Hi all it’s me again with another wreck. This time it’s a quick OOTB Sherman in the PTO. The kit is from Italeri with a few additional items added such as the nails on the hatches. This is my very first Sherman so I have 0 knowledge of the tank so all you Shermaholics go easy on me. I mainly built this model as a how-to guide on doing a burnt out/destroyed tank.
I managed to get some quality bench time in today and got all the spraying done. here is how it looks at the moment.
It’s a bit bright and colorful but the up coming weathering should take care of that. I kinda like the Sherman after building and painting the guy. I’m not too found of the Italeri kit and will do a Dragon kit next time, a real wreck.
Wow…you produce the best burnt-out AFV’s I’ve ever seen…[Y][Y]…nice to see the WIP beginings of the effect starting on the front hull and more advanced stages of effects on the turret…
I mentioned this on another site but be mindful of the positions of your hatches. They were heavy and would either be shut or fully open and locked in place. No in between positions for them
Rob, I really love your work. I’ve seen several of your burnt out hulks before and they are very impressive! I"m curious, do you follow some sort of reference photo(s) for each of your builds? Or are you that familiar with the subject that it comes naturally? You really seem to know how to make plastic look like rusty metal. Good work so far.
Hi gents, sorry for my late response, I haven’t had much PC or bench time this week. I spent a couple of days pumping water out of my basement. You guys who live up this way know about the rain and the flooding, not fun.
I did manage to get a couple of hours in and the Sherman is just about done. I hope to have this wrapped up in time for next weekends show .
Roy thanks for the tip on the hatches, I did take off the turret hatches and glued them on in the fully open position. The one hatch keeps coming off so I’ll glue it on one last time once the tank is mounted to the base.
To answer your question, no I don’t play with fire in my spare time. Although I have thought about torching an old car and keeping it in the yard as reference [:D] I use reference photos found on the internet and whatever books I have. I do rely on personal experience to guide me and also years of building wrecks. It’s all practice and experimenting to get the right effects.
Here are a couple of pics of the progress so far. The first pic is of “Davy Jones” two weeks into the battle for Iwo Jima when it was knocked out. I used this only pic as my reference.
Just some final stuff to do then it’s done and onto a base.
The 16penny nails were welded to the hatches to keep the Japs from prying them open, atleast that’s what I read. It also gives the model some character I think. Some tanks had wire cages instead of the spikes. This is my first Sherman so I still have some learning to do before I start another. The next one will be from a Dragon kit and more of a wreck than a burn out.
I did manage to find a little snippet about the nails on the hatches and according to said site they claimed it was done to provide an airspace so that when satchel charges thrown by the Japanese would not explode directly against the hatches. The added airspace would help to deaden the effect of the explosion. I don’t know how correct this is, or indeed it could be a combo of both the explination you read and the one I did. But it does sound plausible.
Hey Brian, that makes lots of sense too. I really wasn’t sure about a Jap trying to climb aboard the tank, especially with Marine infantry around and the tank being so high. Like I said this is my first Sherman and PTO model so there is still a lot to learn. The next model might have the concrete added to the side of the upper hull, thought that it would be interesting to do.
Thanks for the info, I’ll file that away for the future.
What was the purpose of the burnt boards? Have you found out what that was about? An old sign maybe…to suggest that Davey Jones wasn’t movin’ when it was burnt?
Some of the Shermans on Iwo had planks mounted across the boggies, kinda like the German Schurzen. The B&W pic is the only one I have of Davy Jones as a wreck. Since the Sherman was known for going up in flames when hit, it makes for perfect wreck modelling.
