Tamiya 1/35 M1 Super Sherman

It's my understanding that when Israel first came into being they acquired tanks from wherever they could find them, many were left overs from the French army and few from the Brits. In the early days they tossed anything together to get tanks that worked. The M-1 is a WWII veteran with the 76mm gun, most built on an M4A3 chassis with VVSS. Once the IDF became better established they worked to improve the Shermans they had and that of course led to better guns and HVSS. You're dealing with Shermans, it's pretty easy to kit bash pretty much anything together. Check your refs for the vehicle you want to build and have at it.

Check your turret, I'm not sure about the Tamiya kit but I do remember that Verlinden done a turret for an early M50 VVSS. The super Sherman has a 75mm gun from a French AMX 13 based on the Panthers main gun. The M51 used a French 105mm.
The Egyptians just transplanted the entire AMX turret to older Sherman hulls.
As far as I can tell the main identifying points are the muzzle brakes, 76mm round, 75mm French flat and 105mm is enormous. Remember that the Israeli turrets needed work on the turret bustles to weld on counterweights.
I'm on my phone here Nd its hard to think and ty

Sorry on my phone here, hope this was of help, I'm just really not sure which vehicle the initial Tamiya kit is. I did hear that it's a beauty.

Terry.

Upon further review in my less than exhaustive IDF ref's I see that M-1's could be either A3 or A1 hulls with either VVSS or HVSS, M50's on the other hand seem to be mostly built on A4 hulls with the very early ones having VVSS. The turrets between them are very different with the M1 having an almost stock T23 turret and the M50 having the large counter balance on the rear and a completely different gun mantlet and gun. So, it seems like there are few if any hard and fast rules with IDF Shermans.

Thanks for the input Steve and Terry; Steve, you probably did more research on IDF references than I did; I saw in the WIki post  for the Super Sherman that "the only tank model designated Super Sherman by the IDF was M4A1 with 76 mm M1 gun and HVSS suspension, which was named Super Sherman M-1" as quoted from Oleg Granovskiy's  "Names, Designations and Service Figures of IDF Armored Vehicles".  I concur that ,as a newly-formed state, Israel couldn't afford to be choosy about the selection of armaments they acquired in that period.

Terry, I found a review of this Tamiya kit (#35322) on the CyberModeler web site (www.cybermodeler.com/.../kit_tam_35322.shtml), and the reviewer agrees with you about this kit's quality despite any shortcomings.  He indicated Tamiya "..released this early Super Sherman...that represents the Sherman circa 1956. [It] is an M4A1 hull with VVSS suspension, a T23 turret, and the M1 76mm main gun."  So they  did use VVSS suspension before switching over to HVSS.

Can anyone tell me what's the lowest price, and where they've seen it, for the Tamiya M1 Super Sherman kit and ?

It is a nice kit, went together smoothly.

this is a picture of the subject tank on display in Israel

 

Great job =]

I really can't say about price for the kit. I know my LHS is asking something like $54 US. I'd try Sprue Brothers if your shopping online.