Medium Tank T6

[Jakko]

With the K2 Black Panther almost finished and other models that mainly need painting, this will be my next model:

Well, not quite as it’s shown on the front of the box. I have a few extra parts for it:

From all of this, and probably some more stuff from my spares box, it will become:

The prototype of the M4 Sherman, in its earliest incarnation as pictured above. Later, the machine-gun turret was removed and counterweights added to the main gun barrel:

For those who want the full story of the T6, the Sherman Minutia Website has you covered

I’ve had the idea for a number of years to build this one, but didn’t get round to it until now. It started when I bought Panzer Art’s very early Sherman turret for cheap, and soon decided it would be most interesting to build the very earliest Sherman with it (there are other choices, even a tank photographed in action in Italy). Originally, the plan was to use an M3 medium kit from MiniArt, with an M4A1 upper hull from Asuka, but last year I realised it would probably be easier to use a Takom M3A1 instead. The rear part of the T6 hull is very similar to that of the M3A1, while the M4A1’s is a further development of that. So now, I intend to cut the back off both and stick the Asuka front (everything before the engine deck) to the (modified) Takom hull from the front of the engine deck back.

In addition, I’ve got a sprue for some parts I couldn’t find in my Sherman spares box, ordered direct from Asuka in Japan together with the upper hull, a set of T41 tracks from MiniArt, roadwheels from MiniArt as well (I don’t think Takom’s are very good) and a set of .30-calibre Browning barrels, because some of the machine guns on the T6 had cooling jackets with slots in rather than circular holes.

For references, I have a lot of photos of the real T6:

This is about three quarters of them, the rest didn’t fit on-screen Many of those photos you will also find online if you search for pictures of the T6, but this lot also includes some you don’t normally see.

[SdAufKla]

Always been a subject that I’ve been interested in. Looking forward to watching your build come together!

[Jakko]

Before starting construction, I went and looked through my Sherman spares boxes. This is what came out:

At the front are direct vision blocks with flaps as well as mudguards of the correct style for the T6, above them are a driver’s hatch and two pistol port flaps from an M3 medium tank. At top right are the parts for an M34 gun shield (except the moveable shield that attached to the gun) and an M2 75 mm gun barrel. The grey parts are MiniArt, the rest is Asuka.

I think I know why the Panzer Art turret was on sale:

It includes an M34A1 gun shield, but the moveable shield is the one for the M34. An M34A1 is far too late for this very early turret, but it also turns out that the hole in the turret is too narrow for the Asuka M34 shield … An M34A1 from a Dragon kit, that I also found in my spares box, does fit, which makes me think Panzer Art modified a Dragon turret for this conversion set Oh, well, I’ll need to enlarge the hole, then. Could be worse

Here’s a comparison of the hulls:

As I already mentioned, my first plan was to modify the M4A1 hull (yellow) but the T6 had a back end very similar to the M3A1’s: more rounded corners and that projecting part behind the opening for the engine deck. It’ll be easier to do a transplant.

The Asuka upper hull fits the Takom lower quite nicely:

On the right-hand side (at the top in the photo) it may not look like it, but that’s because there’s a small projection on the lower hull, since this is where the 75 mm gun sits on the M3. By removing that, the two should fit fine (he said … ).

The hull rear plate has details that I had hoped weren’t there:

It’s a small thing, but the round plates that the exhaust pipes come out of, have two little notches on the Takom part while the T6’s were completely circular. Both are possible on M3s, but it does mean I’ll have to change it. I also think the rivets look too small, so I might replace those too.

[barkingdigger]

This has the makings of a fun build! I too fancied doing one of these, so I’ll be taking notes…

[Jakko]

As per usual, it will almost certainly be more involved than it seems now Something I’m not looking forward to is correcting the shape of the front corners of the hull, for one.

[Thechaffetank]

I am watching this with interest, take your time with the bogies the two Half’s of the casting kept coming apart when I glued the with extra thin

[Jakko]

Thanks for the tip. I’ve built a Takom M3 kit before (the Grant CDL) and don’t remember any problems with the bogies, but I’ll keep it in mind, just in case these do cause trouble.

[SSGToms]

An ambitious undertaking Jakko, but you’re an excellent builder, I’m sure you’ll do it justice.
It already looks like you have gotten excellent parts sources. The T6 is a favorite of mine, I’ll be following.

[Jakko]

Thanks, I intend to do my best

[Jakko]

I started construction with the rear plate of the hull, because that needs to be in place to locate the upper hull correctly.

