Painted 1/72nd Scale M4A1 Sherman by PSC

My review  here of the M4A1 Sherman by The Plastic Soldier Company Limited ("PSC") certainly generated a lot of interest going by the number of page hits and also on the TMP thread here, so much so that I note Will Townshend on that thread has admitted to some unfortunate errors for the M4A1 sprue which led to the parts that would allow the Alamein version of the M4A1 Sherman being omitted. This, however, has at least led him to look at options that will allow that version to be done in the future.

As I am not someone who knows his M4A1 from his M4A2 or any other type of Sherman for that matter (although I can probably tell a 105mm version from the size of the gun and I know my Firefly) I gather that from the posts made on the TMP thread  that at best what we are left with is a Sherman kit that can be used for the British 4th Armoured Brigade - "The Black Rats", who fought as part of the famous 7th Armoured Division - "The Desert Rats" in North Africa and latterly in North West Europe.

I had wanted to avoid painting up my vehicles as being from a specific formation as I had wanted to be able to use them for different campaigns and not be affected by the "Oh the so-so Division didn't fight in that particular battle" type of comment that some wargamers can be wont to make but as I wanted to build a 1/72nd scale British force for D-Day and beyond and the Black Rats were apparently the only British unit that used the M4A1 during that campaign, I felt I had no option but to paint the tank up as being from that Brigade.

So what we have is a vehicle that hopefully looks like it is from the British 4th Armoured Brigade, The Royal Scots Greys, A squadron. My "Black Rat" looks more like a demented Kangaroo but from 6ft away it doesn't look too bad.

I used Vallejo Game Colour 72067 "Cayman Green" for the vehicle which was then liberally washed with GordonY's gunk and then the Cayman Green was drybrushed over the surfaces and then the insignia added before giving the vehicle an anti-shine spray, then slapping some brown basetex from Coritani on the tracks and base which was then washed with the now out of production GW Devlan Mud and then static grass applied.

I know a lot of people out there take the time to "dress up" their vehicles with stowage, spare parts, crew kit and so on, which certainly adds a lot of character to the model but (a) I'm too lazy to make own gear for that and (b) if I did do that you would probably be seeing this model sometime in 2013 as it would take me that long to do it!

A brave Tommy from PSC's Late War British Infantry set, grateful for some armour support.

Sorry, but I only have the 1 PSC British Infantryman painted up!

But here is a Lance Corporal from Valiant Miniatures' Late War British Infantry set

The Valiant figure's size making it more difficult for him to hide his bulk behind the tank

Now all I have to do is try reproducing the Black Rat/ Demented Kangaroo on the other 2 vehicles from the kit..............