Tomcat's Tamiya 1/35 Sherman VC Firefly

[Tomcat64]

Alongside my Steggy build I'll also be building Tamiya's rebox of Asuka's Sherman Firefly

Intro

At the end of 1940, their hand forced by the ineffectiveness of existing 2-pounder and 6-pounder weapons against German tanks, the British military began development of the 17-pounder gun. With a 58.3 caliber length barrel, it could fire armour piercing rounds through 130mm of 30-degree armour from one kilometer. A compact breech was evidence of an intent to fit the gun to tanks. On the back of encouraging performance against the German Tiger I in Tunisia, February 1943, the mounting of the 17-Pounder on a vehicle was officially approved.

<Tomcat note> At this point the info from the kit goes on to say the following:
As it was next to impossible to use with any vehicles of the day or even those under development, the most viable platform was deemed the Sherman, supplied by the U.S. under the Lend-Lease program. The modified vehicle was developed with the nickname “Firefly”. Of the four Sherman variants received by Britain, two were to become the base for Fireflies – the M4A1 became the Sherman IC Firefly, and the M4A4 the VC Firefly, C denoting variants fitted with the 17-pounder. A complex multibank inline-6 engine in the VC required an extended rear on the welded hull.

Conversion proved relatively smooth, initial prototypes produced at the end of 1943 and the program officially beginning in 1944.

<Tomcat note> But this doesn't really tell the whole story, so here's a bit more info on the background to the conversion from another source:

The idea of fitting a 17-pounder gun into a Sherman tank was rejected by the Ministry of Supply's Tank Decision Board.
Major George Brighty of the Royal Tank Regiment was at the Lulworth Armoured Fighting School in early 1943. Despite the A30 Challenger undergoing initial trials at Lulworth, Brighty was convinced that the Sherman was a better mount for the 17-pounder. The turret of the Sherman was too small to allow for the very long recoil of the gun. In a radical adjustment, Brighty removed the recoil system and locked the gun in place, thus making the entire tank absorb the recoil, but this was far from an ideal situation, and there was no telling how long the tank would have been able to handle such a setup.

Around June 1943, a colleague of Brighty, Lieutenant Colonel George Witheridge of the Royal Tank Regiment, arrived at Lulworth. A veteran of the North Africa campaign, Witheridge had experienced first-hand the one-sided battles between British tanks armed with the 40 mm 2-pounder gun and Rommel's formidable tanks and anti-tank guns. During the Battle of Gazala in mid-1942, Witheridge had been blown out of his M3 Grant medium tank, and though he recovered from his wounds, he was declared unfit to return to combat duty. In January 1943, he was posted to Fort Knox in the United States for six months to advise on gunnery, where he was "sold" on the Sherman. While at Lulworth, Witheridge inspected the A30 Challenger and "joined in the chorus of complaints" about the tank. Upon looking up Brighty and learning of his attempts to improve the Sherman, Witheridge lent his assistance. He advised Brighty on methods to solve the recoil problem.

Not long after, Witheridge and Brighty received a notice from the Department of Tank Design (DTD) to cease their efforts. Unwilling to abandon the project, Witheridge, using his connections with such influential people as Major General Raymond Briggs, former General Officer Commanding the 1st Armoured Division in North Africa and then director of the Royal Armoured Corps, successfully lobbied Claude Gibb, Director-General of Weapons and Instruments Production at the Ministry of Supply, to make it an official ministry project. Gibb was able to explain to the detractors that not only was it possible, but it should be doable in England. He had liaised with Colonel William Watson, who in late 1942 had returned from secondment to Australia to work on the production of the Australian AC1 Sentinel tank, onto which the 17-pounder had been mounted. With this development, the endeavour was taken out of the hands of the highly enthusiastic and devoted amateurs at Lulworth who had initiated it and given to professional tank developers.

