, you've done a grand job on re-capturing the vehicle in the photo. Whole kit looks great and love the swollen board answer , but a couple of small supports would look better

I guess I got you Alan-the photo's of this tank on a photo background. You can barely see-due to shadows-the supports for the board in the stowage photos but they're there. The composite hull fit fairly well with Tamiya's early hull. The hatches from tamiya fit as well-the Tank Workshop supplied hatches are too big? In my opinion there's more front fender area ( area from hull bow strip to outside hull edge) on the left side than there is on the right. I used fenders from Dragon and while the right side fit well the left fender was a bit narrow of fitting the space it needed to occupy. The tamiya engine deck and rear deck plate fit were spot on..but I'm getting ahead a bit. The copmposite will be finished this afternoon, Stay tuned....

Mike

Inspiration for this vehicle was on page 32 of Squadron's Sherman in action.

Very nice, all the way down to the 5-o'clock shadow on the TC's face.

I had to add some straps and some bolts to the suspension-couldn't stand it.

Hey Mike, you are the Model Guy! That's really great and also the photography!

Gary