RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Finally got around to figuring how to easily get the height of this unit down to very closely match that of Heng Long.
Simply change out the Roadwheel units with a set of HL's
This is an easy job that lowers the tanks height and puts the HL roadwheels ( which are a little narrower then Mato's ) right at the
outside track guides so the Mato drive and idler sprockets, and tracks can be used . The Mato idler can be sanded down in diameter to match HL's.

Good morning, GreenGiant,
Those are a pair of sweet Shermans. Back when I was doing the MATO build for a historical version of 'In The Mood', I left the bogies alone and lowered the turret height by removing that extra .25 inch on the bottom of the ring. All of the out of scale add ons and hooks and lift shackles were replaced with Tamiya and Schumo parts. The original plastic MATO Sherman is a great tank with just a little massaging. ;o) I'm glad to see a super realistic one like yours. BTW, the General sends his belated New Years Eve greetings.
regards,
Painless

A really interesting, and helpful comparison, along with a useful set of solutions. Bogey differences often get a mention in build threads, but I never realised quite how pronounced they were. Here the Mato is almost on the way to being a 'Funny Tank'....
in the Funny Car tradition, that is...

The hull height thing bothered me for quite a while I thought someone else would have already corrected it
Mine now can be put next to a HL Sherman and although it is still a tad high ( 3/32nds in. ), taking it apart again to move the bogies up that little bit would be a major job because posts I cut off and used to mount the bogies would be right in a hole on the Mato's mounting plates.
Hope that makes sense to every one. Especially to anyone who will try to do modification.

The turret modifications I did where much harder to do ( they can be seen in the things to fix on your new tank section ).
Still have to replace the main gun mantle.

Well decided to correct more things that bothered me.
Lowered whole turret and did some work on main gun mantle

The Mato Sherman is 1/15 scale.

Can’t be 1/15? They’re daft if they didn’t measure right lol

The turret is too high because of the extra materialnout in to allow for the airsoft?

Great work anyway, cheap alternative to Nicks or a Schumo.

Its as close to 1/16th scale as HL or Tamiya.
I found the reason the lower hull appeared to be a little taller even after putting on the HL boggies. I was comparing it to a HL lower that I installed a metal Forces of Valor upper on, the weight of the upper must make it ride slightly lower.
When I compared the Mato to the other HL Sherman's (and the Tamiya) I've done they all were the same height.

The airsoft system accounts for oversized Mato turret only because Mato made no attempt to shape the thing correctly. You must remember that when it first came out it was the only vvss Sherman that anyone could buy and people bought a lot of them. No one even noticed that the boggies were oversized.
I reshaped my turret as much as possible while still keeping the airsoft system stock.

If you put the Mato and Heng Long Sherman's hulls on a flat surface, obviously letting the front fenders overhang, the Heng Long measures roughly 42mm high at the turret hole, and the Mato one about 44mm taking away the little upstand. So, close enough, and not really a noticeable difference.