M4A1 76mm Sherman

Manufacturer: ESCI and AL.By

By Michael Hatch and Stephen Hodge (photographer).

Here is my ESCI M4A1 with a Al-By late production T23 76 mm turret.

The ESCI kit is very nice and easy to build. The Al-By resin turret is just fantastic. The turret itself is hollow and all the detail is crisp. I look forward to using another one of these for my late production M4A3 76 mm project.

I back dated the turret into a early production one by taking the large round crew commander's hatch from the ESCI 75 mm turret and mounting it over the small oval loader's hatch position. The crew commander is a white metal MMS figure. The American jerry cans are also MMS, while the ration boxes are Leva resin. Tow cable is heavy thread dipped into Humbrol Steel paint. Helmets stored on the vehicle are soft plastic cut from various vinyl figure sets. The radio antenna is soft steel wire.

This model is marked and painted as belonging to the US 2nd Armored Division, circa July 1944. The decals were cobbled together from Microscale's 1/72 US armor sheet and Aeromasters yellow lettering sheet.

After completing this project (of course) I learned that Leva produces a very nice early production T23 76 mm turret. If I was to build this model again, I would use that turret instead. (It too, is very nice and would save me some time.)

The one thing that I am considering going back and changing are the headlights and their guard frames. Since completing this model I have experimented with M.V. Product's clear lenses and photoetched guard frames. So far the results are good, very small but good.