¹⁄35

Now for something quite different, not German nor Soviet: An Egyptian Sherman with AMX30 turret will be soon available from Dragon

After Magach 1, Magach 2, and Magach 3 used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), it’s time to unveil the first of the IDF’s opponents, and this honour has fallen on an Egyptian Sherman tank.

What is special about this tank is the fitment of an FL-10 turret onto a Sherman. Recognizing the limitations of the Sherman’s original 75mm gun, FL-10 turrets were taken from French-built AMX-13 light tanks. This turret with its autoloader allowed the crew to reduce from five to four men.

The Shermans also featured diesel engines retrieved from M4A2s. These unique tanks were introduced into Egyptian service in the mid-1950s. However, a great many were destroyed or captured in the Six-Day War by Israel. Postwar evaluations by Israel showed that such special Shermans were similar in capability to its own M51 Sherman.

This 1/35 scale kit is based on Dragon’s Sherman tooling. To this chassis has been added a brand new turret created especially for this hybrid vehicle. The oscillating turret of the original FL-10 was basically made of two hinged parts, whereby elevation and recoil were achieved by the upper part moving relative to the lower part, and Dragon has captured the turret shape.