Heng Long Sherman

[PainlessWolf]

Good afternoon, cupoftea,
Welcome back to Sherman Town *chuckles* Let us hear and see what you are doing. I for one have a lot to learn when it comes to wiring these tanks up.
regards,
Painless

[cupoftea]

Hi Painless

What I did yesterday was to remove the hybrid electrical system and put my own system in. Reason for doing this was that the RX18 board packed up so, for now, I have no engine sound at present but do have a rather nice 105mm howitzer bang courtesy of a really cheap Hong Kong sound card from ebay. I am going to stick with my own system because I really like the motion, turret and gun elevation control.

The build I am doing will not be in the same league as your excellent sherman build but will rather just make it look a little less toy like. For my money the sherman is the best driving tank that Heng Long make and I want this one as my main 'toy'.

[cannedheat]

more pics old chap wot wot .......

[cupoftea]

Thanks chaps

I will post some pics tomorrow. At present I am trying to decide if i should fit muzzle flash or not. Having looked at a fair few videos of shermans firing their main guns I have not seen any significant flash. I know a lot of them are firing blank rounds and that blanks behave in a different manner to live rounds but I am wondering if they used some kind of low flash/low smoke propellant in shermans in ww2? It would make sense to do so if such stuff was available back then? man I wish I knew more about shermans in ww2........................

[PainlessWolf]

Good Morning, cupoftea,
You say that you want to know more about Shermans? *chuckles maniacally* Here are a few of the sites I use on a regular basis to check for manufacturing and detail information. They also contain a wealth of information of the tank's use in combat. Alpha will have more I am sure. Enjoy the reading, it really has a lot of eye opening facts about a tank that is commonly misconstrued in the History documentaries.
warm regards,
Painless

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/
http://afvdb.50megs.com/index.html
http://www.primeportal.net/the_battlefield_armor.htm
http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/de ... rmor_id=40

[hawkeye3guns]

Hi I use to work in that industry producing and testing ammunition of all calibres. You are right in them days (up till the early 80's) all propellants was dual based ie. 2 main ingreadiants to help eliminate both flash and reduce smoke ( we use to call it dark ignition rounds) to an extent when single shotting there was hardly any flash or it was a dull orange in colour. When firing in rapid ( on medium cal thats from 400 to a 1000 rds per minute or on large cal 75mm upwards a rate of 4 to 6 shots a minute ) you get a build up of unused propellant and gases in the bore that then result in large bright yellow to orange colour flash about every 3-4 round as the build up of gases then detonates. On modern tanks this is largely eliminated by the compressed gas injected/blown through the barrel between rounds during the reload cycle. After the mid 80's companys went to single base propelant for cheapness which tended to then produce a bright muzzle flash. The worst example that I have seen is the 105mm L19 which quite often when on full charge produces a huge muzzle flash and hence in the middle east is earned the nickname Puff the dragon by the locals .

[cupoftea]

Thanks for the information chaps - very informative and interesting.

[cupoftea]

Nothing spectacular but here is a pic of the control system and the nice new gearboxes. Missing from the pic is the sound system which is being re-worked (I have a nice soundcard with an SD slot on the way.....

[PainlessWolf]

Good Morning, cupoftea,
The new steel gears look really good. Your neat, internal electronics arrangement benefits from not have the RX-18 there. You certainly have more space. The new sound card sounds like fun to have as well.
regards,
Painless

[cupoftea]

Here is the sherman after a coat of primer on the deck and turret. Must admit I thought the welds I had done with miliput would look wrong but with primer on I like the look. I used Tamiya primer for the first time and have found it to be a lot better than the Halfords primer i normally use. I am unsure as to how effective preshading would be before the base coat of olive green because I wonder if the shading would show through a dark base coat.

On another note - it's been three weeks now since i gave up smoking - thank heavens for e-cigarettes!