"In the shadows of the Abbaye d'Ardennes"

[DuckyShot]

My next big project is going to be (surprise) another Canadian Armour project. I am going to build a Universal Carrier MKII along with a Sherman Firefly Vc. There is a video clip and series of pics of 12th SS Panzer CO Fritz Witt going around in a captured North Nova Scotia Highlanders carrier and inspecting the knocked out Shermans of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers on June 8th, the results of heavy fighting the day before. The location of this media is quite close (800 yards) to the Abbaye d'Ardennes where his subordinate Kurt Meyer had his HQ for the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. On June 7th and 8th, several executions of prisoners from both the of the Canadian units listed took place at the Abbaye d'Ardennes. Though I am showing the vehicles after capture by the Germans, I am building it to evoke the unseen atrocities happening nearby. 

The Firefly was under the command of Lt. Mclean, all of his crew survived and none of them were subject to the atrocities that took place. the 1716 on the front of the tank denotes the landing craft it was on when it landed the day before. The list for the SF's landing craft placement only list 1 Firefly Vc  on that craft and 1 C Squadron Office (Lt. Mclean). His after action report fits the tank and its location perfectly.










This is one of the carriers I included in the recently released Print Scale decal set for Canadian Universal Carriers and I'm anxious to do one of them.



I will be using the following kits and AM parts:
RFM Firefly Vc
Riich Universal Carrier Mk II
Print Scale Canadian Universal Carriers decals
Resicast 17 pounder breech
Panzer Art 17 pounder barrel and mantlet
RB Models M2 Browning update set
Alpine Miniatures WW2 Panzer crew

This project is (intentionally) taking me out of my comfort zones. I'm going to have to do quite a bit of work on the burnt out Firefly. Luckily, there are quite a few photos of it from different angles, so I won't be guessing at most of it. There seem to be at least 4 shell holes on the tank and it has extensive burning. Also the hatches are all open so I'm going to have to do some interior decorating. I'm not going to put a whole interior in, but the breech should fill most of the visible area in the turret. Anything else that might be visible will have to be built from the spares or from scratch.

The other thing that will be pushing my boundaries are figures. I don't do figures very well and that needs to change, so we are putting at least 2, perhaps 3 figures in this dio.


I've already started on the Carrier a while back, so there will be pictures soon.

[JCON]

I'll gladly follow along!!!

[Beekster]

Nice project. Consider grabbing an Academy TD kit for the interior parts; any of them will do. While not quite right for the Sherman, when blackened up for brewed-up tank the differences won't really be noticeable. Consider grabbing two of them, and use the other to carve up and make masters to cast your own copies. That's what I've done; this image is from one of my M10 projects. See my resin casting tutorial thread on this site if you're unfamiliar with the molding & casting process.

[DuckyShot]

Aug 25, 2023 13:52:30 GMT -6 Beekster said:

Nice project. Consider grabbing an Academy TD kit for the interior parts; any of them will do. While not quite right for the Sherman, when blackened up for brewed-up tank the differences won't really be noticeable. Consider grabbing two of them, and use the other to carve up and make masters to cast your own copies. That's what I've done; this image is from one of my M10 projects. See my resin casting tutorial thread on this site if you're unfamiliar with the molding & casting process.

Thankfully on a firefly, there is only 1 hull hatch open, so we will see how much is visible through it. The turret is my biggest concern, but the breech will fill most anything visible.

there is a real dearth of Sherman interior parts (cheaper, no thanks Resicast, I'd rather but 2 whole new kits instead) on the market, but yeah, the interior from an Academy kit definitely would work. I built one 20 years ago and it was a decent kit. I have a Tamiya M10 in the stash and was disappointed at the interior they give for theirs. The Academy might not go together as nicely, but I think its the better kit at the end of the day.

