15mm M4A3s

I picked up a box of Plastic Soldier Company M4A3s in the summer and it's taken me until January to finish them.

They're very nice little models.  Although there’s not many parts, assembly was not as straightforward as it should have been because the kit allows you to make three differently armed versions and there's no  instructions included!  To cap it all the parts sheet that I found on the web differs to how the sprues are actually made up!  At one stage I'd looked at so many pictures of M4A3s trying to figure out what's what, that I thought I never wanted to see one again.  

I spent some time deciding which versions to make and I wanted to make them as flexible as possible.  This is easier said than done because although there are separate parts for the 75mm and 76mm turrets,  there are only enough .50 cal turret HMGs and hatches to make five tanks.  However, by using spare Battlefront .50 cals and being crafty by not gluing on the hatches, I have made it so I have an extra two 75mm turrets to use.  One shares a hatch with one of the 76mm turrets and I drilled the bottom of the hatches on each turret out so it makes popping the top out easier (as shown below).  In the end I made one 105mm, two 76mm and four 75mm turrets.  

The stowage is a mix of: a resin set I bought off eBay; some old Battlefront metal German stowage; some 1/76th scale SHQ stowage; and bits I made myself out of plastic card and lolly sticks.  The tanks only really came to life when I added the stowage.  The crew figures are old Battlefront metal figures  from 20 years or so ago.

I put off painting them for awhile, but as with most of my builds once I got the base colour on I got into it and enjoyed the process.  I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, just base coats, washes and some highlights.  The only thing different was to use AK Real Colour Markers to paint the rubber of the wheels.  I hate doing them and the pen worked well.  I didn't add any markings at this stage because I'm not sure whether I'll use them as US or French vehicles.

A quartet of 75mm M4A3s.

Two with 76mm turrets.

While I was doing these I dug out an old Zvezda M4A2 model I'd made years ago.  It didn't look that dissimilar to these, so when I added the stowage to the PSC ones, I also tarted that up and repainted it.  This give me the  option to field another 76mm tank.  See if you can spot it below?


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