I’d suggest for markings that you start looking at photos of USMC island battles from the Mariana islands, the Palau islands, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Those were the ones where the large hatch late hull M4A2’s were employed. But look hard at the details, because it Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the nearly identical looking large hatch M4A3 75mm were used alongside them.
Nice work on fixing the turret bustle contours.
Thanks!
I would really like to make something like this, with concrete front armor and side wood planks, but I noticed that is an early M4A2, sadly
The side planks became common on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Have a look for Marine tanks there.
As I recall Iwo Jima had the most interesting armor in my opinion but they where mostly A3’s not A2’s. Only one company at most would have had A2.
According to David Harpers book “Tank Warfare on Iwo Jima “, the 3rd tank battalion had M4A2s while the 4th and 5th had A3s. Not sure if the entire 3rd battalion was there but I think so.
Wasn’t only C Co 3rd Tanks and they had to fight to keep their tanks as I recall.
I’m not at all sure if the entire 3rd battalion was landed on Iwo
A quick read of Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific only mentioned C Co 3rd Tanks for Iwo. I will have to reread the C Co 3rd Tank book to see if they have more. I cannot find my Harper book off hand to check either.
Doh! The book I have is C Co 4th Tank by Neiman. They had A2’s in Oki and China afterwards.
I’m thumbing through Oscar Gilbert’s “Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific”, and it mentions A, B ,and C companies. I haven’t had a chance to read the entire book. This book and the book I mentioned in my previous post are the only two sources I have looked at.
Found something interesting in Gilbert’s book: on page 235, second paragraph, “Gunnery Sergeant Sam Johnson of C company, 4th Tank designed and built a one-of-a-kind flail tank to clear mines. The battalion was equipped with M4A3s, but the flail was based on a redundant M4A2”.
The story goes on to describe the flail mechanism and how they went to show it to a General the next morning ; Johnson was still drunk so they hid him although he got full credit for the design. They blew up the flail mechanism so bad they gave the tank to the 3rd Tank to use on Iwo.
I saw A, B and C bit I think those are all 4th Tank A3’s.
The flail tank.
Wow! Lol I was just gonna say that Gilbert’s book didn’t have a picture of the flail tank. That’s great !
Coming along nicely
Looks like you did a good job correcting the rear turret
A very fine example of working with what you have in fixing the turret bustle. Well done! 
The build is shaping up nicely. Very clean from what I can see. 
It’s a nice kit for the price. Sure, there are some things that need attention if you want to be accurate, but I had fun building mine. I’m using the Caesar markings, which was a tank that landed on Tinian. Which is why I added wading trunks.
Thanks!
Probably I will go for concrete armor on the front plate and side wooden planks like on the prevoious photo I posted.
I want to do something different and appealing 
Cheers!
You’ve done a beautiful job on this kit so far. An excellent build with great attention to detail. Outstanding job re - shaping the turret. This really looks like a very nice kit for the price. You’re really doing an excellent build here, can’t wait to see what else you have to add to it!
Ooo a pacific war Sherman! Nice! defiantly following this one, you’ve done a great job so far!
