Firefly Ic "Farewell to Armour"

[Beekster]

  This is actually the last Dragon Sherman I built, and it's been essentially done for a couple of years.    It represents an Alco-built tank from the spring of 1943 with factory-specific details, supplied via lend-lease and converted to a Firefly.  I experimented for a while with weathering using watercolor washes, didn't like the effects, and washed it all off.  So the model is essentially un-weathered, save for some drybrushing to make the paint look less uniform.  The subject is from A Squadron Coldstream Guards, Guards Armoured Division, on June 9, 1945.  This was the occasion of the "Farewell to Armour" parade for the Guards regiments, held before Monty himself.   The Guards all reverted to their traditional role as infantry in the wake of WW2.  They had a week to spiff up for the parade, and so all supplemental track armor and unofficial stowage was removed and the tanks were repainted using captured Kriegsmarine stocks.  The tanks were gray, various fittings were black, the tow ropes were red, and the radio aerials striped red/white.  Probably the most unusual paint job ever applied to an in-service tank.  I finally decided that since the tanks were all cleaned and painted for the parade, weathering was unnecessary.  The tanks were all lined up on the airfield where they had been bivouacked for nearly a month prior to the parade.








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[BUCKY]

A very neat tank! Thanks for posting this one!

[JCON]

Looks fine to this guy!!!

[MARCO]

Interesting and plenty of history! Nice model, great work!

[ARMORGUY]

Cool Sherman subject sir, bit of an oddball if you ask me, with its red tow ropes.

[Beekster]

Feb 23, 2018 8:15:34 GMT -6 ARMORGUY said:

Cool Sherman subject sir, bit of an oddball if you ask me, with its red tow ropes.

Oh very much the oddball.  Makes me wonder if the whole paint job wasn't some kind of middle finger extended to the British brass for deciding that the Guards Armoured Division would be disbanded and the units converted to infantry so soon after a very successful war in tanks.  The only formations within Guards Armoured to remain under armour post-war were the reconnaissance assets in the armoured car regiments.

[Dukemaddog]

Wow, that is an interesting and unusual tank. I'm glad you explained; I thought it was a black and white pic at first, then I saw the colors. I'm also thinking the same thing, after all, they had just finished fighting the German grey army so painting the tanks grey would have been a rather specific message.

Magnificent work Beekster; this is most impressive!

[JEFF]

Interesting subject and a great looking build, Beeks.

[cliffj (R.I.P.)]

Very cool!! I do like your work on the different variations of the Sherman tank!

[Beekster]

Mar 23, 2018 8:23:03 GMT -6 cliffj (R.I.P.) said:

Very cool!! I do like your work on the different variations of the Sherman tank!

Thank you, sir!  It really is a passion with me.  When I got out of building airplanes back around the turn of the century, I switched to armor.  The Sherman quickly became my primary focus because there are so many variants.  With several basic versions during WW2 plus cousins like the TDs and SP guns and older siblings of the Lee/Grant and Ram series, there's a lot to choose from right there.  The subject field opens up immensely post-war, with rebuilt variants and mild-to-wild conversions done by numerous foreign operators.  One can build dozens of models and have no two exactly alike.

[Buddho]

Beautiful finish on this one.

[doogie]

Love unusual subjects, great work on this one.