After removing the bolts on the round plates and the rivets next to them, I punched two 7 mm discs from thin plastic card and glued them on the moulded-on plates. After the glue dried I cut out the opening in the middle for the exhaust pipes (just stick a knife blade in, cut to find the edge and follow that) and added bolts made with a hex punch-and-die set. I also used a domed punch to make slightly bigger rivets for the plates that the idler mounts will go on to later.

At the upper left and right were rivet heads, but I cut those away because the photos of the prototype don’t show them, then filled the scars with putty. I also used that to fill the screw heads on the hinges for the engine hatches, except the upper ones on the rear plate itself: the photo of the real T6 shows they were present on those (on the M3, these hinges had holes drilled for these screws, but many were welded on through those holes instead).

I also removed a triangular plate on each side of the doors, which was a stop to prevent them from opening which the T6 didn’t have, and four rivets on the vertical strip over the two doors, because it was welded on the T6.

Altogether a lot more work than you would expect for a simple rear plate

Then on to the upper hull:

I just sawed through both as square as I could, level with the forward edge of the opening for the engine deck. The hardest of the four cuts was on the left of the M3A1, and I ended up angling to the left too far there:

But that’s no real issue, I’ll take a bit off that later so they join properly.

The hull front of the T6 was different than the M4A1’s. First of all, the headlights weren’t on there but on the mudguards, and the hump above the machine-gun mount also wasn’t present. Out with the file!

On the inside of the Asuka hull, I glued plastic strip:

The thicknesses of the walls is about the same on the two upper hulls, but Asuka’s narrows at the bottom to fall over the sponson floors. This means it doesn’t fit properly on the Takom lower hulls, because that’s sized for the Takom upper hull that doesn’t narrow, but with these strips the Asuka hull can’t fall over the Takom sponson floors, and they’ll make it easier to add the forward floor sections later on from plastic card.

Let’s put them together for the moment:

Because I accidentally cut the left-hand side at an angle, it indeed doesn’t fit properly — see gap at the white arrow. The Asuka hull sits where it should, but the Takom part is too far back as a result. At the red arrow, you can see the upper edge of the rear wall, which should be level with the rear edge of the engine deck opening, instead of slightly forward of it as it is here.

[SSGToms]

You are doing some fine work here. It’s going to look amazing. Can’t wait to see more progress, but such a project cannot be rushed.

[PzAufkl]

I don’t know a thing about the T6, but in the rear view picture I noted that the taillights are mounted standing on their heads as compared to the way they’ve been mounted on thousands of other vehicles. No idea if that was on purpose?

[Shermaniac]

I remember you talking about doing this one a while back on the Shermania campaign Super cool project and your craftsmanship is top tier inspirational type stuff. Thank you for doing this, will be enjoying this here thread a lot.

[Jakko]

@SSGToms

such a project cannot be rushed.

It’ll almost certainly get bogged down when I get to the boring little details

@PzAufkl

the taillights are mounted standing on their heads

I had noticed that too, and I’m also puzzled as to why. Could just be somebody got them upside-down. The Sherman Minutia Website has a photo of T6 later in its life after it capsized:

You can just make out that the left-hand light is the right way up here, and the lights also have electrical cables running to what appear to be holes drilled through the rear section of the overhang. I’m guessing the lights weren’t functional in the 1941 photos. (The tank has had some retrofits in the meantime: T49 tracks with steel cleats to replace the T41 rubber blocks, a later engine with “high” exhaust pipes — 1 is the exhausts for that — and external air cleaners — 2 —while 3 points to the blanking plates over the original openings for the exhausts. The tank also now has a standard Sherman two-part commander’s hatch, but minus its periscope, and an M3 75 mm gun rather than the shorter M2. At the Sherman Minutia site, 4 points out that the sides of the overhang were open on the underside on the T6, while production tanks had a floor there.)

But because the original photos show them the wrong way up, they’ll also go that way on my model, of course.

@Shermaniac

Super cool project and your craftsmanship is top tier inspirational type stuff.

Thanks I’ve been intending to build this for a number of years, since a few days after I bought the Panzer Art turret, but only now got round to actually doing it.

[Jakko]

The Panzer Art turret is a good representation of a very early M4 turret, but unfortunately that means it has all kinds of stuff on it that wasn’t on the T6’s turret. This is easy enough to solve with a saw and some hobby knives:

To be precise, I removed the lifting eyes, the ventilator on the turret roof and the small antenna base on the rear. Those can be seen in this somewhat well-known photograph:

… but that isn’t a T6 turret (as is clearly stated underneath ). Despite having a pistol port with a protectoscope in it, this is a very early M4 turret, with lifting eyes and a second antenna base.

