It certainly will fit the bill Mike. It will complement by 1st SS Panther I am doing for the D-Day GB. I will add you onto the roster.

Glad to have you on board, after seeing your bipe's, I am really looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

Well Bish, if you can step out of your comfort zone and build a bipe, then I suppose I can do the same and try my hand at some armor (if it qualifies). I have a Tamiya Panzer IV H that I hope would fit the bill (kit #209). It's been kicking around for almost a decade in my stash and now would be as good a time as any to dive into it. I have some Eduard PE to beef it up, along with some Kasten tracks and a metal barrel (forgot who makes the barrel though).  I'd paint it up as a vehicle of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandart Adolph Hitler, France, summer, 1944.  Would this work?

Ok all, the enemy thread (opps, sorry, I meant Allied thread ) is now up and running.

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/t/159642.aspx

The GB thread for the German armour is now up and running. I will shortly be adding the names to the roster that have been posted here, but if I miss you out, let me know.

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/p/159634/1731496.aspx#1731496

The Allied armour thread will follow soon, once Eagle is up and about.

I noticed they were prebent as well.  It'll be nice to see someone building the same kit

I didn't build that one yet, but It's on my build list for this GB as well. The PE parts in the Porsche kit are pre-bent though and their shape looks a lot closer to the plastic parts they mount to, so there should be no problems with that kit...

Good looking out, it's the one with the Porsche turret, any issues with that one?

The King Tiger is a nice, staightforward build! If you are building one of the Henschel-turret variants, you might want to replace the PE parts for the engine grills though. the small flat grills are slightly too large (not a big problem), but the ones for the curved areas are completely out of shape and don't fit at all. I learned it the hard way...

I have it narrowed to Dragon's King Tiger for the German side, and Dragon's M4A1 Sherman for the Allies if I have time for both.  I'll just have to see how long that King Tiger takes.

Bob, it had been agreed between the Allies that any PoW's should be dealt with by those they spent the majority of time fighting against, or something along those lines. So many Germans were handed over to the Russian's, I am not sure how many, if any, went the other way.

There were exceptions, Hans Rudel for example was not handed over, I can only imagine this was due to his lost leg.

Thanks for those links Greg. I will add those to the opening post to the German GB.

Bish

So for the sake of clarity, unless anyone knows of a reason to allow anything else, I think we should restrict German builds to those under the Command of OB West.

For those interested, here's a few links for OB West Order of Battle

• http://niehorster.orbat.com/011_germany/44-oob/44-06-01_neptune/__OB_WEST.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OB_West 

Thanks Bish-that clears it up for me.

I recall reading an article where Georg Bose surrendered to the US Army in Czechoslovakia only to be handed over to the Soviets-I can see where something like that would muddy up the waters.

I will see what my schedule looks like as the year progresses-I'd like to jump in and I have more than enough kits in the stash to fit the criteria.

Bob, ye, I think Berlin would be pushing it a bit. I know for this last period of the war it could get confusing, especially with German units trying to escape capture by the Red Army. So for the sake of clarity, unless anyone knows of a reason to allow anything else, I think we should restrict German builds to those under the Command of OB West.

But of course, I am open to ideas from anyone else.

In Europe the M5 Stuart saw service until the end. They were being replaced by M24s as production was ramping up on those. The M3 Lights were pretty much only for training in the US by that time. Some Commonwealth units were still using the M3A3 though in both ETO and CBI. I think that the Vickers was long gone from Commonwealth units by 1942.

Just a curious. question. At the time we was fighting at the finnal American zone in germany did the us army still have the little. Stewarts/m3 still being used in the recon units? Or the vicker for the brits for that matter ?

T26E4

@bobbaily: historically, I don't think you can consider anything in the Berlin vicinity to be considered the "West".  They were surrounded by Soviet Armies.  No US or Commonwealth forces were even close.

While Berlin was certainly in the heart of eastern Germany, I would debate the second point. At the time that the Soviets began their final push on Berlin in early April from the Oder river, American armor spearheads were roughly an equal distance to the west at the Elbe. mid level comman elements were preparing operational plans to attack with those elements, and possibly combined with an airdrop on Berlin itself by airborne units. Until Eisenhower declared that Berlin was no longer an objective of the Western Armies. The German forces arrayed in front of the Western Allies were weaker than those in front of the Soviets, as the bulk of the German forces in that area were oriented towards the east. 

Arguably US forces could have reached Berlin before the Soviets, but then they would have become bogged down in the city fighting that followed. Eisenhower wanted to avoid those casualties sustained in a drive to an area that would be handed over to the Soviets postwar.

