Kelly’s Hero’s has always been a a favorite movie of mine and after seeing the Jaguar “Oddball’s Crew” figure set I had decided to use the Dragon M4A3 in my stash to make it. I just want to get it straight from the Sherman buff’s if I have information right on it. Maybe this subject has been hashed around alot.
Vehicle: M4A3 Sherman 76(w) with VVSS suspension
Changes: radio antenna mounted on hull next to the bow gunner/radioman’s position (possible post war alteration). Retain antenna base on the turret.
Markings: Vehicle number USA 301101. White star on both flanks and one on the transimission cover up front.
Stowage ect.: Large Speaker - make from Christmas decoration bell, other stowage from parts collections. Note a german helmet over each head light in front of the tank and a US medic’s hemet hanging off the rear of the turret. A bright blue bucket on the left front and misc. other stowage.
Figures: Do not use box art for position guide. Oddball (Donal Sutherland) remains in the same position. Moriarity (mechanic played by Gavin MacLeod) should be in the Bow gunner’s position and the guy with the Fez (Turk? - Shepard Stephens) in the turret gunner’s position. I may add a driver by customizing a figure with an extra head with a baseball cap.
Crapgame: Hey, Oddball, this is your moment of glory. And you’re chickening out! Oddball: To a New Yorker like you, a hero is some type of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three tigers.
Sounds good to me, I love that movie too. An interesting scene though would be if you made a dio of the scene where Oddball fires the paint shell at the back of the Tiger. It would be an interesiting colorful diorama for a change. WW2 is always sort of drab. Good Luck.
I actually have a late model Tiger I that I could employ in a diorama like that. Possibly with the Tiger’s turret turned to the left hitting the tree. I would also have to add Kelly’s figure, but there are so many figures I could use for him instead of the Jaguar set. Is Kelly’s jacket the wrong color? In the movie it is green, but that type of jacket should have been a light tan, correct?
Please take note that the turret is the early version (small turret for the 75mm gun) installed with a 76mm gun without a muzzle brake.
A member here (maffen) previously did a model of the same vehicle a few years back. Could have been a good reference for you but I can’t seem to find the post.
Actually, the tank was already fitted with a 76mm gun (although it still uses the earlier and smaller turret commonly installed with the short 75mm). They use a pipe to make the gun look like a 90mm.
I remember seeing ads in the back of FSM back in the early to mid-90s for a “T-34 Tiger conversion” that converted a T-34 kit into a “movie” Tiger tank like in Kelly’s Heroes or (later) SPR.
shootER - So from what I have seen here and also read elsewhere this version of the Sherman would be :
M4A3E4 = M4A3(76)W (retrofitted with the M1 gun), the turret is for the 75, the mantle shows the difference clearly.
Oddball: Crazy! I mean like so many positive waves maybe we can’t lose! You’re on!
Oddball: This engine’s been modified by our mechanical genius here, Moriarty. Right? Moriarty: Whatever you say, babe.
[giggles] Oddball: These engines are the fastest in any tanks in the European Theater of Operations, forwards or backwards. You see, man, we like to feel we can get out of trouble, quicker than we got into it. Kelly: [looking skeptical] Got any other secret weapons? Oddball: Well, yeah, man, you see, like, all the tanks we come up against are bigger and better than ours, so all we can hope to do is, like, scare 'em away, y’know. This gun is an ordinary 76mm but we add this piece of pipe onto it, and the Krauts think, like, maybe it’s a 90mm. We got our own ammunition, it’s filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes pretty pictures, scares the hell outta people! And we have a loudspeaker, when we go into battle we play music, very loud. It kind of… calms us down.
Maybe if there were enoguh people intersted you could do a Kelly’s Heroes Group build.So it would be Tigers/T-34, modified Shermans, and jeeps,halftracks and dios and the person woud have to tell which scene it is from. Just an idea.
