Omaha Beach M4A1

M4A1 Sherman – D-Day

With the recent push by the major manufacturers in the direction of 1/48 scale, I found myself with mixed feelings about this approach. Having been involved with 1/35 scale for so long, I saw the reasons behind the push, but was concerned about the manufacturer’s resources becoming totally committed to 48 scale and neglecting 35 scale. I must admit that so far my fears have not come true and kits in 1/35 scale are still pouring into the market.

That said, I still did not have a desire to build anything in 1/48 scale being so firmly rooted in the 1/35 world. But there are some people out there that just will not hear of a person sticking in one scale and not venturing outside of their comfort zones. One of these people is a gentleman by the name of Brian K. who is quite well known amongst the internet modelling crowd as

J-Hulk. In early January of 2006 a package arrived at my door from Japan containing Tamiya’s latest 1/48 entry, the M4A1 Sherman.

I cracked the kit open and was pleasantly surprised with the quality that Tamiya had put into the kit. The engineering of Tamiya remains second to none with this release with all the parts flash-free. The inclusion of link and length tracks was a major improvement over the trend to indies that we have seen in recent years in Sherman kits. The only part I really didn’t like is the metal lower hull which admittedly give some weight to this small kit but makes any “adjustments” nearly impossible, but the good news is that Tank Workshop has already released a resin replacement for those who want to go a little further with their builds. Unfortunately, Tamiya also continued their trend of not including the sponson bottoms with this kit but this is a minor fix with some card stock.

I’ve always wanted to build a Sherman approaching the beaches of either Normandy or somewhere in the Pacific Theatre. I decided almost right from the start that I would make this build doing just that. I built the kit straight out of the box with the exception of a Finemolds barrel that Brian had included with this gift. I then ventured off to create a Seafaring Shermie by scratchbuilding the wading stacks and waterproofing the kit as per the Technical Manuals of the M4A1. Once this conversion was done, the entire model was painted and lightly weathered using Tamiya acrylics. I then moved onto the base. I started with a deep picture frame that I picked up at a local dollar store. I inserted a piece of Styrofoam with a hole cut in it the size of the finished model. The model was then placed in this hole and plaster of paris was used to bulk in the “water”. I used plastic wrap (Saran) to press down on the plaster to smooth the surface and to create the wake and ripples on the surface. This surface was then painted in various grey tones with the wake highlighted with white. Three coats of Golden extra heavy gel medium was then applied to the surface to give the impression of depth. Gel medium was also used to create the rivulets of water flowing off of the rear deck of the Sherman. The surface was then drybrushed with white to create highlights on the water surface. 2 coats of Future was then applied to give a gloss effect to both the water’s surface and to the areas of the Sherman that would have been submerged or splashed during its’ run into the beach.

I am quite pleased with my first attempt at making water and will someday make another Sherman making a splash somewhere.

This model was built as part of the

“Curvie Shermie Group Build” on The LEM Forums

and represents a Sherman approaching Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Special thanks to Brian for inducing me to build this

1/48 scale kit.

Completed Pictures

Click on thumb nails for larger pictures.