Sherman Firefly Ic Sanity Check

[LordLudikrous]

I’m hoping I can pick the brains of the fine folk on here and see if anyone can see any glaring issues with what I’ve got planned for my next project in the hope that if I’m about to make a terrible mistake I can change course.

I’m looking to build a Sherman Firefly. I’m aware there is no commercially available option from the usual parties (that is reasonably accurate at least), so this will be an amalgamation of parts from different manufacturers. The gist of it is that it will be a Heng Long lower hull with MATO running gear, with the Firefly kit available from Christian Ludwig (https://ludwigs-hobby.eshop.t-online.de ... in-bausatz) and the same HL 7.1 electronics/flash/recoil as in my Panther.

Here is a detailed overview of how I have it planned out in my head.

Lower Hull
• Heng Long plastic Sherman base
• Heng Long metal bogies and wheels
• MATO metal idler mounts (HL will be cut off the hull)
• Ludwig resin 3 piece transmission cover

Running Gear
• Heng Long steel gearboxes or better
• MATO metal sprockets and idlers
• MATO metal T74 tracks (unsure if I’ll opt for duckbills or not)

Upper Hull
• Ludwig resin upper hull
• MATO metal lights and guards
• Tools and stowage TBD

Turret
• Ludwig resin Firefly turret
• Heng Long or equivalent recoil system
• Heng Long or equivalent barrel smoke and flash

Electronics
• Heng Long 7.1 MFU
• Speaker TBD
• Heng Long J4 CNC smoker
• Heng Long 7.1 slip ring
• 5000mah Ni-Mh battery

I’ve been scouring this forum for as much information as possible, having found similar work others have undertaken over the years and as far as I can see there should be no issues with any of the above, but if there are any glaring flaws/incompatibilities/pitfalls please let me know. Christian Ludwig seems to have a good reputation from what I’ve read which is fortunate as it seems to be the only Firefly conversion kit available at the moment.

I’m planning on marking this up as a British vehicle, and I’ll be making use of the decal sheet I got for my Panther along with the resin stowage I picked up as well. Doing it this way should ensure minimal waste or discarded parts.

Thanks in advance everyone.

[Tiger6]

A good resource for you: http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/index.html

Specifically I'd look at this page For the Turret: http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minu ... rrets.html
The Ludwig turret looks like a high bustle turret (D78461), which should not have had the British 'add-on' loaders hatch, as it would have come with the normal US pattern oval one as standard. I had read somewhere (might have been somewhere else on that site or in the Son of Sherman book) that the british crews doing the 17pdr conversions did not bother installing the British pattern loaders hatch if it already had one - but I'm pretty sure that comment was in regard to remanufactured low bustle turrets supplied on the later M4 Composite version.

Looking at the Hull, it sure looks like an M4A4: http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minu ... iants.html
Baldwins M4's have rounded drivers hoods, the kit does not.
Alco's have either multi peice glacis assemblies or a single with just the hoods welded in - this kit matches the configuration of the M4A4 monument in Dijon at about a quarter of the way down the M4A4 page.
PSC seem to have followed Alco practice, and made mostly M4A2's

I'm sure I could find further faults if I carried on digging, and Mick might also look in later and do some more - he is more knowledgeable than me on British use.

To be fair to Chris Ludgwig, his kit likely predates the Sherman Minutia pages, and this research wasn't so readily available back then.
Sadly you can't trust museum exhibits or captions in books either...

[Kaczor]

The list looks OK. Just keep in mind that the resin kit is a Firefly Vc. It's based on an M4A4 Sherman hull that was lengthened. So, to get closer to the original, you'll need to do some hull surgery.

[tankme]

One of our club members bought Christian's kit and really wasn't that impressed with it. There was a lot of flash, there were missing parts, and the parts were not cast very well. I had a DGS kit for sale for a while and no takers so it got Ebay'd and sold quickly there. If I remember correctly, DGS made the initial kit and others like Vandra copied it by recasting it. I think the Ludwigs kit is one of these recast kits, but that is from what my club member is saying. All of the recasting basically led DGS to stop making his kit.

I'm not a fan of the HL elevation and recoil unless you are going to use a servo based version. That's actually one thing I need to upgrade in my Firefly. I realized I was never going to build the kit and ended up buying one built by Dean.

[LordLudikrous]

Thanks for the responses everyone, and good catch that its an M4A4 as I managed to completely miss that. I’ll have to try and strike a balance between budget/accuracy/my modelling capabilities regarding how much modification I would need to make. I should also clarify that the recoil will be the servo based mechanism.

One of our club members bought Christian's kit and really wasn't that impressed with it. There was a lot of flash, there were missing parts, and the parts were not cast very well. I had a DGS kit for sale for a while and no takers so it got Ebay'd and sold quickly there. If I remember correctly, DGS made the initial kit and others like Vandra copied it by recasting it. I think the Ludwigs kit is one of these recast kits, but that is from what my club member is saying. All of the recasting basically led DGS to stop making his kit.

I'm not a fan of the HL elevation and recoil unless you are going to use a servo based version. That's actually one thing I need to upgrade in my Firefly. I realized I was never going to build the kit and ended up buying one built by Dean.

This is disappointing to hear but thank you for letting me know. Are you able to elaborate on what you mean by not being cast very well? Are we talking warping/poor fitment, low detail or fragility? I don’t mind tidying flash and mould lines up and can work around low detail but if its too fragile or fits badly I might need to go away and have a rethink. He does do a 76mm T23 turret so my potential back up plan if the Firefly proves unworkable is an M4A3 76; naturally this would utilise a Heng Long plastic upper hull.

Cheers.

[jhamm]

I think the Ludwigs kit is one of these recast kits, but that is from what my club member is saying.

That is true.
Ludwig's resin kits are from Vandra....the quality is rather poor.