This is what I have planned to make for the Cologne tank duel. I want to cover the major players in the engagements.
This will involve another Sherman tank. It was a M4A3 75MM.
I have two of these older Tamiya kits in the stash. I’m going to build one as the second Sherman tank which was damaged by the Panther. Going from memory it received damage to the tracks and was not mobile anymore so it was abandoned by the crew.
You can see it sitting on the opposite side of the road from where Lt Kellner’s Sherman was hit in some pictures and possibly the film footage of the incident.
There’s another key player involved here as well. From what I’ve read there was another second German tank that was there. As best I can tell it was a Panzer Mk IV.
I have had this Dragon DML kit in ye olde stash for years and it is the perfect opportunity to get it finally built.
This particular model is the last version that was built during this period of the war. This last version of the Mark 4 was changed from the earlier version in several ways to help speed the production process on the assembly lines.
One of the major changes was this version did away with the powered turret. So this Panzer Mk IV "J" late version relied on the brute strength of the gunner who had to manually crank the turret around. It also didn’t have any Zimmerit coating on it. So this will speed things up considerably for me with the assembly.
It also had some side skirts added to help defeat shaped charges. The ones depicted look more like a chain link than the typical skirts we see. This will be a nice contrast when it's sitting next to and being compared to the other completed 1/35 scale Mk IV's I have in the display case.
I’m not 100 percent confident of this model being the exact same one that was encountered by Clarence Smoyer just before he engaged the Panther, but it is a pretty good candidate.
I’m going to build it up as a possible weapon and keep it simple with minimal markings visible.
The road wheels, sprocket and idlers have been assembled and are ready for painting.
I have a Jordi Rubio metal barrel for the Pershing.
The turret and hull were assembled too. The fenders were simply pressed in place for painting purposes only.
They’re coming off again once the OD Green is finished.