Whanting to build a M4A2 with interior, help please

Hi Guys,
Are there any plastic injection moulded kits that could be kit bashed to build the afore mentioned requirements??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Mike

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Assuming you want to do a late war 76mm version, you could use the interior from RFM’s M4A3. Just know that the engine bays (and engines) would be vastly different if you wanted to do a full blown interior with engine.

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Thanks for the heads up on that route, I was originally thinking of doing the 75mm version.
Cheers
Mike

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Hey there Mike,

What scale are you working in? Which version of M4A2 - 75mm or 76mm gun turret?

Assuming 1/35 and a 75mm gun turret, I’d recommend one of Asuka M4A2 as your base.

Depending on your budget, consider some aftermarket interiors. Go to scalemates.com and search M4 interiors. Over the past 30 years I’ve used the Tank Workshop, CMK and Resicast products. My preference for accuracy and ease of build is Resicast. Well, that and CMK and Tank Workshop are really hard/impossible to find… :wink:

I hope that assists.

regards,
CM

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it would take a lot of stuff for you to make a M4A2 75mm VVSS with full interior. A Verlinden set for the M4A2 engine bay, the new RFM VVSS 76mm M4A3 with interior plus the bits to convert it to an M4A2 (Asuka?), a 75mm turret, a CMK 75mm turret interior…on and on

fun but pricey project for sure…

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Much of the interior can be scratchbuilt. Technically, all of it can, of course, but stuff like the transmission, driver’s seats and engines would be lot of work. Transmissions and seats can be taken from an Academy or AFV Club M10 or M36 GMC kit (though note that the seats on a Sherman were mounted on pedestals rather than on swinging arms on the hull sides, like the M10 had), after that most of the rest is doable with plastic card, strip, and assorted other stuff.

Let me plug my derelict Crab here for an example :slight_smile: You could do much the same with an M4A2 kit, though obtaining suitable engines would be tricky.

For a large-hatch M4A2 with wet stowage, @Shermaniac’s solution is simpler: take an M4A3 (76 mm) kit with interior and transplant much of that (or replace the upper hull and rear plate with those from an M4A2 kit). You would still need to build the turret interior, though.

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As my predescesors in this discussion pointed out - there is a lot of work, and costly merging of different kits, including resin ones hard to find. Academy offers a good deal of interior in their M10 kit, and look at 3d printed issues - i have transmission acquired that way. The floor can be scratchbuilt, but biggest issue is 75mm turret. I would start with Tamiya M4, as it has radio and gun breech (and is good for early and mid m4a2 75mm). floor is easy to scratchbuilt as it is flat surface with hatches (i believe that on Cultis 3d you can find full interior for m4). Now the turret interior is problematic, but not impossible to reconstruct. There are some engines from miniart, and in resin, presumably in 3d as well.
3d links (if not permitted, let admins delete them)

Earlier on i made this m4a2 76mm (without engine) based on old Italeri kit, some thing visible here

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@Jakko

@iguanac

I’m hopeful that RFM releases an M4A2 with full interior at some point in the next few years. So far they’ve released two basic types of Shermans, the M4A3 and the M4A4…the A3 already has the interior and many of those parts can be reusable for the M4A4 and other types too…

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If you don’t care about the engine and scale, or 1970s molding, you could acquire and combine the 1/48 Bandai M4A1 and M4A3.

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The driver’s compartment parts would cross over without much change, but the fighting compartment and sponsons would need a great deal of change. On the dry stowage tanks, the sponsons held 75mm ammo racks, while those were moved under the turret floorboards on the wet stowage tanks, and the vehicle batteries moved from under the turret floorboards to the driver side sponson.

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