ajmac

Too true Adrian.... as normal. I know I was being rather simplistic, but just wanted to show that it wasn't a waste of production capacity :-) Although, I was under the impression that the 77mm HE round was considerably better than the 17 Pdr HE round and that overall the 77mm was a more acturate gun than the 17 Pdr. Having said that it didn't have the armour penetration of the original 17 Pdr. If you consider the Comet as a replacement for the existing British armour then it ticked all the boxes. Yes the Centurion was an all round better vehicle but it was in the next size bracket up! Strangly in reality when you think about the German armour threat the British needed the Comet and Centurion in June 44 tailing off to a Sherman / Cromwell force in 1945:-D

Considering all the rubbish we manufactured during the war.... Comet was rather good :-) Better Offroad than Sherman/Cromwell/Churchill Faster than Sherman/Churchill More powerful AP round than Sherman/Cromwell/Churchill Thicker armour than Sherman/Cromwell Both Centurion and Comet shared many design features.

You see much written about the Pershing at the end of The Second World War but the Comet seems to get a rough deal.... considering how good it was:-\ Does anyone have details concernong the deployment of the first Comets in December 1944 in NW Europe? I've seen the odd photo but never read any combat reports or seen any data concerning the overall performance of the vehicle, it seems to have been somewhat over shadowed by the Centurion. I appreciate that there will not be many Tank vs Tank accounts as the Germans didn't have many left by that time! PS. Did any of the Finnish Comets come to the UK for restoration following the auction a couple of years ago?

It wouldn't be worth the bother, since as we have seen from the threads concerning Shermans: There are already the odd one or two around :-) If it were a Tiger 1 or.... no..... make that ANY German WW2 armour the forward negotiation team from various collectors would already be resident an a Tripoli hotel! As we know there is nothing that can't be restored, but you don't start with the worst vehicle if there are others around, or at least I wouldn't, it would be a waste of money.

Parallels with Classic Cars. This used to be my main hobby, having owned a Spitfire and a TR6 and briefly a pre-war Standard. Over the past 9 years the prices have stayed roughly static bar a little for inflation, but over the last 6 months things have started to change.... Your run of the mill classic has stayed static if not dropped slightly for poor condition examples BUT the good condition cars and higher price bracket vehicles such as E-types and the like have been climbing upwards, even some of 60's Triumphs are starting to climb. It has been put down to investment - if you are investing you want a 'like new' usable 'fancy' vehicle. e.g. If you have £45,000 why leave it in the bank when you can buy a good E-Type and enjoy it. Personally I can't fully draw parallels with MVs as MVs aren't that usable and don't have the same wide appeal as for instance a 60's Sports car. As soon as we talk WW2 armour, that is a different story, parallels there lie firmly with the Vintage Sports Car people, whom 85% are Millionaires. I know some who are regular* guys, but they are few and far between, mainly having entered into the hobby well before the cars became popular and expensive. *Own farms with shops and deal in cash :-) I remember back in Normandy 94, one of the M5 Stuarts had a gearbox failure, the guys were stripping it out and a reconditioned replacement was being overnight shipped from the UK down to a field in Normandy to fix it! No..I thought..I haven't got that kind of money:-\ PS the M5 owner owned an Industrial Estate in the Midlands - ah, that's where he got all the money:idea:

I just located this photo from the Detroit Arsenal (Chrysler) - who built the M4A4 - it shows the first M4 built in the factory once M4A4 production had come to an end. I'd not seen it before.

No I didn't know the detail of the M4A3 identification using the engine cover support posts, all intresting stuff. Question: When did the M4A4s finally 'dry up' as far as new supply under lend-lease from the US? There must be government records detailing what arrived and when, has anyone looked through the records office? I get the impression from researching Fireflies that by mid 1944 we had run out and had all but switched to converting run out model M4s and possibly later still older M4s (as Adrian hinted at some time ago).

Here are a few shots I've located on Spanish language google searches.. All Argantina spec Fireflies, the photos from the docks are nice, 1978 being shipped to a trouble spot with Chile.. aparently the Chileans brought 100ish M51 Isherman Shermans from Israel to combat the threat from Argantina... that would have been intresting...

The rough Sherman production data which is readily available - simply shown as on a calendar. I'm sure there are some real errors, but I'm simply showing published data from one source. It's amazing what you find to pass the time in an Oil company camp :-)

Following on from the post concerning the Home Guard, here is a photo of the few bits that I have to hand from the box that I was given.

Jack, The photo is an M4A1 76mm with HVSS*. That suspension type didn't appear until late 1944 and initially on the US army's 'chosen' Sherman type: the M4A3, that's the one with the V8 engine. They are oft termed the 'easy eight' as the original test vehicle was designated M4A3E8. Although M4A1E8's were produced during the war (so some sources say) I don't know if any got to Europe, I've never done a photo hunt**. I did a graph of Sherman production a while ago, which gives a good idea at a glance of when and where they were produced. It was only based on one source and I have already spotted some odd bits and pieces. *'Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension' easily identified by the VERY wide tracks introduced to drop the vehicles ground pressure, so that the Sherman wasn't quite so poor 'off-road'. **Adrian will fill in the blanks and then some:-D

Yes, the same as in Kellys Heroes. Dry Stowage = Main Gun ammunition is stored in standard steel none armoured racks. Wet Stowage = Main Gun ammunition is stored in water filled racks to try and reduce the burn tendency of earlier Shermans.