I filed all around the Asuka gun shield that’s on the model until it fit. I first intended to enlarge the opening in the turret for it, but that would have shifted the shield to the right, so I felt it would be better to reduce the shield’s size instead. It’s still loose in the photo, because it needs quite a bit more work to be able to pass for the T6’s shield.

Oh, and I scraped off the casting seam along the rear lower edge of the turret. Photos of the T6 show barely a seam here, but the resin turret had a pretty thick one.

The tank’s nose also had some work done to it:

The white putty is partly for filling seams and partly to replicate the structure of this part of the real tank. Takom moulded almost everything here smooth, except the inner faces of the final drive “ears”, so I used liquid cement and a stiff brush to add a little more structure. The strip with bolts is a lighter grey because it comes from my spares box, I suspect it’s a Dragon part. I had to file its ends a little to fit the Asuka upper hull and fill two slots with plastic strip (not visible here because the vertical flanges with bolts cover them). The reason for using this part is because the M3’s is shorter: the bit of white plastic at the top is there to fill the lower section here that was necessary on the M3 but not on the M4. On the real tank this was filled by welding in a piece, and that can be seen in photos:

But I still have to replicate that

[Shermaniac]

@Jakko

Wow, this is moving along very quickly. If I’m understanding correctly, the part that you still have to define correctly is the patch that they used to fill in the space left from the M3 cutout on the FDA? The area directly below the bow machine gun?

It’s something I don’t usually think about but the M4 wasn’t just a stand alone tank that they designed from the ground up. It was basically an M3 with a different upper hull and a new turret slapped on it. So much of what made the Sherman so dependable had already been used and tested on the M3.

[Jakko]

@Shermaniac

Wow, this is moving along very quickly.

For the moment, yes

@Shermaniac

If I’m understanding correctly, the part that you still have to define correctly is the patch that they used to fill in the space left from the M3 cutout on the FDA? The area directly below the bow machine gun?

Exactly. You can just see it in the frontal photo as the darker, horizontal line there that runs from the headlight to under the bow machine gun.

@Shermaniac

So much of what made the Sherman so dependable had already been used and tested on the M3.

Not to mention the T5/M2/M2A1 medium tanks. The M3 was basically an M2A1 with improved components and a 75 mm gun installed in the hull, and they used an existing M3 to build the T6, as witnessed by the caption of this photo:

[SdAufKla]

Progressing very nicely! Thanks for sharing your research photos, too!

[Jakko]

The running gear:

Because the photos of the T6 show it sat high on its suspension, I had to find a way to do that on the model as well. Takoms bogies, however, have been designed to sit at one particular height, and that height is too low for the T6. After some thought, the solution was to add an 0.5 mm spacer (part “C” for Asuka bogies, with the C sliced off because it adds extra thickness) in the top of the bogie, though that means the springs won’t fit because the axle that’s on them needs to sit in a slot in the bogie but that doesn’t run down far enough. I cut about half a millimetre off both ends of that axle, then built the bogies with the spacer but without springs and levers (the shallow ^-shaped parts that sit on top of the wheel arms), and only then added the springs and levers, glueing the springs — but not the levers! — in place. I did have to shorten the C-spacer a little, because else it wouldn’t fit inside the bogie. Anyway, after that I added the wheel arms, also without glue so that everything can be lined out later on.

Oh, BTW, the wheels aren’t from MiniArt, as I said earlier, but Dragon. In any case, their shape is better than Takom’s

I’ve also been busy with putty:

On the front I drilled two holes for the fixed bow machine guns, and used two-part epoxy putty to make the hole for the flexible one smaller. I added too much there on purpose so I can carve it to shape once it’s hardened. At the back, the little overhang was clearly sharper in shape on the M3A1 than on the T6, and that also didn’t have the central gutter that the Takom kit has. The white putty, from a tube, hides the taillights. All of this still needs sanding, of course

[Jakko]

Question: Is there a bulge on the hull front?

This is hull casting No. 1^[1] and the chalk line running across the glacis suggests to me there is a bulge there in front of the direct vision ports, rather than the straight slope down that the M4A1 hull has. But am I correct, or seeing things that aren’t there?

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1. Which didn’t end up on the T6: a photo of the casting, taken from the left, shows casting marks that aren’t visible in photos of the T6. ↩︎