A few years ago I made one of these:
1/72nd scale and about complete and ready to sail on my local boating lake.
Then a couple of years ago I bought one of these:
Heng Long Sherman 1/16th scale and pretty much ready to trundle round my garden, and lob BBs around.
A friend of mine owed me a favour or two and he started work on the Sherman to turn it into one of my favourite WW2 tanks the Sherman VC Firefly. This went well:
With a new barrel and lots of nice bits scratch built or cast in resin, or 3d printed,
Until...
Someone pointed out that the Vc Sherman has a longer chassis and larger gaps between the bogies than the Heng Long model.
Oh well, some more work (which I didn't have to do for a change) and it became a Ic Firefly.
The work was mainly changing the stowage boxes, and some other details but now I have a 1/16th Sherman iC that is ready for painting.
And that brings me to the new project.
This
is 1/72nd scale.
And this
is 1/16th scale.
You can buy r/c LCM 3s but despite the box art of Airfix version, the Landing Craft Mechanical wasn't really that good with a Sherman (they preferred an LCM 6, which was 6ft longer), and I was tempted to have a go at an LCT Mk4 such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJa6oPgCaH8- which used to be a few miles from me until they raised it and took it away for refurbishment.
However that would be massive, and I did still have the plans for the LCT Mk5.
So the plan is to
a) Get the Sherman painted and weathered as a troop tank from 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry from the 11th Armoured Division.
b) Build a 1/16th scale LCT Mk5 - working ramp and anchor winch, four sections, three motors and rudders, and paint as the 1/72nd version.
This will be a long - and a BIG job. This puppy is has a 2ft beam and is 7ft long (84 inches) with a draught of a couple of inches. The construction is pretty simple but there are things to think about - bracing the joints and sides, how to join the hull sections and make them water-tight, and how to brace the hull so that the bow and the stern don't sag under their own weight.
I will keep this post updated.
Some more pictures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJa6oPgCaH8
This is the Vc version but it does show that lovely turret
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