I’ve been on an M4A1 76w tear since I built the BM version. Now I’m in the middle of finishing the BM, the Italeri, the Tamiya, the Asuka, and trying to breathe life into an old DML 6083 build and convert an Academy large hatch hull.
The Asuka kit is beautiful and has all the advantages of being an Asuka. I did find out that it has a couple of shortcomings tho. I won’t rehash all of that here but if you are interested a lot of people have posted valuable information on the Border Models M4A1 76w thread in the Allied section.
If those are as rare as Garrand said, are they like collector’s items? Are you planning on building it?
You can buy an Asuka M4A3E2 from the guys linked below for $38.99 plus shipping. It already comes with the different sets of wheels, the adjustment pads to set the lower ride height in the front as was common on Jumbos. Also has a good starting point for tracks if you don’t want to go crazy spending. It says it’s back ordered right now but if you contact them they’ll find you one. Also the kit comes with different options for the barrel with 75mm, 76mm unthreaded, and the thread protector version of the 76mm.
I don’t know if the Verlinden kit is rare. When I said the low 200-something, I mean the product number (which in Ruzzia’s post is 258), so it would have come out early in Verlinden’s production history. That being said, for me, models are meant to be built! I probably wouldn’t seek the conversion out, since it goes on the old Tamiya kit, & needs around $100 of aftermarket to bring it up to modern standards. OTOH I like doing stuff like this, & plannng the project is almost as much fun as actually doing it!
Does the Verlinden kit include Idlers or any wheels? I only ask because those Tamiya kits have those hollow wheels and idlers. BTW, I also like building old kits and conversions and doing scratch building on kits that need upgrades. The added challenge makes it fun for sure:)
No wheels at all. This is part of the reason I got the Asuka suspension; if I’m going to invest in AM wheels, I might as well spend the extra money for the whole thing.
No, the Verlinden kit was a conversion for Tamiya’s original M4A3. The Verlinden kit doesn’t include the commander’s cupola, which is a separate part on the M4A3, but is integrated in the turret of the E2. So if you use the E2 as a donor. you need to source a cupola from somewhere.
@JayJHCruz
Well that makes sense, and it explains why Verlinden did the whole hull when the E2 kit already included the armor upgrades for the hull. It’s interesting how I misremember some stuff, not sure why it didn’t occur to me that the whole hull being included meant that it was for the standard M4A3 kit.
Another thing that I remember about that Verlinden kit is reading in a modeling book or magazine where the modeler had sourced the wheels from the Tamiya M4 kit because they were “big hub” wheels (?) or something like that and they made the kit more accurate. In those days I just bought one maybe two kits a year. I remember thinking that I didn’t need a jumbo bad enough to spend on 3 kits just to make it as accurate as I could at that time. Probably why I must bought the Tamiya Jumbo instead. But yeah, the Verlinden set was one of those coveted things that I never got my hands back when I was a 20 year old college student. Now it doesn’t make sense for me to pursue one of those when I have a couple of M4A3E2 in the stash. My partially built original Tasca release and the newer Meng release.
I’ve never purposely built “what if” tanks, LOL. BUT, if I was going to ever build one, I’ve always thought it might be fun to build a Jumbo with HVSS suspension. I always wondered if maybe the HVSS suspension just wasn’t fully tested as a reason why the Jumbo didn’t become the first tank to feature it.
I guess it wouldn’t be such a far fetched “what if” tank. They actually ran a 2,000 mile test with an M4A3E8 tank equipped with the T26 turret and weights added to simulate the upped armor added to the E2 and the test was successful which tells me that it didn’t break down in the endurance test.
unfortunately no photographs of the vehicle survived. It would’ve weighed almost 47 tons…basically an M4A3E2 with T26 turret and HVSS suspension. That sounds like a fun kit bash. The original concept art looks like it had T-66 tracks too. A 47 ton Sherman with a 90mm gun and all that extra armor would’ve been mechanically superior to both the Tiger and the Panther and with armor and firepower to match? I might have to build one of these now.
Sounds like you’re pretty much set then, you have the donor kit and the Verlinden conversion. Then you ordered the late VVSS Asuka suspension which will have the wheels you need. And you have a set of tracks too. Have fun building it:)
Note that this one is “done right” (if I say so myself) rather than what you usually see — which is to say, most builds of a similar model I’ve seen just copy the drawing posted above, but that makes no sense. It has spare tracks on both hull and turret, as well as the M26’s mounts for the crane to lift the engine deck, but the front one of those gets in the way of the driver’s hatch. Most people also just leave the rack for the M26’s driver’s hoods on the right of the turret, which again shows they didn’t do any research, because in the M4 those are stowed in the hull.
The Tamiya kit has small-hub wheels: pressed-spoke wheels had small hub bearings, as did the spoked wheels of the Italeri kit. Both types of dished wheel had larger hub bearings, as did the spoked wheels with the plates between them (the ones with the little oval holes in three of the plates).
My first M4A3E2 was the Tamiya release. Then I built the Verlinden conversion and added Modelkasten T48 tracks with EEC’s. Fast forward a number of years and I’ve built two Tasca/Asuka E2’s and one Meng.
Those Modelkasten tracks were such a chore. No less than 9 parts per link; top and bottom halves for the pad, 2 track pins, 2 end connectors, 2 retaining bolts for the end connectors and one extension for an end connector. Those were easily the most detailed and mind numbing tracks I ever did. Never again!
So obviously I recently picked up three boxes of Modelkasten tracks. Modellers are stupid.
My apologies to the nomenclature puritans, it seems that the retaining bolts are called connector wedges. Anyway, those tiny things are separate parts on Modelkasten tracks.
Sneaky ninja edit: I now realise the wedges are the parts on the outside, the bolts are just bolts holding the wedges in place. Just imagine how tiny those bolts are in 1/35 scale and having to add 2 of them per link.
My copy of Hunnicutt’s Sherman only has the drawing @Shermaniac posted (plus a front view), but both Zaloga’s Armored Thunderbolt and Anderson’s American Thunder have this photo, on pages 129 and 325, respectively:
You can just tell that this is an M4 (105 mm) VVSS hull: the stowage rack for the aiming stakes and gun cleaning rods is visible on the left rear.
There’s more to be found online about the proposed 90 mm Sherman, including fairly in-depth reasons for why it didn’t get produced. Both Zaloga and Anderson also explain this, but the short form (off the top of my head) is that they could not have been built any quicker than was expected for the T26, so why bother if you can have an overall better vehicle in the same time?
@Jakko
Yes, that’s what I remember reading as well. Was going to arrive late so instead they focused everything on getting the Pershing out there as fast as possible. Probably would’ve had less mechanical issues had they stuck with the Sherman hull?
Were there any other versions of the large hatch M4 produced outside of the 105mm version?
I purchased it one eBay.
