Well the M4A3E tanks are finished.
I weathered them with Tamiya powders and varnished with dull spray varnish. The decals went on very well using Vallajo Decal softner and decal setter.
The decals from Doms Decals were very good. I wish however the recognition stars were bigger. The battle front decals were a bigger size and look better.
The crew were painted up and the Bailed out markers made. I made 4 markers and used the fifth crew chopped down to make the commander in the hatch of tank number one.
Each tank has a number in the turret well as well as on the underside of the turret itself.
The tank platoon comprises solely of M4A3e (e stands for early war) Sherman tanks with improvised armor. They are a stunningly good model. I do wonder however if the turrets are a bit squat compared to the standard vanilla Shermans?
The bailed out markers are glued on to 10c coins as they are very close to the same diameter as a BF plastic bailed out marker. Early game tradition was to use a small game stand. But I have decided to undertake a hybrid between the easy to use markers and the nice to look at bailed out tank figures. The US figures suit being based individually.
The bases shown are not finished. They need to be sanded lightly around the putty to take off the rough edges. Then painted green in the middle and red around the outside. Then the letters will be flooded with white paint. Finally polyurethane varnished.
Considering making some destroyed markers… but unsure what would be the best way to do that.
Anyhow .. pictures as always..
The two standard tanks are so obviously different that they make ideal Command tanks (If you chose to field an armored company with them). Mighty Adam is the CHQ tank and the M4A4e is the 2iC. The M4A1 (cast rounded hull) moves 12″ and the 2iC is a M4A3 which moves 14″ with it’s Detroit engine.
These tanks are useless in the airbourne list as you can only take one platoon of tank support. The other platoon is either tank hunters or stuart tanks.
The full M4A3e platoon – with improvised armor of sandbags. Probably a must have with late war Germans with Panzerfausts and Panzershrecks. All the tanks have radio aerials in the right place. I was astounded to see in alot of posts on the web that people were putting the .50 cal machine cannons in the hole were the radio aerial goes. But hey they all have .50 cal guns.
The commander is a bailed out figure cut at the waist. Luckily hte pose looks well as he has his arms at the waist.
The bailed out markers.
If you ever need four of these at once.. you know your in trouble or that you shouldn’t have assaulted that infantry position without pinning them first
I chose deliberately not to have a smear of blood on the helmet figures arm… I figured a bashed arm doesn’t have to bleed to be seriously painful.
Well that’s about it… I have to add some artillery ammo crates to the howitzer bases, wire fix the guns down and that’s about it. I think this entire project has taken me a year to do.
