Kelly’s Heroes is definitely one of my all-time favorite movies - so much so that I would like to build the M4A3 Sherman tank commanded by Oddball (played by Donald Sutherland).
So here’s my question: towards the beginning of the movie, Oddball is showing Kelly his three Shermans when he says his tanks are armed with 76mm guns. Not being anywhere close to an armor expert I checked my references and his tank looks like an M4A3 75mm with the T23 turret - very different than the 76mm-armed brethren. So what’s the deal? Is the movie script incorrect about Oddball’s tanks mounting 76mm guns?
If I am correct they were short barrelled 75’s. In one scene they addeda piece of pipe to make the gun larger to fool the Germans into thinking it was a bigger gun.
As you can plainly see it is a 76mm gun in the older turret (but with the oval gunners hatch).
The pipe was added to make the gun look like a 90mm to scare the Tigers and Panthers. Don’t think I saw any scenes where they used the pipe extension in battle.
A number of countries upgunned the older turrets rather than putting on “new” T23 turrets. Pakistan did this, according to a New Vanguard title on the Sherman (don’t remember which one though). I think it was filmed on location in Yugoslavia, and they had some of these upgunned Shermans in their inventory.
If interested, I have an old thread from rec.models.scale where Cookie Sewell “dissects” the Shermans in the movie and describes what features they had and, more importantly, what kittage to use to get a good-looking model.
Here’s Cookie’s old post. It’s been on rms for years and new kits and accessories have come onto the market since then. Also some items mentioned have also gone OOP since he wrote this. There’s enough information here to get a person started.
they were Shermans from a country that had a 76 gun upgraded to an old sherman, Robert (shermanfreak) did some research on them in the first sherman group build
i cant remember what country them came from
Good points Rob. I always forget about Google groups. I think they keep posts from when Usenet first came online or some such, back in the 1970’s or 1980’s…lotsof data out there…
It’s unfortunate that the DML Sherman Hybrid referenced in the post is OOP. Maybe DML will reissue it, since they re-issued the M4A1 early? That Hybrid kit had enough leftover parts to fill two Sherman spare parts bins. If we’re lucky…
