What To Do With This Lesser Known M4 Variant?
Look What I Found - And What Is It?
Another interesting - and forgotten - find while clearing up some of my stuff that litters my man-cave was this 1/76 Fujimi US M4A3 105mm tank kit. Now, this is kinda unusual for several reasons, not least because it's a Japanese kit in 1/76 scale, something I didn't know existed (the normal 'international standard' for 'braille scale' models being 1/72)…
[About Fujimi on Wikipedia: Fujimi Mokei Co., Ltd. (フジミ模型株式会社, Fujimi Mokei Kabushiki Gaisha) - link opens in new tab/window.]
On closer inspection, things became curiouser and curiouser, as the model is of the US 105mm gunned Sherman and this had me asking myself 'why did I buy THAT'? 😯
The only 1/76 military vehicles that I had purchased recently were the British tanks for my 'Normandy To Berlin' project… SO, where does a ostensively AMERICAN tank fit into that collection?
105mm Gunned Shermans In British Use
British nomenclature for Shermans was by mark numbers for the different hulls with letters for differences in armament and suspension: A for a vehicle with the 76 mm gun, B for the 105 mm howitzer, C for the 17-pounder gun, and Y for any vehicle equipped with horizontal volute spring suspension (HVSS), e.g. British operated M4A1(76) was known as Sherman IIA. [M4's in service with the British (&C) forces with the standard 75mm gun were viewed as just that - 'standard', and as such did not require an alphabetical affix.]
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| Above: Example of the 105mm gunned Sherman Mk.1(B) deployed in Italy, where it was more common in British & Commonwealth service than it was later in Northern Europe after D-Day. |
The M4 (105) was produced from February 1944, with the M4A3 (105) coming online from May 1944. In British & Commonwealth service these were designated the 'Mk. 1 ' and 'MK. IV ' for the hull type and the affix of 'B' for the 105mm gun. Finally, a real rarity, was the further addition of a 'Y' for Shermans with the HVSS ('Easy Eight' type) of suspension. So… My Fujimi US M4A3 (105) HVSS Sherman kit *under British service* would be a 'Mk. IVBY'…(IF it existed. Bear with me…) 😶
As to numbers used by British & Commonwealth Forces WIkipedia states (sorry the only source I could find) that the British received 598 M4 (Mk.1) 105s but does NOT state how many Mk. IV 105s were delivered. The use of 105 M4s seem to have been something of an 'emergency contingency' deployment and seems to stem from the Italian campaign where British and Canadian elements were issued these tanks for 'infantry support'. (I have seen posts on forums stating that the Canadians received the Mk. IV 105s in modest numbers.)
Note: For brevity I am going to term British & Commonwealth forces as ‘B&C’ from now on - unless I specifically mean either just British elements or individual Commonwealth elements.
Now, the big question is - we know the B&C used the Mk. IV (M4A3), and the 105mm gun ('B') and even the HVSS suspicion version ('Y'), BUT did they used the Mk. IVBY combining all of these aspects??? Sorry if this is getting confusing - but welcome to the wacky world of Sherman tank variants. 😂
Note: While there is a British designation affix for the HVSS variant of the Sherman - ‘Y’ - this seems to be a case of the British War Department making provision for the possibility of it’s use while there does not seem to be an actual deployment in numbers…
Google: “Extremely limited British use: The Tank Museum and The Sherman Tank Site state that Britain only received five M4A2 (76)W HVSS tanks, likely for evaluation, and not for widespread use.”
The fact that there is provision made for a wide variety of type designations - Mk. IV + B + Y - does not necessarily mean that there was a exact tank of this exact combination of elements in B&C service, just that - being good accountants - the War Department ensured that there was a classification ready should such a need arise for it's use! I have NOT seen one photographic example of a MK.IVBY online.
The one 105mm armed M4 that I can be assured of is the Mk1B, the combo *without* the HVSS suspension (‘Y’)…
This makes the inclusion of the Fujimi M4A3(105) kit in my 'Normandy to Berlin British Tanks' project questionable as I cannot verify that the Mk.IVBY existed in the wild (the tank museum video does state that 'samples' of the M4A3(105) HVSS were sent to the UK for testing, but not that they were formally adopted or deployed).
‘Not Our Cup Of Tea’!
So - in conclusion - (and unless new evidence comes to light) the M4A3 (105) model as is is NOT suitable for a British or Commonwealth tank for either the Italian or Normandy (+) campaigns. Which - thinking about it - is probably why this model was set aside as I probably went through all this research after I originally bought it. (Light bulb moment.)
Why, then, did I buy it in the first place? At a guess, I probably saw the picture included below and I misidentified this kit as the same model Sherman, when - of course - the photo is a Mk. 1B (without the HSVV suspension). Ooops.
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| Above: The reference photo that led me to believe that M4 105s were ‘a thing’ in B&C service and why I probably bought the kit - not realising that the photo is a ‘Mk.1’ with ‘VVSS’ suspension and NOT the M4A3 with ‘HVSS’ suspension as depicted in the Fujimi kit. Oh boy! Photo Source: Osprey Books - ‘The Sherman Tank in British Service 1942-1945’ |
By the time D-Day and beyond came along the more familiar infantry support/bunker buster tank used by the British was the Churchill AVRE, a far more interesting tank which made the 105mm M4 a little relevant as it was during the Italian campaign (IMHO).
SO… NO to a 105 Sherman (this time). But it was an interesting subject to look into.
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