'Major Jim' was the Sherman from the CO of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment. The hull is the Revell 76mm Sherman and the turret comes from the Matchbox Firefly. The mantlet, gun and bogies are scratchbuilt for the early version of the M4 Sherman.
And now the reason to get back to Tunisia (there is always a strange reason to get back to a wargaming period...). I had 4 very old soft plastic Atlantic Sherman. Apparently they are useless being short in height and with a strange gun and mantlet. But the rest is reasonable. So I raised the hull from the tracks some 2mm with the help of hot glue, built a new mantlet from GreenStuff and EverGreen styrene and placed an accurate 75mm gun taken from left over Pz IV barrels. The two strange middle wheels close to the bogies were also taken out with an X-Acto.
Like this they become close to the Airfix Sherman and 1st US AD grew in numbers.
I found another half priced Lee from Altaya in a toy fair and repainted it with the colours of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Armored Regiment. The commander is completely scratchbuilt from an Esci British torso from their Churchill tank with german arms with binoculars and GreenStuff helmet.
From left to right the new stuff: The four Atlantic Sherman; 'Major Jim' and the Lee; two M4 from Airfix and an Esci/Italeri in the far end.
For you to find the correct markings for the US 1st Armored in Tunisia you must buy, beg or steal (or ask to JMM, he will find it...) 'First Blood-US 1st Arm.Div. in Tunisia' from Claude Gillono, Firefly Collection.
And now lets give some mobile artillery to 1st Armored otherwise things will be even worse then they historically where.
Sweet! Really excellent stuff. You are very consistent in your high quality productions, it's where I want to get to. Great job...I am a real fan of the bike recce too!
ReplyDeleteThanks SRD. You are already there, you just didn't notice it :)
ReplyDeleteNice work on the old Atlantic models
ReplyDeleteI did something like that on several Atlantic T-34 changing the turret to something like the 1943 version. İn the future I will do the same to the Tiger.
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