RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

There was a hybrid/composite firefly
If you look at that Shadock site, it shows you all the differences of the three types of firefly that were used by the British and the non American allies. It even shows you the differences with the Canadian Grizzly Sherman II's that never made it to the European campaign.

Yeah have seen those and although I have the parts to make either I don’t think I will bother. As it stands at the moment the 1944 large hatch 76mm M4A1 or Sherman II A I think use by the African forces in the med is winning. The is 3 will be a complicated enough build without making something simple complicated

Although after a consultation with my Sherman Haynes manual I have discovered a Sherman IIC firefly the photo is of a privately owned one but it appears the only changes needed to the hull a relocating the gun lock removing the siren and converting the hatches.

This manual also says that there was a firefly using the m4a3 using the ford gaa v8 but I find no photos of this so have no clue to the turret type

With the top and bottom now matching externally, it was time to fix them together. The different body posts don’t come close to lining up, especially as there are four in the Heng Long lower and six in the Mato upper. You can see in this first pic that I decided to utilise four of the Mato posts to start a magnet conversion instead of screws. The magnets are held in tubes for screws from an old Tiger plastic hull and glued with epoxy.



The Mato posts line up with the sponsons of the Heng Long lower hull, so I decided to go with securing them in aluminium angle strips that double as hull stiffeners. I may go with a cross brace at the front later on. I’m tempted to cut out the battery box as there is a significant amount of wasted space, and that will be a good time to consider bracing. I also tidied up the rear hull shape to better match the curved Mato upper.



In order to line the body posts up I removed the turret and also went with opening up the engine hatch and installing hinges.



The hinges were a pain to install. I used dolls house brass hinges, and the first time CA glue ran into the hinge and seized it. I bent one trying to work it loose. The second time I used the same mounting recess without checking and the hinges weren’t identical, so they didn’t align and the door was crooked when opened. Third time was a charm.

I am interested in the way your adding to Heng long and your step by step helps as I will have to do the same with mine once my bogie tops have finished printing. My split transmission cover has arrived and the top deck has been stripped down ready to start. My biggest issue will be the hatches I think

When I separated the engine hatch lid, I removed the fuel filler cap that wasn’t there on the 75mm version. I also removed the little blobs Mato used for bolts around the air intake.



In fact, I replaced all of the moulded-in filler caps, and replaced them with metal items from the Mato M10 tank destroyer. I wanted to add retaining pins, but I thought that might make the caps fragile. While I was working in that area I carved out the armoured vent from the leftover Heng Long hull and raised it on the Mato.

Nice work

That engine deck looks great, those metal filler caps certainly make a big difference.
It's a shame someone doesn't sell just those on their own.

They do. They're Mato part number MT222 for the M10 Tank Destroyer. For some reason they're not associated with the Sherman.

Can get some on shapeways aswell