Should I get the M3 Lee or Grant?

That would be the next bullet-point in the Wikipedia article:
" Three colored star, as per two color star with a red circle, that does not touch the blue background.[3]"

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Supposedly 2nd Armored Division in training stateside reversed the colors of the national cockade in that manner. There were no set regulations on armywide vehicle markings at that point. 1st Armored Division was using the yellow star and bar.

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For subliminal purposes….

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Thanks. That’s what I was trying to get at. Interesting!

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I’d go with the Lee straight up beauty the Sahara version with the crew is perfect you can even get two, why? Well the first one’s Bogart that’s for sure. But then the second one you could do the almost unheard of Jim Belushi version just fatten up the bogart characters figure. Just saying

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Alright lads, got confirmation my Lee is on the way!
Unfortunately, since the kit is virtually extinct, I had to get it second-hand
I’ve been told it’s mostly intact, only the instructions and decal sheet are missing
Instructions aren’t a problem, I can look them up online
But the decal sheet is another matter…
I looked for alternatives online, and found this one:

Will it suffice for an accurate early M3 Lee? Does it contain all I’ll need?

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It’s even easier: MiniArt has a complete kit for that particular one, including Jim Belushi:

Or if you already have an M3 kit, you can buy the figures separately from Master Box:

Which actually predate the MiniArt combination kit by a decade :slight_smile:

It contains no M3 medium tank decals at all :slight_smile: It only has decals for M3 light tanks and M4 mediums. You need their sheet 35-C 1105:

Though a problem with Star Decals sheets is always that you get markings for a whole bunch of vehicles when you really only need one or perhaps two. Best bet is seeing if someone else has the ones you need spare, and is willing to send them to you.

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Yeah, I did see this decal sheet, problem is, it’s not available for purchase anywhere…
But like, what I was wondering is, do the decals really need to be M3 Lee specific? Stars and shapes and numbers are… Stars and shapes and numbers. They’re not exclusive, right? Surely I could use the Stuart and Sherman decals on the Lee and it’d be the same, no?

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I could have sworn the kit came with Bogart.. oh well .. win one lose many :joy:

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The M3 in Tunesia, doesn’t need to be solid Olive drab at all…

As you can see, this is the Miniart kit, but I used metal tracks, as the Miniart ones gave me major problems…

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True. The only thing that’s really M3 medium-specific are the registration numbers — but you only need to care about those if you want to :slight_smile: As long as it starts with 30, the vast majority of people are not going to be able to tell if it’s a correct number or not, and most won’t even notice if it doesn’t start with 30 at that. (US Army vehicle registration numbers of the time used the first one or two digits to indicate the vehicle type: 30 is a tank.)

But send me a private message if you want the sheet from the MiniArt early M3 kit. I didn’t use any of it, because I got the Takom decals from someone else, and having hunted for it in my spares decal box just now, there’s also nothing on it that I need to keep for a future model.

So did the metal ones, by the looks of it :wink:

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Not so much as the miniart ones. A lot of the pins broke and it is impossible to repair them once assembled.

Besides, the tracks are still movable so I can adapt them to the eventual groundwork…

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Oh dear, that’s so mighty generous of you! :scream:
I couldn’t possibly ask you to go through the trouble of sending them all the way to me, but I really do appreciate the offer nonetheless!
And also the info!

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Personally I’m scared of getting workable two pin metal tracks. They only move in one pin, so the track pin retainers don’t seem to wrap well or conform to the sprocket wheel
Am I alone in this?

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I haven’t built any Friul Sherman tracks myself, but AFAIK some of the links in those sets have the end connectors at a slight angle, for going around the sprocket and idler.

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That is correct, though these are Master Club tracks.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/masterclub-mtl35120-metal-tracks-m3-lee-grant-ram-m4-t41-type--1164171

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I just looked it up, and a letter to Israel costs all of €2.00 to send, plus about a two-minute walk to the nearest letterbox :slight_smile: The main problem would be that PostNL says there are currently delays of up to six weeks in delivery.

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The Master Club tracks have 2 pin end connectors so you haven’t got the sketched issue with them.

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The geometric shapes are exclusive. Here is a chart of 1st Armored Division unit insignia used in the North Africa Campaign

1st Armored Regiment was equipped with M4 Sherman’s in their medium tank units while 13th Armored Regiment was equipped with M3 Lees in their medium tank units. During the campaign, whole battalions were equipped with M3 Stuart light tanks, so without knowing the proper TO&E, you could be putting the wrong regiment or battalion markings on your Lee. IIRC, at the time each regiment had two battalions of Lights and one battalion of Mediums. After the campaign US tank units were reorganized based upon lessons learned in combat.

But long story short the regiments’ differentiated by using a circle or square as the company mark, while placement of the mark indicating the individual company, and the orientation of the bar mark, vertical, horizontal, or angled, indicated which battalion within the regiment.

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