Things went almost to plan today... I finished the building portion on the Korean War Sherman.
There are some minor variations and upgrades between the ETO version of the "Easy 8" and the Korean War kit.
Please follow along and I'll explain.
Here's the Korean War Sherman. I decided to leave the turret hatches open. The most obvious visible difference is the main gun dust mantle cover.
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1. Dust cover for main gun mantle
2. Tank Commander's "quick reference" aiming sight.
3. No .030 caliber Browning M1919 roof mount.
Here's the turret roof for "FURY". You can see how I blanked off the area where the search light would be positioned. This still needs to be trimmed down a little shorter. You will see there is no main gun dust cover here. There is also a roof mounted .030 caliber Browning M1919 MG.
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1. No dust cover
2. .030 caliber Browning MG mount
The Korean War Sherman has a box that is mounted on the side of the hull. The kit instructions have you drill out two holes from the inside and mount it further forward than what I have done. I found several pictures online that show this box located where I have it installed. Some tanks had this, others did not.
I'm not 100 percent sure about this, but I believe this box was storage for an Infantry style portable back pack PRC type radio. If someone knows for sure please chime in as I'd like to know...
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1. Storage box is mounted in a different location than indicated on the kit instructions
2. The kit instructions have you mount the box here.
Here's an Infantry phone box. This allowed the "Grunts" to talk directly to the tank commander... It's something we had on some of our old M-60's when I served.
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1. Infantry field phone is located inside this box.
This next picture will show you a rear view of the two Sherman's. "FURY" is on the right. I'm not 100 percent certain, but I think that "FURY" had the later style rear fenders...
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1. Notice the rear fenders and the exhaust deflectors.
2. WW2 ETO version lacks the rear fenders and has a different style exhaust deflector.
3. No Infantry phone
Here's the rear of the Korean War Sherman. You can see the larger rear fenders and the "improved" exhaust deflector.
Here's the back side of FURY.
The turret roof of the KW tank. It has two radio antennae's, and both hatches are open.
While "FURY" has a single antennae and only the TC's hatch is open.
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1. Note the single radio antenna
ON the KW Sherman, it has an improved system for the upper rear deck doors. These things were heavy... so they added a set of torsion bars that were attached to the doors. These torsion bars assisted with supporting the weight of the doors. It made life a little easier for the crew since the torsion bar supported some of the weight of the doors. It also helped considerably when the doors were closed.
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1. Torsion bars for rear deck doors. These assisted with lifting the doors.
Here's "FURY's" rear deck. There are no torsion bars here. The crew had to manhandle the doors and lift the full weight of the doors without the spring assistance offered by the torsion bars... each time they opened or closed them. Most of this area will be covered by crew provisions and extra storage of boxes, etc. .
"FURY" had an actual mount for the turret .030 MG. In Korea, often they would simply take an Infantry style tripod mount and sit it on the roof ! Field expedient method... it worked in a pinch. I had a water cooled .030 so I had to cut off the barrel. Now I'll simply glue on an air cooled barrel and the roof mounted MG will be perfect for the tank I have a photo of as a reference...
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1. This is what was done as a field expedient method. Often an Infantry .030 tripod was simply placed on the turret roof.
One last visible difference was made on some Sherman's. It's in regards to the main gun travel lock. During WW2, they had a lock that utilized a round "pull pin" that unlocked the hinges. This pull pin was also used to unlock the travel lock from the stowed position on the front slope. This older type of travel lock had two hinges, one on each side, that secured the clamps for the main gun.
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1. The older style travel lock had a circular pin that was pulled to open the lock. It also has two hinges and was more complicated to produce.
2. Two hinge pivots
3. Hinge pivot
Often when Sherman's went to a repair depot, or as time permitted at the outbreak of the Korean War, a newer "improved" style of travel lock was used. This was easier to operate and produce. It simply relied on a hand crank that screwed the clamping portion of the lock around the main gun barrel. This is very similar to the type we had on our M-60's.
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1. Newer style travel lock. It has a single hinge on one side.
Hopefully tomorrow I will start spraying on some paint... Time for some colors on these bad boys...
I hope you all had a great father's Day weekend. I wanted to get this work done and posted as a tribute to my Dad... we lost him almost 7 years ago. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him.
My Dad cut his "Tanker Teeth" in these old "Easy 8's".
"As always,
Comments are encouraged".
