M4 (105 mm) HVSS on Okinawa

[Jakko]

Thanks For today, though, the main education here is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the turret I have … The shell is around 2 to 2.5 mm longer front-to-back than side-to-side, which means it's pretty much impossible to fit and look even reasonably correct From above, Sherman turrets are basically round with a bustle at the back, but this one is oval. Not enough that you'll see it with the naked eye, but it's obvious if you get out the calipers. It's odd because the separate turret ring does seem to be (almost) circular, but that does fit properly in the turret shell! I'm going to have to have some serious thoughts about how to fix this, and I'm not seeing how just yet.

 

[Jakko]

There's a bit of a problem with the dimensions of the Armoured Brigade Models turret: when I put it onto the hull, it proved to be clearly too long front-to-back but slightly too narrow side-to-side. Comparing it to an Asuka turret, the difference is obvious:



It's only about a millimetre and a half, but that's enough to prevent the turret from fitting on the hull at all. With the front in the correct position, it sticks out so far at the back that it would sit on top of the lid over the air intake, which of course would be impossible. It can't even fit between the front of the splash guard and the air intake lid. To get it to sit reasonably well, I filed it down at the front and rear:



It won't really turn, though, because it's also too thick on the left front (you can see it just about hits the splash guard there) but that will be very difficult to correct, so I'll probably leave it like this. I was planning to fit the interior parts, but I'll leave them out after all. Instead, I will glue the turret directly to the hull later on, and likely use the interior parts on an Asuka M4A3 (105 mm) kit that I'm sure I'll end up building someday

 

[kevin]

Improvise, adapt, and overcome.