<Tomcat note> Right, back to the kit info now I've got that off my chest

The 17-pounder was paired with the M34 cradle by rotating the position of the recoil cylinders 45 degrees around the barrel, while the breech was moved some 8 inches (around 20cm) backwards to fit the Sherman turret. This forced the radio outside into a box under the armour plating on the rear of the hull. The front machine gunner and seat were removed from the crew compartment, allowing 78 rounds for the 17-pounder to be stored within. Finally, a boxy loader’s hatch was added on the left side of the turret. 314 converted Firefly tanks were a part of the mass Allied landings at Normandy on June 6th. At the time, British forces deployed one Firefly per troop, and this eventually increased to two. The 2,139 Fireflies converted served not only in British units but also in Canadian, New Zealand and Polish counterparts. Although powerful alternatives appeared such as the Centurion with 17-pounder gun and the 90mm gun-equipped U.S. M26 Pershing, they never did so in large numbers and the Firefly proved effectively the only Allied counter to powerful German rivals, to such an effect that German troops were ordered to prioritize the Firefly as a target in battle.

Kit

Ok onto the kit and as mentioned at the start this is a 2014 Tamiya rebox of Asuka's Firefly kit from 2013 which in turn traces its own heritage back to a Tasca kit from 2006... the timeline on Scalemates is a real maze. Tamiya tidied up the instructions and added a group of British/Commonwealth infantry.

Here are the sprue frames for the tank








The infantry


And the instruction booklet - I'll be posting the instruction stages as I build


There's also an Aber metal barrel in the box and if I'm honest I can't remember if I added this or if it was included when I bought the kit.

All being well I'll make a start on this one soon alongside Steggy.

[digger303]

[Stokesy44]

Nice to see a tank in service with the British Army with some real fangs. And yet the desk Jonnies tried to cancel it. Bloody typical.

[Tomcat64]

I've managed to make a start on this at last... and of course I'm starting at stage 5

The reason for this is that stages 1-4 cover the assembly of the running gear/bogies and I want to plan how I do that & paint the road wheels up etc... so stage 5 it is


It's definitely different from a Tamiya AFV as you have to build up your own bath tub This went together well for the most part but there was a little fettling needed to get the sponson bases to fit with the central firewall


Section 6 covers a couple of assemblies for the rear hull


Nothing too taxing but our first encounter with PE


Over the page to finish off the rest of the rear hull main plate


Again this mostly went together nicely but the smoke discharger unit was a little fiddly as the holes in the PE don't seem to relate to anything on the styrene parts


Onto the final drive covers


I managed to break one of the towing shackles but got the bits lined up again


The final rear hull exhaust housing


I'm leaving this off until I've painted up the insides... most likely nothing will be seen but it's something I want to make sure of


And finally I made a start on the upper hull


I've left the rear vent thingies off for now as again I want to paint up the interiors before adding them


A quick dry fit of the upper & lower hull sections shows that there might be a little more fettling required to get everything to sit nicely but so far it's going together well.

Thanks for looking

[digger303]

[digger303]

[Stokesy44]

Off at a fine gallop

[Kevthemodeller]

He's out of the blocks

[Phillip1]

Tomcat64-This is a very nice start.

Phillip1

[Quax]

Nice start to an interesting kit, looking forward to seeing what you do with the tracks!

Paul

[digger303]

Nice start to an interesting kit, looking forward to seeing what you do with the tracks!

Paul

Imho the tracks are the one big let down given the quality of the kit.

[Tomcat64]

I've been grabbing time at the bench from time to time but haven't had chance to post anything until now so hopefully I'll remember what's happened...

The rear section was painted up and the exhaust stubs added


The rear bulkhead got the same treatment - I've used Vallejo 71020 (Green Brown) which is their closest approximation to SCC15


Once the rear section of the hull was complete it was time to add the upper hull


Fit was a bit fiddly to get settled and had to be clamped down overnight to resolve a slight misalignment down the back end


With that all knocked into shape it was time to add all the various fixtures & fittings although I'm leaving the pioneer tools off as usual for ease of painting


One neat inclusion was a jig to help form the PE light guards


Additional fixtures on the next page


The hatches were a little fiddly but came together in the end


And here's the upper hull with everything in place - oh and a surprise here is that there are two types of sprue G (one clear and three green)


So switching back to section 1 it was time to tackle the running gear


As digger mentioned the two-part band tracks were an area of concern and I did consider getting an after market set but decided to see how the kit parts work before shelling out the money


Here are the instructions for each of the suspension units


Wheels were painted up separately to try and avoid tricky masking later


The arms were a tight fit and needed some encouragement to seat properly through the hubs


And eventually ended up with a pile like this - one note here is that the instructions note that part B9 is handed & I missed that so ended up with one set that isn't quite right but I wasn't going to risk breaking the unit in trying to rectify it


The final hull fittings were added based on my choice of markings - there were no location marks for the small squares down the hull side so I roughly measured these up based on scaling up the painting diagram


The lower hull and sponsons were painted up


In readiness to add the dangly bits


The tracks went on surprisingly well - although they need to be weathered down a bit from the current shinyness


Finally the sand shields were added


Hopefully I can get some more done over the upcoming Easter weekend.

