Comparison of Sherman turrets (1/56 scale)

 Here are some overhead views of Warlord and Rubicon Sherman Tanks.

Top to bottom: Rubicon Sherman IC Hybrid, Warlord Sherman VC, Rubicon Sherman I with early turret.

Left to right: Warlord Sherman VC, Rubicon Sherman IC Hybrid.

Top to bottom: Rubicon Sherman I with early turret, Rubicon Sherman IC Hybrid.

Top to bottom: Warlord Sherman VC, Rubicon Sherman IC.

Rubicon M4 - part five

It was pointed out that there was a rather obvious seam line on the right sponson.

It has been filled with Milliput. There has been a small amount of weathering.

Rubicon M4 Hybrid - part three

The Rubicon M4 Hybrid Firefly assembled. The darker grey patch is where the pistol port has been filled in (and checked for smoothness by painting it grey.

It is noticeable that the coax machine gun is a bit bent, I will fix that.

I am not going to add a great deal of stowage to this example.

Rubicon M4 Hybrid - part two

I have added lifting rings on the turret, blanked off the pistol port, and rotated the engine cover handles through 90 degrees.

Grizzling... The M4A1 Grizzly - Southsea

Back in 2016 I visited the D-Day museum in Southsea.

Outside the museum there is an M4A1 Grizzly and a Churchill Crocodile.

You can see the cast in thickened armour (under the star and the maple leaf) on the right hand side.

Rubicon M4 Hybrid - part one

At Salute 2018 I bought four of Rubicon's boxed kits. Last month I started work on the M4 Sherman I. This month I started on the Sherman I Hybrid.

 The box is the standard from Rubicon.

The chassis is the same as the M4.

The Hybrid hull comes on a separate sprue, the other three sprues in this photograph are the same as in the M4 kit.

The two turret 75mm sprue.

Instructions and sand shields.

Rubicon M4 - part four

So here is the Rubicon M4 Sherman I base painted and with the decals added.

The decals will have a small amount of "chipping" using Vallejo Russian Uniform Green, This will also remove the rather prominent white line at the top of the 33rd Armoured Brigade's Diablo logo.

I have not been able to work out how the numbering system works on 144 RAC vehicles, the tank numbered 66 in British Tanks In Normandy and the Dennis Oliver book is from B company. I am going to assume that the numbers reset per company.

This tank is number 21 of C company. The font is not quite correct, I have had to use the (US) numbers from the Warlord M4 decal sheet.

The pistol port probably should have been removed (which would have assisted the number positioning).

Nothing has had a wash applied yet.

The spare wheel is rather prominent, it might need some additional mounting clips.

I removed the cubes of square section plastic rod that were holding the tow cable down and superglued the cable into the existing clips.