@bobbaily: historically, I don't think you can consider anything in the Berlin vicinity to be considered the "West".  They were surrounded by Soviet Armies.  No US or Commonwealth forces were even close.

@blackdog62: the British M4A4 with 60 pdr rockets would have been mounted with the standard 75mm gun and a few of the upgunned 17pdr Fireflies.  These were used at the Rhine Crossing by the tanks of a single squadron of the 1st Coldstream Guards. They were called "Sherman Tulips."

Bish-quick question-would German armor used in the defense of Berlin '45 be considered as 'West' or am I pushing the envelope?

Lol the germans must have felt like they did when they ran into the t-34 and the kv-1 all over again .

My choice for my sherman is dragons 1/35 M4A4 with 60pound rockets my wife got this for me in 97 as a way to calm down after I started contracting I put 3 pieces of track together and didn't. Have sny idea what or how to handle. Photo etch so its bin siting it also says it has the 17 pounder gun but it looks like the standard 75 mm? It is in British service.

Sounds like a bit of a beast.

Gamera

Bish: Yeah, the Sherman wasn't the best tank at anything but dang that thing was versatile, I think you could get alway with having a pretty good modeling career building nothing but M4s.

No, it was never "the best". But when introduced in 1942, it was comparitively equal to the other two prominent Medium Tanks of that time, the Panzer IV and the T-34/76. And yes you could model variants of the M4 family for a long time without repeating yourself.

Bish

I didn't know all that about the Jumbo, was it just bolted on extra armour or was it a completely new design. Great info again guys.

The Jumbo was a cross of the two. Army Ground Forces planners knew that they were gonna run into the defensive fortifications of the Siegfried Line so they took the basic M4A3 75mm 47* hull and added on a welded layer of armor to the sides and glacis that in essence doubled their thickness and protection. A much thicker transmission cover was also cast for the Jumbo. A new turret was designed specificaly for the Jumbo, again more heavily armored, which looked similar to the T23 turret used on 76mm Shermans, but provided much greater protection. It originally was armed with the 75mm gun, as this was deemed to have a better HE round for its' intended support role. But the trunions for the 75mm gun mount and the 76mm gun mount were the same size so up gunning was not overly complicated. All the additional armor increased the weight by something like 10 tons, and reduced the top speed. Due to the additional weight, the "duckbill" extended end connectors were always fitted. They were popular to use as the lead tank in columns as they could shrug off the hits that usually killed standard M4s, and then any ambushing positions would be revealed to the rest of the column without a lead tank being knocked out.

No worries RBaer, it has been a couple of months since this was first posted, which is why I thought I would just put in a little reminder. Its easy to forget when the GB isn't actually running.

I'm glad I stopped in today, I had completely forgotten about this GB. I still have a bunch of Shermans in the stash, but seeing as I'm wrapping up two at the moment, I may just stick with a Pershing. I have the HobbyBoss "Super" and a Tamiya kit still un-touched, and have been feeling an urge to do something with the Super for a while, so that'll likely be my entry.

I've got to take a look in the library, somewhere I have Belton Cooper's book and IIRC, there's a nice pic of the Super it in, maybe before they added the extra turret armor.

Thanks. I have re worked the text a bit, so it should stand out a bit more.

Bish: Good thinking there and not sure if I said if before or not but all three are really sharp looking badges!

SS having a Panther/M 10 and the real thing would be a nice comparison. My vote goes for those.

Gamera, you can see why we went for the Sherman and Pz IV for the badges. Two very versatile tanks as well as the main stays of their respective forces.

Bish: Yeah, the Sherman wasn't the best tank at anything but dang that thing was versatile, I think you could get alway with having a pretty good modeling career building nothing but M4s.

Clemons: The Dragon Ersatz M10 is a nice kit. Their Panther is a fine kit already plus the sheet metal disguise has some really fine molding. I think the only way to get the disguise to scale would be PE sheets but their plastic pieces are much easier to assemble and pretty close to scale thickness.  

Stik: That Jumbo's gonny be an interesting build!

Bish: The Jumbo was a normal Sherman with additional armor werded to the front and sides and a new, uparmored turret as well AFAIK.

Cliff: Stop giving me ideas! I wanted to build my M10-Kitten for quite a while now...

I think I'll just go for it:

• Tasca M4A3E8
• Dragon King Tiger Porsche w/Zimmerit
• AFV-Club M10
• Dragon Panther/M10

I want to build as many allied vehicles as German ones, so I had to find something to go along with that disguised Panther. And what else is such a good counterpart as a "real" M10?