Thanks for looking

[digger303]

That sir is looking very nice indeed.



PS... pretty nifty jig for the light guards.

[Phillip1]

Tomcat64-It does look really good!

Phillip1

[Tomcat64]

That sir is looking very nice indeed.



PS... pretty nifty jig for the light guards.

Tomcat64-It does look really good!

Phillip1

Thanks chaps

[Tomcat64]

This continues to potter along at a steady pace

With the hull complete it was onto the turret and first up was that mighty cannon - here are the kit instructions


And the Aber replacements


Starting the turret itself


At this point the lid for the radio box is just dry fitted as I wanted to keep my options open in case the aluminium barrel tipped the turret and needed to fit some counterweight


The commander's cupola


A bit fiddly but nothing too taxing - I've left it off to ease painting


Here's how it all stacked up - the turret fits nice & snug so there's no tipping to worry about & the radio box lid is cemented down. That being said the barrel did slowly drop as there isn't enough friction in the mechanism to hold the extra weight - more on that in a moment


Over the page and we're supposed to add some PE into some barely discernable divots on the hull side...


I gave it a go but it just ain't happening so I drilled out the divots & bent some brass wire into place to form the (I'm guessing) tie down points - the holes have subsequently been filled & tidied. Also dry fitted in place here is the mantlet and with this fitted the gun no longer drops as it adds extra friction to the elevation points.


Finally the commander


The parts here needed a lot of tidying up but here he is perched in the turret


And that's the main build complete


So with that done we can now turn to some painting along with building up the infantry figures.

I do have a plan about how to display this one so more on that next time

Thanks as always for looking

[Phillip1]

Tomcat64-More good progress and the barrel looks great!

Phillip1

[Stokesy44]

Nice work, looking proper tidy.

And as for the barrel and muzzle break....

[digger303]

Oh very nice build.

[Tomcat64]

Tomcat64-More good progress and the barrel looks great!

Phillip1

Nice work, looking proper tidy.

And as for the barrel and muzzle break....

Oh very nice build.

Thanks as always for stopping by folks

[Tomcat64]

After some creative masking I deployed the paint squirty thing last weekend... first some Ultimate grey primer


And then more of the Vallejo 71020 Green Brown


It looks like it's a slightly greener tone that the lower hull so I'm guessing I grabbed a different bottle & the mix is slightly different. This shouldn't be an issue once I've dirtied it up a bit though


As you can see from the previous photo I also masked & painted the interior of the turret as some of it can be seen even with the commander in place. I don't plan to do much more than give this an interior wash to grubby it up.


This was all allowed to settle down a bit and then all eight of the decals were thrown at it.


These the original Tasca/Asuka ones and were really nice to use and a lot thinner than recent Tamiya experience.


So I can now crack on with detail painting & adding lights and tools etc as well as working on the figures.

Thoughts then turned to how I wanted to display it...

This old Matchbox kit was one of the very first kits I built when I got back into the hobby - and I still remember buying one of these a LOT further back with my Grandad in an old school model shop down a back alley in Banbury


So I've picked up this


I'll need to get a base sorted and will also have to do some scratch building as the bridge section itself isn't long enough to accomodate the tank.

I'll put up a photo of the plaster parts in the next update.

Thanks for looking

[Portman]

Well that's a very nice bit of work so far indeed

Watching the rest with interest.

[Stokesy44]

Woohoo, I dio!!!!!!

Tank is looking nice under paint.

[digger303]

Sweet build now a nice dio to boot.

[Phillip1]

Tomcat-Your finish coat of paint looks really smooth! The decaling looks good too!

Phillip1