RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

It's been a while since I have had any progress to post about owing to lack of facilities, however thanks to Gary "the tank man" page and his dinner table I've managed to make some progress.

The firefly was bought from flamme with no electronics, provision for recoil or proper elevation. It's on the Mato chassis which is mechanically crude, so an upgrade was required.

I was impressed with the Mato m36b1 so I managed to get forgebear to get me just the chassis







Next up was replacement of the damaged fender, using the old one as a template I made a replacement out of styrene.



A Mato metal mantlet was added. I had to make some modifications however to achieve suitable depression. As the tank will be a battler the ir led tube has been added in place of the mg in the mantlet. To help assist the recoil I've added a brass sleeve to support the barrel



It looks a bit Heath Robinson but it works well and will be finessed with I detail her





The Mato mantlet looks to support the henglong recoil unit, so the dklm one should fit too.

Here's the tank as she sits so far. The upper is all made of resin cast by flamme, the only of the shelf bit is the engine deck taken from an Tamiya Sherman.

The tracks are proper Churchill tracks, and I'm very lucky to have a whole bag of extra links!

I got to ask , what's the G O with the double muzzle brake ??!!
The Churchill tracks are a real winning effect. None around looking like that.

Here you go Herman, the double muzzle brake was an early was of disguising the longer barrel. My tank is going to be based on the one in this picture but I'm using the bar tracks rather than the chevron ones

Quick work mate. Look forward to the detailing and painting.

tomhugill wrote:

Here you go Herman, the double muzzle brake was an early was of disguising the longer barrel. My tank is going to be based on the one in this picture but I'm using the bar tracks rather than the chevron ones

Well there ya go indeed !! Love that picture Mr Hugill, sure is an interesting subject vehicle.
Go for it

I reckon it looks "meaty" with those Churchill tracks on it
And the double -bluff muzzle brake must have caught out a few German tankers in its time

HERMAN BIX wrote:I reckon it looks "meaty" with those Churchill tracks on it
And the double -bluff muzzle brake must have caught out a few German tankers in its time

It does look a bit like it's been down the gym!

Looks great, Tom. The cast upper combined with the spare links really beef the Sherman up, and those Churchill tracks are really something else. Plastic, resin, metal?

Cheers Ram, they're metal!

cannedheat wrote:sorry tom not trying to steal your thread ,just showing you my feeble attempt at one , I don't think it will ever get finished, just a comparison on type ? and using a heng long hull with grafted mato, bogies ....will remove em if your not happy ...think the hybrid is the best ,type ....nice one tom ....

Looks nice Stu! I've got a soft spot for all the fireflys, planning an IC and maybe a VC too. Are they the metal Mato bogies?