King & Country
1st Lieutenant
- Joined
- May 23, 2005
- Messages
- 4,937
ALL ABOUT OUR ALL NEW, ALL-METAL M4 SHERMAN
Entering service in 1942, it was used extensively by the U.S. Military and virtually all of their allies primarily Britain and its Empire as well as Soviet Russia.
With a crew of five it initially mounted a 75mm gun and three machine guns. Later Shermans were up gunned to 76mm cannon with some mounting the 105mm howitzer.
Automotively it was very reliable and capable of a top speed of 24mph (38kph). One of its chief drawbacks however was its tendency to catch fire after it was hit, mainly due to a large proportion of its main gun ammunition being stored inside the turret.
IN ACTION
A total of almost 50,000 Shermans (and its variants) were produced by the end of WW2 and it saw action in virtually every theatre of the that war from the frozen Russian Steppes to the blazing hot sands of North Africa and the islands of the Pacific and all points in between.
After the end of the European and Pacific wars a large number of Shermans saw further action during the Korean War, the various Arab / Israeli conflicts and other ‘hot spots’ around the world.
THESE ALL-NEW, ALL-METAL M4 SHERMANS
Back in early 2023 K&C was already planning some important new additions to its relatively new, all-singing, all-dancing, all-metal series of iconic WW2 fighting vehicles.As mentioned our first obvious and most commercial project had to be the mighty Pzkpfw Ⅵ better known as the ‘Tiger’!
Having said that it was equally obvious that we had to have a suitable Allied tank to oppose the powerful ‘Tiger’ and the only choice, by far, was the humble but always very useful M4 Sherman.
ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
By a happy coincidence, at this same 2023 meeting, someone suggested that K&C’s development and manufacturing schedule would lead us well into the summer of 2024 and that reminded me that this particular June would, in addition be, the 80[SUP]th[/SUP] Anniversary of ‘Operation Overlord’ the Allied invasion of the Normandy beaches and the battle, over the next weeks and months to liberate the rest of Normandy and much of France.And so the work began to select a suitable, early-mid war basic M4 Sherman. Fortunately for us we had a large number of different books on the Sherman which gave us a raft of ‘possibilities’ to replicate in 1:30 scale.
As you can see from the photographs and our new ‘Sherman Video’ K&C has produced a great number of different Shermans over the years… more than the rest of our competitors combined!
That allowed us to go back and see where we could improve on our earlier models and incorporate all of the special features that our new line of all-metal tanks embody such as strong, sturdy diecast hulls and turrets together with flexible moving metal tracks, running wheels and full suspension. Add to that fully-opening hatches, three crew figures for each tank and additional packs of supplies and individual sandbags.
NORMANDY & THE LIBERATION OF FRANCE
These two new all-metal M4 Shermans represent M4s from two different U.S. Army Armored Divisions – DD382(SE) belongs to the 37[SUP]TH[/SUP] Tank Battalion of the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] Armored Division. These M4s chose cartoon figures to paint on the side hulls of their vehicles. In this case the painting representing ‘TONTO’, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick from a popular radio show of that time.Our second, all-metal Sherman DD381(SE) belongs to the U.S. Army’s 6[SUP]th[/SUP] Armored Division which landed on ‘Utah Beach’ on 18 July,1944 and immediately went into action in the Cotentin Peninsula before moving on to liberate Brest and the Brittany Peninsula.
‘SPECIAL EDITIONS’
Please note: Each of these ‘Special Edition’ M4 Shermans comes in very limited numbers. Just 200 pieces of ‘DD381(SE) #17’ are available while there are only 300 pieces of DD382(SE) ‘TONTO’ on sale.Every one of these M4 Shermans comes in its own handsome, full-colour presentation box together with a numbered certificate. To avoid disappointment order your preferred all-metal M4 Sherman as soon as possible. First Come… first served.
Each M4 Sherman is US$419 with first deliveries scheduled for Mid-Late June 2024.
