Canadian FireFly HL M4A3 Conversion

[Wildboar44]

BTW, if you need me to take a photo of the lower hull so you can see how they mount, just say so..would be my pleasure...

Cheers!

Hey Eastern .... If you could that will be great , I am trying to foresee all the adaptation that I will have to take into consideration

Thanks in advance

[Wildboar44]

Gordo, I sent you a PM with some thoughts about my M4A4 project. Something else to consider about the M4A4 is that they all had the 3-piece transmission housing. You'll either have to scratchbuild one or use the resin one made by Tanktoko. -Mike

Hey Sass

Thanks for the info on 3 part transmission cover from Tanktoko , I had a chance today to open up the HL Sherman for a measure up
and see what this conversion would entail . The Tanktoko cover is beautifully detailed , looking at the front of the HL Sherman I
discovered my first setback with the fact that HL seem to have used simular gearboxes to the stacked HL Tiger one's .
They protrude deep into the one part cover and seem to obstruct in inner shape of 3 part cover






just by a bit of dead reckoning from photo's I would think the basic shape of the 3 part cover would follow these lines , as you
can see the gearboxes stick out just where you dont want them !





One option (or cheat !lol) is to place a Hedge cutter on the one part cover , this one is from RC.TANK.DE and then in common with
a lot of photo's of Sherman's will be to heap a lot of stowage all over the bow ( Tarps. boxes, kitchen sink ) so the original transmission
cover cant be seen ?

[Wildboar44]

Another thing that has come to light is any attempt to cut back the bow the early pattern shallow angle and armoured
extended hatches means you by defailt will lose the front mounting posts !. seeing as opening up hatches is a very
common practice in the RC tank community , HL seem to have written that option off with the location of the posts





As an added bonus , in order to adapt the rear of the hull to copy the profile on the engine deck of a M4A4 , this panel needs changing
from this ......



to this..........( although truly speaking it also needs to be longer as well )




And........ guess what you lose by cutting this panel out to remove the grills ! Yup the rear posts too ! sweet



That may be a shave and cover over with 0.5mm styrene job .... but

Another thing to add to the build ......

It goes on.....and on....and on....

[scalawag]

Hi

Thought this might be interesting to you.

http://www.rctank.de/product_info.php?c ... ts_id=2027

Dominique at rctank.de seems to have a slew of other new extras just in for the Heng Long Sherman too.

[Wildboar44]

Hey scali..........

Thanks for the link , looking at those 3 parts covers , looks like someone else has discovered the protruding gear boxes
and built a version around them . Nice other set of extra's available though , just wish there were more out there as the
HL Sherman is a great adversary .

[tanks_for_the_memory]

Really enjoying this post - but finding it painful at the same time.

The Firefly is an iconic tank: the best example I can think of where the Allies beat the Germans at their own game. Combine two weapon systems with flair and ingenuity to create a winning tank...

Surely we can do it too?

[Wildboar44]

Hey Tim....

Tiger 131 will square up against a Sherman FireFly of the 2nd Canadian Armoured brigade,6th Armoured regiment 1st Hussars ,

Two tanks go in.......... only one comes out ..... Fate will decide.... the Sherman M4A4 FireFly will have my best intensions to honour
both sides , balance is in the hands of the fortunate .......

[Wildboar44]

Thank you for the picture Eastern.....

Measuring up the HL hull, it seems that they have positioned the plastic idler mounts at the extreme end of the hull,
mounting those metal adjusters would require additional ally plates bonded to the outside as the centre's of any adjuster
slots would soon get fouled by the hull back plate .Plus just where you need to bolt the track adjusters onto the hull ,
the two rear mounting posts in the lower hull are bang in the way !. Its another head scratcher I guess , I think the solution
is to use countersunk screws to mount the adjusters to an ally plate from inside, then have the ally plate have the ability to
slide back along slots cut through the hull .I have previously bonded ally plate to my Tiger and has not caused any
track run problems or athetic's . Good advance info though, thanks

[Wildboar44]

Had a publication arrive this week "Sherman Firefly . Osprey Publishing by David Fletcher , a small book but full on good photo;s and facts no less.

Whilst I will be fully commited to converting the M4A3 to an M4A4 FireFly ,involving Turret ,front and rear Hull modifications ,( + zillion's of other things ! )
it seems that it may be possible to retain the M4A3 late hull and combine it with the FireFly turret , let me explain :-

within its pages it state " At some point undated in 1945 , two M4A3's were taken from US army stocks at Tidworth Salisbury plain and
converted to mount a 17 pounder gun. Whether this can be regarded as prototypes for Amercan FireFly's in not clear ". On March 9th 1945 ,
22 Shermans arrived at Southampton and were met by 26 Transporters . These were duly conveyed to Woolwich London for conversion .
On 11th March 1945 a requirement was specified for 160 FireFly's , later this was dropped to 80 on April 8th. A document later dated 26 May 1945
stated that 86 tanks a mixture of M4 and M4A3 were by this time "in theatre". The recommendation due to shortage of ammunition
( in American service) was to continue the issue to occupation troops or "offered elsewhere" ( what ever that means ).

So it seems ( And please I am not a historian or writing history !, merely presenting the details recorded in a printed publication ) it may
be an option for some to convert the turret to FireFly specification and place it on the hull of a late M4A3 and still have a correct version of a
Sherman FireFly ( US Issue ) abiet at a very late war period . Now dont shoot the messenger ! .lol

[Wildboar44]

.
Whilst I am busy with my Tiger 131 build , I am slowly getting to grips with research on Sherman Firefly's, I can honestly say
that studying the Sherman in general has worked out to be huge hole that you fall into drowning in the information for the
shear amount of models', engines, , variant's , sub variant's , gun, hatches , front end ,rear end's.... my god it is endless !


.
This is a site I came across , I dont know if you have seen this one before , hosted by a guy called Doug Chaltry "Henk of Holland"
has a very good guide of the Sherman variant's, the picture's are of models , which to me makes them easier to relate too .

http://henk.fox3000.com/Sher.htm

There are a whole lot more guide's to armour in there too, It came in a lot of use in one screen to scroll over the various Sherman's.

.