Well Im no expert and all I wanted to do was add an airsoft gun to my Tamiya Sherman so I could battle my son with his HL Tiger.
So my question is, Did this Sherman ever exist? If it did what designation is it? If it didn't then its no big deal I can change it.

Thanks,
John

You have some fine tuning to do on the muzzle brake.

The gun is a Tamiya, "17 pound gun" upgrade part. It may not be the correct gun for this model turret.

Replace that 17 pounder Firefly gun with a proper 76mm and you have a nice M-4A3E8. For a Firefly, the turret, loaders hatch and suspension are wrong.

YA the 17 pdr was a British gun. I think if you remove the muzzle brake it would look closer to the prototype

YHR, where did this picture come from? It is terribly disproportionate. Turret is way too big, the gun is a segmented tube like a Tiger's, which is totally wrong for any Sherman and the loose tracks look like a German or Russian dead track system as opposed to the HVVS live track. [:-]

[link=http://ww2drawings.jexiste.fr/]WWII drawings[/link]

That drawing comes from the older Testors/Italeri M4A1 76 turret. Other drawings include the M4A1 "Bonnie" a marking variant in the Italeri kit. The kit gun tube was incorrect with a step. I built this kit as a kid and learned about the gun tube years later.

This website may help:

http://www.usarmymodels.com/MANUFACT...taleri225.html

Techically the version you created did not exist. There were no M4s with the T23 turret. If you replaced the engine deck and rear doors with A3 components, then yes, you'd have an M4A3(76)WE8.

Don't fret over the muzzle brake, many Easy 8s were initially produced with just the thread cover which is easy to fabricate.

If you get nit-picky the loader's split gun-ring hatch should be the lower profile version or you could replace it with the oval hatch used on the Pershing which was essentially the same with minor detail differences if memory serves.

Nice lookin tank by the way!

You can drop that (76) W designation crap, it's just an M4A3E8 Sherman by changing the muzzle brake, engine deck and the back half where the exhaust is and drop the air filters. Abrams last Sherman Thunderbolt VII had the split loaders hatch, even though his was up-armored.

Oh, and the Pershing loaders hatch was completely different from the one used on the later T-23.

Ok guys, I think I now know what to do. I will remove the 17 pounder gun and put in a 76 mm gun. I will then put the turret that came with the Tamiya kit and put it on the Mato cast hull with VSS suspension to make it a Fire fly. I will look for the other upgrade parts later. Im not that much a purest to make the fine detail changes but I would like to have the correct outline...

Thanks for your help.
John

If you are making a firefly you would want to keep the 17 pounder. Also there were no fireflys with the cast hull. Closest thing was a composite hull that has the cast nose front sectionn, mated to the welded hull.

What you got is actually pretty close. Just lose the muzzle brake, the other details that have been pointed out to you, would only be noticed by someone who knows his Shermans. You could just load up the back with stowage and put a camo net over it, and no one would know about the rear access hatches not being right.

You are far closer to an Easy8 then you are a Firefly. I did an extensive conversion to a Firefly here on the forum. It is probably a few pages back.

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9267992/tm.htm]Firefly conversion[/link]