FGH Sherman Firefly Ic, Liberation of Groningen

[DuckyShot]

I'll be starting this build in the next week or 2. Dragon's Firefly Ic welded hull will be the base. I will be building this kit based on several photos of Firefly's from Fort Garry Horse in Netherlands in early to mid April to make one from the liberation of Groningen. I'm hoping that using felt for the horsehair armor will work, we will find out. If I have to experiment with a couple of options, we will do that. Itt worked for the straw on the last build, we will find something that works for this build.

I didn't realize that Dragon started adding T48 magic tracks with duckbills in with this kit later on in its production life and that was a pleasant surprise when I got this kit. So I may not be using the friul tracks. The kit track looks great tbh, and storing the friul track for a future build is much more compact.

I had the air cleaners sitting around and even though the detail is not that much improved over the kit piece, not having 4 seam lines to clean up each of them will be much nicer. 

Since the sides are covered, I don't have to worry about the registration, so it will get simple markings on the back: B squadron, 52 AOS, 2nd Canadian Armoured brigade flash.

[JCON]

Fun project!!!

[RLFoster]

Cool!!!

[rustybaer]

I'm interested in seeing how those tracks go together....

[JED]

I'm in

[DuckyShot]

Ok, I'm a few sessions into this build. Absolutely loving this Dragon kit. Just feels like the right balance between detail and complexity compared to the RFM and Tasca Shermans that I've done in the past few months. The front is going to have a bunch of pieces left off to make it easier to deal with the horsehair armour.

Really happy with those resin air cleaners, super nice to not have to deal with the seam on the kit pieces and the details on the retaining bolts is quite good.

I've never dealt wit the multi piece muzzle break like on this Aber kit and was pleasantly surprised how well it went together. Will definitely be replenishing the stash with one.

[JCON]

Looking good!!!

[JED]

Looks a nice build

[Robbo]

Nice clean building there

[DuckyShot]

THanks guys, I took it with me while working on call this weekend and got most of the assembly done, excluding road wheels. Will be posting pics soon. hopefully start getting paint on it this week sometime

[DuckyShot]

I've missed a few updates, but here's where I am at tonight. I am working at the horsehair. Felt is working fine. I don't think its going to look absolutely perfect, but I am happy so far. It looks better than the guy I saw online using scotchbrite. I tried a few different glues to attach it, nothing worked, so I'm using 5 minute epoxy.

It was held on with chicken wire, and I tried using a scale chicken wire, but it was too bold. What I plan on doing to give it the look of having chicken wire in it, is to use the chicken wire to mask it when I paint highlights on it and hopefully get a hot of a chicken wire pattern on it. I left off a small section to show the framework underneath which I made with window screen.

[JCON]

Coming along nicely!!!

[JED]

Looking forward to the rest of this, nice work

[Beekster]

Ducky, could you elaborate more on the materials & technique for the "horsehair" cladding? It was some sort of dense camo netting and pretty common for Canadian tanks late in the war, but I've never come up with a good method of replicating it. What you're doing looks pretty darn good so far.

[Robbo]

You've cracked that mate, looks great

[DuckyShot]

Jul 19, 2023 10:58:51 GMT -6 Beekster said:

Ducky, could you elaborate more on the materials & technique for the "horsehair" cladding? It was some sort of dense camo netting and pretty common for Canadian tanks late in the war, but I've never come up with a good method of replicating it. What you're doing looks pretty darn good so far.

Sorry, I didn't see this until now. I am using felt. I went through a bunch of different options and I think felt is the best option for it. I've seen a guy use scotchbrite and it looked like, well, scotchbrite. The felt I'm using is ouot of the wife/kids craft box. Just a sheet of felt. Because its felt, it doesn't attach very easily, it soaks up a lot of things. I ended up using 5 minute epoxy to attach it in most places, stratight to the side of the tank. I've foregone the attachment framework in most places due to complexity and the fact it doesn't seem to be visible in most cases and the horsehair goes right next to the side of the tank. Super glue worked for small attachment areas and only thicker super glue worked. Have you seen other units than Fort Garry Horse using it? I've only ever seen FGH using this camouflage. Today I went through the Groningen archives and there are a lot of pictures in there I've never seen and things I've never seen anyone talk about anywhere else. I'm also curious what your insight and opinon is to my color interpretation. I have no idea what color the horsehair would have been or if it would have been painted. I'm just going brown because that's my best guess.

