I’d replace the tracks Ezra, you won’t forgive yourself later. There are a few sets available, but do not go with AFV Club’s set. After doing a set of their T80’s for my M40, with the sink holes, fit issues, styrene that won’t take glue (yes they are not supposed to need glue but they fall apart if you don’t), I swore I will never use their indy tracks again.
See if you can locate a set from Kaizen or Raupen Modell. A bit of work, but probably worth it in the end.
Another option for tracks is get yourself the Italeri 1/35 M4A3E8 Fury. It includes two sets of tracks. The normal steel ones usually seen on WW2 M4A3E8’s and the rubber T-84 ones. They aren’t bad as rubber tracks go and you then have a perfectly good M4A3E8 and oodles of stowage left over.
Honestly, if Italeri had done their homework they would have released their Fury kit as an M4A2 instead of as an M4A3 and it would have solved most of you issues. (The Fury in the movie is a M4A2 (76) HVSS masquerading as an M4A3E8)
Had a quick look at the Dragon panther yesterday and thankfully it has options for no crew heater, the correct wheels and the normal mantlet. it also has moveable torsion bars so that will be handy for when the Panther goes vertical. I then remembered it would need some Zimm, but I think I have a Cavalier set for a G someplace, its just tracking it down. So all looking good so far. Will post some pics of it all once I get everything sorted
Just to clarify a point on the title thread. The real finish date is 31 Jan 2022. This was worked out with Richard @GulfWarrior (the Campaign guru) in this thread when the first start date was pushed back to 01 Feb 2021 due to over commitments. Hopefully that will be changed or the Dec part removed. So, end date is 31 Jan 2022, but as we have all read and discussed here, I will be very happy and in the mindset to push this back a bit further to allow people to finish any builds as I know a lot of people wont be able to get started until later in the year.
Now the issue is while I was looking for that I found an old Tamiya Panther G which I’d forgotten about as it’s been hidden away for probably 10 years. The problem being it’s partially started.
You can see all the sprues and parts left and the only real work done was the running gear. In all I assembled about 60 parts and I counted what’s left and there is over 150 parts left to assemble. That does not include dragon magic tracks I will be using or part of a lion roar PE set, plus additional cupola vision blocks, and one of the cavalier zimm sets I also found
So all in all, it probably under a third built and also you’d need to take into account the Dio backdrop of the collapsed bridge etc.
Would everyone be ok with me using the started Tamiya Panther ?
Also, I will have to de-glue most of left hand wheel stations to reset the wheels at the correct heights…
PM me your details and I can send it your way.
