As the title says, I’m reasearching a Sherman V of the Royal Marines Armoured Support Group on D-Day, that carried the name ‘Fox’.
A photo of just the front of this vehicle is in the public domain (i tried unsuccessfully to attach a copy to this thread), but I’m trying to find out if anyone knows the ‘T’ number that this vehicle carried?
I’ve seen a few models of it, and one of these had ‘T-228378’ but I’m not sure where the builder got that number from?
Peddinghaus does a set of 1/16th decals for that but it does not include the T number. At a guess, the guy who added the T number to his model either just guessed it or found it in some records.
Thanks! Yeah, that’s the photo. I have the Star Decals set for this machine in 1:35th scale and also no T number. An excellent set of decals though.
I was also thinking that the guy who built it came up with the number T-228378 randomly but was just wondering if there was anyone who can tell me if this number is likely to have been correct, possibly if it exists in records somewhere or is an educated guess?
I guess if you did enough digging and had access to the right records you could find out. But that would be a lot of work. Unfortunatly you may have just one image of a vehicle, and thats if your lucky. I think a lot of the kit decals, especially for vehicles, are guess work. I have built kits of German subjects that include the registration plate, but none of the pics i can find show it.
The good thing is of course, if you can’t find a pic to prove if that is the number, chances are no one else can find one to prove it isn’t.
[quote The good thing is of course, if you can’t find a pic to prove if that is the number, chances are no one else can find one to prove it isn’t.
[/quote]
MMP Books has a ‘work in progress’ pdf file of Commonwealth armoured vehicles, and though they do have FOX listed, there is no known associated WD number. The number used on that build example also is not found on that PDF list, so they probably made a safe guesstimate.
Thanks so much for the very much appreciated info Jack!
Yeah, I have the Star Decals set and there is no WD number for ‘Fox’ but I was interested to learn that the number was present in the old Bison decal set.
That second photo is great-thank you for posting it!
I think it would be safe to say that that number is unreadable and could be just about anything…I’ll try to magnify/enlarge it and see if i can use a filter or something to make out some of those digits.
Thanks once again for the greatly appreciated help!
I know it’s a pain, but sometimes you just have to live with it… Research as good as you can, and then, after your deadline passes, just go with some random number or just good dusting…
Like you might start building the model and research in parallel - and when the the time comes to put the decals on, and you still don’t have the right numbers - well just go with wrong ones!
Peddinghaus do a set including Fox in 1/35 (someone above said 1/16), which I have. That has no T number for Fox either.
I found that the old Bison sets yellowed over time in the packet (and on the model??), which is a big problem for the turret markings. Star don’t seem to suffer that problem.
The production period for Fox, and possibly other RMASG Shermans, was narrow. It’s a non-DV hull but still has the narrow M34 mantlet. Chrysler eliminated the DV slots in Nov 42 and transitioned to the M34A1 mount in Feb 43. So Fox must have been built in that 2-4 month period, although building and shipping are not necessarily contiguous. But that’s still a possible run of about 2,600 vehicles, of which 274 were for Free France.
Assuming that shipping was not unduly delayed, the serials T147191-148162 were allocated to M4A4 received in 1942-43, straddling the likely production period. The next group of M4A4 numbers in 1943 was T148269-148859, followed by T148901-150724.
So T228378 as in the Bison set was NOT an M4A4 number, which is perhaps why Johann eliminated it from the Star re-release. 22-series M4A4 numbers started at 228470.
Hello Peter, excellent info there - is this only found in books, or would you have any web links regarding Sherman serials?
Going by what you have presented here, then the new serial provided by Star Decal T147535 is correct. It actually is also found in the pdf file I linked above and has the nickname WARSPITE. ww2talk also mentions this particular vehicle:
The M4A4 is perhaps better documented on that site compared to some of the other variants, and being a single manufacturer only there are fewer variations and clearer transitions so the production window was easier to establish. Fox is clearly not one of the 1600 or so re-manufactured ex-US training vehicles, and is clearly a new build.