I have seen multiple forum discussions about horsehair tanks and I've never seen anyone talk about Stuarts, yet FGH did their Stuarts up like this as well and I only know that because I found 5 pics in the Groningen archives with them. I've never seen or heard of that until today. There is a treasure trove of information going online as these small regional archives and museums digitize their collections and open them up to the world.



















Also found this great high quality picture of one of my reference pics for this tank. It's actually where I realized the treasure trove of material that is sitting there.



On to updates:
I've gotten a lot further along on this the last few days. I'm trying to get it done to take to AMPS in Edmonton this weekend. I was going to use the kit track as it was a T48 with duckbills but after looking at the 2 pin marks and fill mark on every single link, I tossed them back in the bag and pulled out the original plan for this kit, friulmodel tracks. They went together quite well. I typically install the sprocket before the track and that bit me in the rear after deciding to install the friulmodel tracks, I had to break the sprockets off and replace them from the spares box and install them with the track

Here's where I am at right now. I ended up redoing the front and adding screen on it to simulate the mounting points that allowed them to go overtop all the hardware on the front. I also eliminated the bare spot on the LH side as I wasn't liking the way it was looking.





After we got it installed, I roughed up all the felt and added some peeling.



and here is where I am at after last night. Washes and drybrushing is all done. Working on stowage today. After it gets install, I'll be good for final weathering.







And here's a quick pick of the base I made for it. First time doing cobblestones and I was happy with how it turned out. How accurate the cobblestones are to Groningen, probably not that accurate, but it'll work fine. i'm just wanting the base to give the impression of the cobblestone roads leading into the city.

[JCON]

That looks great!!!

[Beekster]

Superb! I'm inclined to agree with you that only FGH used this kind of material, and only in the spring of '45. Earlier images found in Hayward's Firefly book and the RCAC Illustrated History show FGH tanks with spare track, like virtually every other Canadian regiment. What I find curious is, why the switch? The horsehair is perhaps better at breaking up the outline of the tank but has zero protective function. Track blocks would at least pre-detonate a shaped charge. The images don't seem to show this material added over a layer of spare track. As for color, my instinct would be to paint it much the same color as the tank. Too much contrast would seem to defeat the purpose of the stuff. If it was added by the REME light aid detachment as part of a general fitting to the whole regiment (seems likely) then painting the stuff to match would seem to be a logical part of the process. Ordnance dudes the world over have an attachment to thorough processes. The guys that fitted the sandbag cages to our 14th Armored Division tanks resprayed the racks & sandbags with OD and black which was a standard camo pattern.

[DuckyShot]

Aug 23, 2023 16:09:28 GMT -6 Beekster said:

Superb! I'm inclined to agree with you that only FGH used this kind of material, and only in the spring of '45. Earlier images found in Hayward's Firefly book and the RCAC Illustrated History show FGH tanks with spare track, like virtually every other Canadian regiment. What I find curious is, why the switch? The horsehair is perhaps better at breaking up the outline of the tank but has zero protective function. Track blocks would at least pre-detonate a shaped charge. The images don't seem to show this material added over a layer of spare track. As for color, my instinct would be to paint it much the same color as the tank. Too much contrast would seem to defeat the purpose of the stuff. If it was added by the REME light aid detachment as part of a general fitting to the whole regiment (seems likely) then painting the stuff to match would seem to be a logical part of the process. Ordnance dudes the world over have an attachment to thorough processes. The guys that fitted the sandbag cages to our 14th Armored Division tanks resprayed the racks & sandbags with OD and black which was a standard camo pattern.

Yeah, the only other source I've seen are some of Barry Beldam's profiles and he shows it as a brown of sorts. There are still debates on the internet about whether it was actually horsehair or steel wool or something else, so I'm not going to get in too much trouble on what color it exactly was.

I've seen one pic after the framework was installed showing track links below it all: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1083855289599655966/1143225364290748446/231_Large_.png

[JED]

Great stuff Ducky