The capture of Mateur on May 3, 1943 was the first major prize of the Allied efforts in Tunisia. This victory broke the main line of German defenses in the north and precipitated the German surrender six days later on May 9, 1943.
In this diorama, an American M3 Lee Mark I, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 13th Armoured Regiment, 1st Armoured Division, Combat Command B, II Corps, supports infantry clearing German snipers in Mateur, Tunisia.
This diorama is perhaps 50 years in the making. It started life in 1974 when I purchased the Tamiya M3 Lee Mk. 1 (Military Miniature Series Kit No. 139). The kit was set aside in my late teens for all the usual reasons…university, courtship, career and family. It was not until January 2018 that I returned to the modeling bench following my retirement. My first thought was to complete work already started and as a result I resurrected the M3 Lee project. I suppose I should thank the wisdom/foresight/dumb luck to have saved all of my 1970s and 1980s kits for this entry back into the hobby!
My corrections to the M3 Lee kit withstood the test of time. The tweaks/corrections to the kit included:
• Adding sheet styrene to fill in the open sponsons above the tracks.
• Replacing the incorrect 6-spoke kit wheels with 5-spoke wheels.
• Stippling the lower hull nose, the 75mm gun sponson and the commander’s cupola with liquid glue to impart the missing cast steel texture.
• The rear hull in the Tamiya kit is a combination of M3 and M3A5 features. To correct these issues, I scratchbuilt the correct M3 rear hull using drawing from the April 1989issue of the now defunct Military Modeler magazine. This involved building new engine access doors, reconfiguring the exhausts, reducing the depth of the engine deck overhang, adding new rivets to the rear hull and relocating rivets on the side of the lower hull to properly align with the engine firewall.
• The stabilizer below the 37 mm gun was scratch-built from stretched sprue to replace the piece I lost from the kit.
• Tamiya’s tracks are bad, not because they are rubber-band style, but because the track end connectors do not extend from one tread to the next meaning the treads are disconnected. I replaced the kit tracks with a set of Kaizen T51 Workable Tracks (Kit #: KZ-SH_T51). These are beautifully detailed tracks but are a lot of work as each pad requires two wires to connect to four track connectors and each track connector requires a separate nut to be glue to it. My count is the two tracks are comprised of 1,120 parts. It took me about 20 hours to assemble the two runs of track. But they look great and actually work so I believe it was worth the effort.
• Photo-etched metal details courtesy of Eduard’s M3 Lee Detail Set for the Tamiya M3 Lee (Kit No. EDU35433).
• Copper wire was used to replace the grab handles above the prominent doors on the side of the Lee.
• The US infantry figures were modified from the Tamiya US Infantry West European Theatre set (Kit No. MM148) to backdate the M1943 uniforms to the M1941 pattern. This involved judicious use of a grinding bit in my motor tool to shorten the coats, to remove breast pockets and to lengthen the gaiters. Some sanding with 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper and a coat of Tamiya Extra Thin glue smoothed my work and prepared the surface of the figures for painting. I added laces to the gaiters using finely stretched sprue. The German sniper was taken from the Tamiya German Assault Pioneers Team and Goliath set (Kit No. 357). I added a soft cap from the Tamiya DAK Infantry set (Kit No. MM137) in place of a helmet and gave the sniper a couple stick grenades from Italeri’s Accessories II (Kit No. 420).
• Rifle slings were fabricated from lead foil from a wine bottle with fine wire used to create the buckles based on the article Modeling Slings, Straps and Buckles by Hilber H. Graf in the March 1989 issue of FineScale Modeler.
The diorama was inspired by a photograph I found showing an M3 Lee in Tunisia with infantry seeking cover from sniper fire around a fountain.
It took me about 175 hours to complete the diorama. This included 35 hours to rebuild the M3 Lee with the benefit of photo-etch, 20 hours to build the replacement individual link tracks, 30 hours for painting, decaling and weathering, 30 hours to modify, build and paint the 3 figures and their accompanying weapons and 60 hours to construct the diorama itself. You may believe this effort is modest, but I am pleased with the outcome of this return to the hobby.
