DML/Dragon

1/35 M4 Sherman "Composite Hull" PTO

Kit Number: 6441

Reviewed by  Andrew Birkbeck, IPMS# 27087

MSRP: $54.95 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Normally with my reviews of model kits, I steer well clear of technical and historical notes. I do this firstly, because I am not an "expert", and so don’t have much to offer that can’t be better explained by someone more knowledgeable than I. Secondly, I am not a "rivet counter", and so usually don’t care if a model has one or two small inaccuracies here and there. I love to build models, and so am usually after a fairly accurate kit, but more importantly I desire a well detailed model of a subject that strikes my fancy. I make a rare exception here, as I feel what I have to say from a historical and technical perspective has an important bearing on this particular kit. So hang with my while I give you my potted history of the M4 Composite Hull Sherman. The M4 Composite Hulled Shermans were built solely by the Chrysler Corporation’s Detroit Tank Arsenal, with only about 800 or so being completed. At the time of their construction, the Sherman series of tanks was undergoing a period of great and rapid change, thanks to a flood of requests for changes due to ongoing Stateside testing by the military, and requests for changes coming in from the field of battle. This said, the majority of the Composite Hulled Shermans had the later VVSS suspension with the upswept trailing arms, and most had the large driver/co-driver hatches. Turning to the turrets, the Composite Hulled Shermans appear from photographic evidence to have had only two types of turrets: the mid production low bustle turrets with the commander’s gun ring hatch assembly and without a loader’s hatch, and also missing the so called pistol port. This type of turret also appears to have always had the cast in cheek armor on the right side of the turret. The other type of turret fitted was the early high bustle turret, with the commander’s gun ring hatch, an oval loader’s hatch, and a pistol port. So much for the history, but it is very important, as you will shortly see. Now onto the kit itself: this consists of 12 sprues worth of parts, and of various lineages, together with a photo etched fret, DS100 glue-able single piece tracks, and a first rate sheet of decals covering markings for four tanks, printed by Cartograph of Italy. DML/Dragon’s Sherman series originally started with parts from Italeri’s now ancient M4A1 (76) kit (still a nice kit), upgraded where appropriate, and these have been added to over the years with original tool DML/Dragon parts. As the DML/Dragon parts became more and more prominent, the Italeri parts slipped into the background, but continue to be provided in the kits as "parts not for use". Such is this kit, with perhaps half the parts contained in the kit thus listed as "not for use". Sprue R, which contains among other things the main upper hull part, is a brand new tooling. Construction is fairly straight forward, commencing in Section 1 with assembly of the bogies and road wheels. DML/Dragon gives the modeler two choices of wheels, the spoked and pressed type, with the latter being two parts each. The kit gives you three different options for drive sprockets, and two choices for idler wheel type. The bogies themselves are the correct raised arm variety, though a separate set of earlier style bogies are included in the "spare parts". Everything progresses smoothly through this section. Sections 2 through 4 involve assembly of the lower and upper hull. The "composite" main upper hull part (front of the hull was cast, this being welded to a rear section consisting of welded plates) is a brand new tooling, and has excellent detail. I chose to use the injection molded front mudguard parts, R12, rather than the photo etched parts, MA16, because I had a bear of a time with the PE mudguards on the last DML Dragon kit I reviewed. However, the injection parts do come with PE detail parts, which I did use. The light guards, front and rear, together with the siren guard come in either injection plastic or PE, and I chose to use the injection parts again. Sadly, these parts appear to be from the original Italeri molds, and really are in need of replacing with some state of the art injection parts, as the ones supplied are over-scale in thickness. I took my Dremel tool and thinned them down somewhat. I also drilled out the clear plastic headlights, and installed MV lenses. As for the tools, DML/Dragon gives you injection plastic tools together with PE parts for the tie downs. I wasn’t happy with them, so instead opted to try out some of Formation’s lovely resin tools, with cast on straps. Not that the kit PE wouldn’t work, I just happened to have the resin ones handy, and wanted to try them out. We then move on to Section 5, and it is here, dear members, that we run into a tricky situation, for this is the construction sequence for the turret. And as I mentioned earlier, in my historical introduction, the Composite Hulled Sherman’s had only two known types of turrets, the mid production low bustle, which was minus a pistol port, and with cast in cheek armor, OR the early high bustle turret. And clearly on the outside of the box, the kit promises two types of turrets. One is a late low bustle, with pistol port and oval loaders hatch, which is useless if historical accuracy is your modeling goal. The other turret option is an early high bustle, and would be fine for use, except that whoever set up the mold machine for DML/Dragon did so incorrectly, and blocked off the lower turret ring section of the mold. You therefore get all the parts for an early high bustle turret, minus the lower turret ring part. And no, the turret ring from the low bustle turret won’t fit. However, thanks to DragonCare, DML/Dragon’s customer care service, I quickly managed to get hold of the correct high bustle turret ring, so I was able to build a correct version of the Composite Hull after all! And very nice the turret parts are, with subtle cast texture in the appropriate areas, along with crisply rendered casting numbers/symbols. There is one area to look out for, and that is in Section 6, where the instructions show the assembled gun and mantlet being installed into the turret. The instructions neglect to show that part B34 needs to be installed in the turret gun mantlet opening. Other than this small error, everything went swimmingly with the turret build. The last stage of construction involves the installation of the towing cable and its attachment points, together with the sand shield attachment strips, all made up of photo etched parts. I managed to get the bases for the tow cable clamps in place fine, but catapulted the tops of the clamps across the room from my tweezers, so had to replace them with Formation parts! The sand shield mounting strips have small tabs protruding from one edge, but I could find no photographic evidence of their existence in my reference books, so filed them off, and the strips went on without any issues. The tracks are formed from DML/Dragon’s glue-able DS100 rubber/plastic, and are the best in the business for such one-piece tracks: very well detailed, and easy to paint and mount onto the model. Lastly we have the decals/markings, and due to the turret issue previously mentioned, "Houston, we have a problem": almost certainly three of the four marking options provided, and most certainly "Southern Cross" of the 44th Tank Battalion, all were low bustle turreted tanks without the pistol port. This therefore left only one option open to me with the parts I had: "Bushmaster" of the 763rd Tank Battalion, of which an excellent reference photograph exists on page 33, top, of that old (but still great) standby, Bruce Culver’s "Sherman in Action". The beauty of this photo is that it shows the modeler exactly which characteristics the turret has, and it is clearly an early high bustle! So where do we stand with this kit? Well, there is a major technical error regarding the turret parts contained in the kit as received for review. However, thanks to DragonCare, I was able to obtain the missing high bustle turret ring, and accurately complete the model. One presumes that DML/Dragon, being aware of this error, will change their mold set up and include the appropriate turret ring in future pressings of the kit. They do however need to sort out the lower bustle turret issue. Either they need to change the markings on offer, providing correct markings for all high bustle examples, or they need to retool things so as to provide the correct, pistol-port-less example of the low bustle turret. I DO recommend this kit to all IPMS members, as it is extremely well detailed, and being the only injection molded Composite Hulled Sherman on the market in 35th scale, is an important variant to add to your collection. Just make sure you watch out for the turret issue. My sincere thanks to Dragon Models USA for providing this kit to IPMS USA for review, and for allowing me such a fun build, and to exercise my little gray cells doing some fun research. Special thanks to Bruce Culver, for helping me sort out the intricacies of Composite Hulled Shermans, together with all those helpful souls over at the Allied Discussion Forum on www.missing-lynx.com Check out this and other great DML/Dragon kits at their web site.