Sherman M4A3E2 "Jumbo" Assualt Tank
Last updated 10/11/02
This is a Tamiya plastic model kit I bought several years ago at a local hobby store around 1994. The particular kit that I bought had some incompletely molded parts, so I couldn't build it. So I sent Tamiya a letter asking for the parts I needed, but they told me that the kit was dicontinued. I couldn't take it back to the hobby shop because I had already started building the kit before I realized I had a problem. So this project sat in the closet for a couple of years. One day I decided to have another go at trying to get those parts, so I contacted Tamiya again, by phone, and they decided that the standard Sherman tank kit had the parts that this kit used. So a week later, I received my parts, and proceeded to finish it. Below are some pictures.
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Here is the model. I decided to make a diaroma for it. I got this idea from a Tamiya catalog from about 1986. They had lots of pictures of some great diaromas, so that was my source of inspiration. |
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The idea here was to have a scene out of a 1945-era battle front, in early spring. I thought a makeshift field supply depot theme would be cool. The British soldier just adds to the hodge podge of troops that could be found around the end of WW II. |
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Here is a close up of the turret. The soldiers are supposed to be in the middle of reloading the tank's magazine, hence the 75mm shells waiting on top of the turret. |
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Here is a view from above. Notice the tank tracks and footprints. To get this effect, I used that hard foam-like stuff they use to make flower arrangements. You can find bricks of it in a craft store. You can easily impress tank tracks into it and cut it to any shape you want. This diaroma uses two halves of one brick contoured to look like land. I used real sand glued to the top surface via a sprayed on white glue and water mixture. |
This project turned out pretty well. It's the last plastic model that I have built.