RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Hi guys I am thinking about purchasing a new tank which is the HL M4A3 Sherman, can anyone one the forum give me some advice about what these tanks are like and is there plenty of work to be done to them.

fury wrote:Hi guys I am thinking about purchasing a new tank which is the HL M4A3 Sherman, can anyone one the forum give me some advice about what these tanks are like and is there plenty of work to be done to them.

Hi fury, I bought one about a year and a half ago. From the onset, the head lights keep cadence with the machine gun, I know of seven that do it. The tracks are also very cheaply made and I'm speaking of the stock metal tracks that I upgraded to during the purchase. The airlsoft gun stopped working about a week after I bought it. Other than that, it's still running. I have changed the tracks to Taigen Sherman tracks with Taigen drive sprockets and upgraded the electronics to Taigen 2.4GHZ. In all fairness, there are many here who have them and love them. It was my first and last Heng Long purchase.

Fury,
Good afternoon. Like Jtracks noted. You have to start from further back with any Heng Long version build but then again, they have really improved over the years so the starting line is not so distant. The Sherman is one of their best and properly attended to can be massaged into a world class model. A couple of pics to demonstrate:
regards,
Painless

I really like that tank, am at the start of building my fourth. In fairness, I've not worked on other tanks (I do have a PZIII and a Tiger). My first one is the closest to "stock", I did modify the turret and changed out the 105 with a 75mm. The next two got fabricated upper hulls to build M10 and M36 tank destroyers. The current build is using a resin kit to build a M4A4 Firefly (VC).

Personally I like the plastic tracks on the standard kit. Painted up they look great. The stock tracks have hollow cavities on the inside. Not really visible when on the tank. On the Firefly with a bit more spacing on the bogies, I went through the effort to fill the cavities with Miliput.

The 2.4 radio that comes with the M4A3 is quite good. It allows creeping speeds (my Panzer's radio has two speeds - stop and fast).

I have an HL Sherman that was gutted and a resin fill hull done. There is NO hull flex when done this way...
It has a Clark board and upgrade sound and IR for club battling. Upgraded to the new Ultimate bearing gearboxes, Metal sprockets plus Mato tracks with duckbills and just installed the Mato adjustable idlers. I have had the tank 3 years. It has always run well but now with those adjustable idlers with bears mounted it runs smooth as silk and I used it to battle for at least 2 hours last battleday without a hitch. I will be doing the same set up to my Firefly kit plus stretching the hull...

Hi guys thanks for all the advice I think I will still be purchasing the Sherman as I just like the look of them and I can do a few modifications to improve and make the Sherman how it should originally look.

Probably the best thing out there to start any vvss Sherman. Have 4 myself and with stock plastic tracks have never had problem with any of them. Even the one I added the rather heavy Forces of Valor metal upper hull to runs great 2 years later.

I got a new one very recently. Out of the box it worked just fine, it's a speedy little guy and weighs nothing especially with the new battery it's as light as air. One of the front drive sprockets
Has a stripped screw but a little locktite and its ok. I bought this tank as a donor for the firefly resin kit. So far I am keeping the firefly all Heng long stock. And once things start to fail upgrade from there.