Now this looks like an interesting kit to WWII Allied armor fans. Far less costly than the Accurate Armor kit too… This sounds like a good addition to my line up. How many of these were built and did they see combat?
One was built and it saw limited combat.
I’m pretty much sitting here rubbing my hands together and giggling, just tickled pink it’s out. I understand there’s some easy-to-fix errors in it, but I bet (hope) Roy will chime in here soon, he’s the resident Pershing guru.
Actually, I think two were built. One was sent to Europe and had the up armor job while the other stayed at Aberdeen.
If you want a good simple read to gain some insight on this beast on it’s short combat tour read “Another River, Another Town” by John P. Irwin (he was the gunner on that vehicle)
Also read “Death Traps” by Belton Cooper (he was the fella that designed and built the applique armor for the thing)
I too am waiting to build one…
Hobby Boss’ kit is based on the first T26E4 pilot tank. A second was also built shortly thereafter before the T26E4 was put into production. Originally 500 were ordered. Fifty were actually built and the contract was cancelled due to the war’s end. The T26E4 pilot tank was based on an earlier pilot tank, the T26E1 pilot. Thus, it has many early features not found on later T26E4s or the common T26E3s.
I’ve only seen the pics in the Track Link thread in December 08 but based on those, I formed the following list – some are small, some not so small:
- infantry telephone shouldn’t be on rear bulkhead
- drive differentials are a later type (like Tamiya) but should be early type
- odd interpretation of headlights
- turret roof .50cal should be on loader’s hatch ring: I’m not sure but the kit seems to have it on a single post mounted to roof center
- Front fender support should be triangular
- circular vents on fender boxes should be removed
- kit should have modified gun tube lock like the real T26E4. I don’t know if the production kit will have this.
- kit has later T26E3 engine latches, should have T26E1 engine latches that were set in boxes inside the armored grillwork
- add lots and lots of weld beads and flamecut edging to the supplemental armor
I think it’ll be a very popular kit. At a recent IPMS show, there were two Super Pershings-- one from the AccArmour kit and another using the MB models kit on the table. It’s gotta be one of the most exotic US tanks of the war, IMHO.
Builders should be aware that the “2” and “A” seen in some photos of the Super Pershing were postwar additions, not used by the crew in combat. FYI
Here was my interpretation of the T26E4, scratchbuilt mods to a base Tamiya kit. It’s a 3 year long blog. I strove to replicate every detail that I could see from pics of the T26E1 pilot and then the production T26E4 combat veteran itself.
http://www.track-link.net/blogs/17
Here’s Steve Zaloga’s interpretation which has some nice reference pics. I added some features on mine that weren’t on his
http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article.asp?a=3690
Feel free to contact me offline if you have any questions.