I just thought I’d see if I could place the old Bison number in the right range: which of course it wasn’t.
I would imagine the RMASG M4 numbers would have been close to each other if they were issued as a group new. The Warspite number implies that she was built in the same time frame as Fox, and was therefore probably the same build standard.
I read somewhere - can’t remember where - that the RMASG M4s were “tired tanks”, probably ex training unit, bearing in mind that originally they were not intended to be landed. That might imply that they were an assorted collection, although all were A4s but may not have been all the same build standard. They were certainly not line issue tanks as they didn’t have any of the applique patches retro-fitted.
It’s always intrigued me why the control tanks were M4s and not more Centaurs or even Cavaliers, both of which came in OP variants and were redundant as gun tanks. M4s were useful, and replacement A4s were in short supply by mid-44 in NWE even with the remanufactured ones.
Peter, the RMASG was not formed until 44, so given the dates you listed, it would make sense they were not issued straight to them. So they could have come from other units, maybe when they were upgraded to newer models, or as you say from training units.
I am guessing the group was just given what was laying around. They were dispanded 2 weeks after D-Day, so i guess they only wanted somthing to help get the Marines onto the beach, rather than something that was going to face the best of the German armour.
Thanks Peter, I’m familiar with that Sherman site, but did not know it had that kind of information, but now I do.
As to why the 20 odd Shermans were added to this marine group, probably because they were the most abundant vehicle available at that time. As I understand it, these were regular tanks with an extra radio added, known as Sherman Command.
I have a Dragon M4A4 and a bunch of parts in the stash waiting to become an RMASG tank - at some point in the next century it will take me to work through the stash!
One question I haven’t found the answer to is whether the M4s were fitted with any part of the wading trunking. Some of the Centaurs were wadeproofed, but not all. I can’t see any other signs of wadeproofing on any of the few RMASG photos, so I’m assuming not. I keep looking at the Resicast lower rear trunking set, but it’s at least £15 with shipping and potentially an expensive waste.
Something that has always mystified me is the alignment of the traversing marks with 180 at the front. It makes no sense to me. By default, a ship’s head is always 0 for relative bearings and 180 would be dead astern. These tanks faced forwards and so in the naval gunfire direction manner firing directly over the bows would be 0, not 180, and the numbers would go from 0 to 180 on each side. That’s how I would expect fire to be directed at targets visible to a fire director on the ship: “target bearing Green 20, Red 15 etc”. I assume therefore that they were for compass bearings for indirect fire missions from ashore rather than bearings for direct fire relative to the ship, with the assumption that they would be facing roughly South when approaching the beaches. But unless the ship was anchored or beached with the tanks aligned exactly on the 0-180 N-S axis, the bearings were inaccurate and usless anyway unless an alignment correcting mark was made on the hull. At the max range of the 95mm (4.5 miles), 1 degree out is a miss by about 140 yards. Were the control tanks issued with compasses with which the commander could take direct fire bearings for the Centaurs? Or did he lay on himself and then pass that bearing to the Centaurs?
Note that Warspite has the M34A1 mantlet but doesn’t appear to have the thickened turret cheek and certainly doesn’t have the applique patch, so she was probably built in March or April 43 before the patch became a factory fit - somewhat later than Fox: could be a couple of weeks, could be the best part of 5 months. I said that they may not all have been a uniform build standard. So her T number will most probably have been higher than Fox and almost certainly not from the 42-43 batch.
Interesting that Warspite shows a certain slackness of track. Notice the bumps where the top run passes over the return rollers and the slight drops in front of the idler and behind the sprocket. Very unusual on an M4. Either the track is well stretched and due to have a link or 2 removed or the bogie springs are well sagged. Both imply a well-used tank in need of a bit of maintenance.
On the subject of tracks, those are either T54E2 or T62 steel chevron.
