Friday, February 17, 2017

Warlord Games plastic M4A4 Sherman V

The first of the three Warlord Games Sherman V tanks has now reached the "as finished as it gets" stage.
 The hull is not too bad, the appliqué armour is not quite square and there are proportion issues relating to the transmission casing (if you check the original photographs they have the division insignia and tactical sign in the gaps between bolted rib and the bulge of the final drive cover) and the gap between the appliqué on the front hoods and the top bolts of the transmission cover are insufficient to comfortably fit Rubicon spare track (there is no way that the supplied spare track would fit - see earlier post).

The turret is rather crude, especially compared to the previous M4 kit.

The fixed gun position does seem a retrograde step and it appears to be projecting an appreciable distance forward (a similar problem plagues the Rubicon Panzer III). The commander's hatch is also very crude, the hatch parts leaving extremely noticeable gaps and appearing to be very thick. The mantlet is also a noticeably different shape to that of the M4 kit and the old Rubicon 75mm M4A3 kit.



Overall it is okay, filling the gap in available Shermans, especially for British modellers and gamers but is not really state of the art.

Here are some comparison photographs with the Warlord Sherman I.
 The difference in the turret and the mantlet is noticeable in this shot and the one below.