I am about to finish my DML M4A1 (76)W vvss but there is one part that stymied my built. on the turret, on the loader’s hatch (round) there is portruding part where the machine gun barrel can be clipped on during travel. It has a PE option which look fantastic but the instruction was not very clear as to how to mount it. It just says cut off the plastic part and arrows point to where the PE should be. I could not get a picture reference on this area. Can anyone help? Roy Chow? Thanks!
Are you looking for something like this:
Photo from my website.
Thanks very much Chris. This is the plastic part included in the kit. The PE option has two legs which has no mounting bracket of any kind. Is this an accurate replacement? The kit instruction says to cut off this triangular base and then mount the PE clip.
That doesn’t sound correct for that type of cupola. If the bracket is kinda “H” shaped, that’s the type used on early cupolas. Go with the type in the photo I provided.
I have seen one of these on a sherman in VA but do not remmber what variant it was and I do believe the triangle bracket was not on there. This would be the proper shape of the bracket ( not much of a drawing). I was able to find two pictures in “M4 SHERMAN AT WAR” by Zenith Press in there AT WAR SERIES. In the pictures in the book it appears that the triangle “mount” piece is removed. One of the pictures is of a M4A1 (75mm) and it is located on the commanders hatch. The other is on a M4A3 (75mm) and it is located also on the commanders hatch.
I hope you can make sense of my crud drawing. Would send picture but do not want to infringe on copy right.
Rob
Rob’s drawing is probably what DML would have you do. However, Chris is correct in that later cupola rings had the fold down MG barrel clamp – you can see why it’d be preferred over a stationary one.
I think I will go with Chris’ photo. It does look weird with that bracket standing rigid without any means of folding it. Just wondering where DML got that bracket.
Thanks guys!
DML probably referred to an early version of the cupola and just assumed that it was the same for all Shermans that used it. They didn’t realize that there were several variants of the cupola produced during the war and went with the first one they saw.
Panzerwaffe is correct. If you want to see a better picture of the MG travel lock, it was featured in recent magazine October 2010 on page 32 on the Sherman built by Jim Wechsler. It didn’t look that hard to be built from scratch… hope this helps.
Here is a site that shows a few different types of travel locks for the .50, and different mounts. there are a few good photos in here you just have to look through. The most common appears to be the one with the triangle mount.
Thanks for all the help guys. I’m now off to finish this Sherman. It will be the “In the mood” version of Sgt. Lafayette Pool’s tank.