| Original Message |
Gaston Marty (no login)
Posted Jul 5, 2009 4:57 AM
...that the the M4A3E8 is among HB's worst... I was under the false impression it was a slightly more "respectable" HB Sherman...
Can you tell me what is the HB Sherman that requires the smallest NUMBER of corrections, regardless of how heavy those few corrections are? (Correcting small rear plates angles/dimensions is too difficult for me to consider)
From what I understand of what you just said, the large hull hatches M4A1 76mm is the answer, having a correct rear, but needs the upper rounded corners of the hull "splayed" wider to have the straighter sides. Didn't that result in an upper hull that was too wide dimensionally?
If correcting the HB M4A1 76mm is little more than squaring the upper side corners of the upper hull, that would be great news to me! I actually think the much taller one-piece HB transmission cover captures the tall Sherman look far better than Tamiya's. You may recall the Tamiya transmission cover was measured at 16.2 mm vertically, while the actual Sherman is 17.6 mm, a full vertical 3 inches taller on an obvious front item. Bandai's transmission was also too shallow, but significantly better at about 17 mm...
The Hobby Boss transmission cover was the closest of all at 18 mm, so for such a large frontal feature, it captures the tall "belt line" look much better in my opinion.
Unfortunately for Tamiya, even covering the whole front hull with stowage does NOT correct the far too low position of the hull mg; the entire upper hull front face, light guards etc, would have to be crushed upward, sort of like a man pulling hard up on his pants... This is why the Tamiya M-10/Sherman series, though otherwise good, have never figured on my "to do" list, this even with a resin after market upper hull...
So if squaring the upper corners of the HB M4A1 76 mm is all that is needed, would that be my best starting point for a Sherman? (I'm realizing, as I type this, that no Tamiya turret is compatible with a big hatch A1 hull, so gun tube/turret problems are probably why I never pursued this path further; maybe a quick pointer to the best compatible turret?)
Gaston
P.S. For "pulling up the pants", I have found a probably unintentional "solution"; it is a resin "composite" upper hull conversion (17.2mm tall transmission cover, despite the Tamiya base) by a company called "Azimuth" which is OOP (intended for a Firefly, but the offered 17 pdr is very poor). Unfortunately, the hull mg position is high enough, but far too narrow, and requires a correction. Even worse is that the transmission cover's rivet line looks strange, though I could live with it...
G.
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