Didn't the late Chrysler built M4s have the cast front? If they all did then frontal ID shouldn't be too bad. Like you say nightmare, when I first got a WW2 armour intrest in the early 90s I would walk around the back of a Sherman before making any descision as to what model it was (M4A1s accepted!) it's the most decisive way if your not looking through photos.

A visual aid to identification...

A couple of photos found on the web from Slovenia, one in the national museum and one on a hill side photographed by a holidaymaker - I like the graffiti. They give a good idea of the Sherman spec used in Yugoslavia post war. As Adrian said before: M4A3s with 76mm upgrade in existing turret. (I always find it difficult to tell late model M4A2s and M4A3s appart from the front....)

I should read more carefully next time... I was sure it said Slovakia :-) So it should be adjusted thus: More detailed info would be interesting :-) 1) Not required - quite a lot of info already about... although Hannos input is always eye opening. 2) US I imagine, re Kellys Heroes:-D 3) I wouldn't be surprised, although I've not seen any Sherman photos, only Hellcats & M36s and many of them came to the UK when the wars finished in the late 90s - with Russian Diesel engine conversions I thought. PS. I promise not to post so rashly in the furture:sweat:

More detailed info would be interesting :-) 1) Hanno - How many and of what spec did Czechoslovakia get at the end of the war from US / UK if any? 2) Are they likely to have come via the USSR once the Soviet influence grew? 3) Is it a fairy story

You can understand why they switched to the cast front on the last M4s, this must have been quite a cost / time saving compared to the earlier fabricated ones. Book. I've just finished a brief read through the 'Sherman Firefly' book by Mark Hayward (a model builder at heart). If this thread or the others knocking around have got your intrest light on I'd recommend it - most logical and 'academic' Sherman book that I've read - not cheap though. I'll send in a review when I have read every word:coffee:

Adrian, Heat treatment of the armour. All that fabrication on the front glacis plate would bugg*r up the properties of the rolled armour, so was the entire plate (once fabricated) heat treated before being welded to the rest of the hull? All Steel castings have to be heat treated once cast otherwise they have mechanical properties not unlike cast Iron :-) Thus I'd presume that the M4A1 hull had to be heat treated, I'd love to have seen some manufacturing photos! I'd also presume that M4A1 hulls were cast in green sand molds burried in the casting floor, I've seen this at Forge Masters when casting 'nodes' for Offshore Platforms - great fun. I've also seen them cutting 12" into the castings to get to porosity and then build it all back up with weld!

How about a 17-pdr? I've seen 25-pdr field guns at shows and some German ATs, but never a 17-pdr AT, any photos? On a further point, my FAC is only for your run of the mill firearms (a .22 Ruger and a .303 No4Mk1), a section 1 I believe. To own a live AT or Field gun do you need a full blown section 5 or is there some kind of section 1 with additions? Lets say you were to import armour with a live 75mm gun... would that be possible with anything other than a section 5?

Another M4A4! They are almost common now:-) FYI. Look at the front bogie, it has the upswept return roller, while the others are the flat type. Of no importance AT ALL, just noticed it.

I remember reading a post asking about book reviews, where do we post them? Any particular place?

Thanks Hanno.

Gents, Any more news on the Argentinean Firefly that was to be 'available soon' from Joop. Is it going to be one of one or one of a small number?

I spoke to an old couple about ten years ago in Wolverhampton (actually a village just to the west), a lovely pair who made me tea and spent hours telling stories all backed up with photos and items he had kept since the war. He even still had his car which he brought in the late 1930s, he showed me a pack with all the papers from the day, including petrol coupons, bill of sale, the lot! Anyway - he was a member of the village Home Guard, Wolverhampton was bombed on and off and on occasion he was on watch as the bombers often turned around over the village on their way back to Germany and dumped bombs. He said they were sitting around on one such night when a message came in that a coppice was on fire, he and his mate tootled off in the car (extra petrol for Home Guard work - apparently) to have a look. When they arrived, they found a stick of incendiary bombs had landed setting fire to some leaf litter, they pilled soil on them to put out the fires and the bombs themselves. One of the incendiaries was a dud and was just poking out of the grass so he pulled it out and chucked it in the car as a souvenir! Being a practical chap he took it home and took it to pieces to see how it worked. He went on to say that he removed the cap and the material inside to make it safe and buried it in the garden (said as he pointed out of the window into the garden) keeping the casing. After further talking he wondered off into the garage saying he had a few wartime things that I might like to have, to a Corus of his wife saying, don't offload your old rubbish on the young man :-) Out of the box came a clip of 5 .303 live blank rounds An antitank projectile (can't remember the name ATM) A great coat with original cap with badge stuffed in the pocket! A photo of him in the garden with the family Dog A Gasmask An LDV Armband And b*gger me that very Incendiary bomb from his story! Later on with my box of bits I left via the garage due to the size of the box. The chap (Peter) went to open the door and hanging on the back was his Home Guard uniform, I asked if it was what it looked like and he replied yes, but he didn't think of including it in the box as he used to use it to work on the car after the war so it was a bit dirty, I said it would be interesting to have a look and he just chucked it in the box saying I was free to bin it when I got home. I'll post a photo when I get home, but I only have a small portion of the items at my new house, most of it is still has my Mom and Dads. :coffee:I spoke to loads of ex-Home Guard back then, recorded some of the conversations and took notes on others - it was a wonderful experience and one that will NEVER be repeated, sadly.