[Beekster]

Tamiya's is the only M10 that is dimensionally accurate, though the lack of a driver's compartment is a travesty. Academy is 4 scale inches too narrow, which throws off the proportions of everything. AFV Club is too short vertically, which throws off proportions and side angles. Academy is good only for pirating interior bits and their accessory sprues. Resicast indeed has wonderful stuff, but you're absolutely right that it is expensive. If a turret interior is all you need, then you can get by with using Shep Paine's "creative gizmology" for the turret traverse mechanism and basic styrene bits with etched screen for the turret basket.

[DuckyShot]

Ok, here's most of the reference photos I can find and the marking references I have made up for them.

Got a few things to figure out, some of the items on the front glacis are not super clear what they are, there is definitely an empty shell case there, but not sure what its sitting on. Also not sure what the inverted V wire on the LH side of the radio box is, some type of antenna?

[DuckyShot]

Ok, here's where we are at on the Riich Carrier. I like the kit for the most part, fits together very well, it is quite complex. 21 and 19 parts for each of the bogie assemblies, but they go together nicely. I had a missing part on the photoetch fret for one of the sprocket scrapers, so I just scratched one from other photoetch pieces. However attaching the bogies is a bit of a nightmare, they attach with 1 pin attachment point and getting them straight and level is a bit tedious. I suppose I could have used super glue, but especially there, I would prefer a stronger joint with plastic glue.

[Robbo]

Nice start

[JCON]

Looking amazing to me... I've never seen those V wires before and have no idea as the turret couldn't rotate with it attached like that... very strange indeed! Maybe Beekster knows!!!

[DuckyShot]

Aug 30, 2023 11:04:37 GMT -6 JCON said:

Looking amazing to me... I've never seen those V wires before and have no idea as the turret couldn't rotate with it attached like that... very strange indeed! Maybe Beekster knows!!!

Yeah, I assume they are some sort of secondary antenna or something, nothing solid, It is a troop commanders tank, so perhaps a little more communications than other tanks.

[rustybaer]

Another neat one!

[BUCKY]

This is an interesting project. I'm in for the remainder! Not being well versed on the world of tanks, I see this one as being very unique. Bring it on, Mr. Shot!

[JED]

Gets better all the time. Could the bracket that the wirers are attatched to be hinged to allow them to be fixed upright,still doesnt explain why they would be hanging dowm!!?

[DuckyShot]

Well, here's where I'm at with the Carrier. Figured I needed to do the tracks first before assembling the sponsons and I couldn't do too much more without the sponsons. This kit is probably one of the most complicated I have built, but most of it goes together nicely. But probably overly complicated for the size of it... I only have like 5 more of these in the stash... The biggest problems so far is that you really got to watch the instructions closely, they have parts layered on the same sequence, so if you just start attaching parts willy nilly, you might do them out of sequence and leave yourself in a jam. Also not a fan of the attachment of the bogies. Its a single pin and trying to get them leveled is a nightmare. Mine aren't the back ones managed to get pushed up somehow and aren't level. I didn't bother trying to fix as its going on a dio base and I'll correct it there. In the future, I'll probably be building a jig to set the hull on and then shim where I want the bogies to be. the link and lenght tracks are a bit of a nightmare if they don't line up due to a difference in the suspension. 2 track links is the smallest and that seems to be exactly the size difference between having your mating points on the tracks meet perfectly or having unnatural sag on the top... Luckily the LH track went on pretty good, the RH tracks is the one where the mating point just is quite as close together as I would like, but that side is facing the tank and will be hard to see.

[JCON]

Looking good!!!

[DuckyShot]

Not a pile of progress last night, worked on the bulkhead a bit, nothing fancy. Drilled out the ends of the handhold pipe.

[BUCKY]

Progress is good, no matter how fast it goes! LOL
Keep up the great work!

[JED]

Any progress is better than no progress. What's the saying "slowly slowly catchy monkey" or is that just a Brit thing!!?

[DuckyShot]

Finished off the bulkhead, painted the inside of those panels and got them all installed. Kit parts were slightly warped and very tight fitting, so it took some doing to get it to slide into place nice and proper. Because I don't like airbrushing my base coats on armor, and the inside of this thing is going to be pretty tight once I get the sides and a few more things installed, I'm probably at the spot where I need to paint the back compartments before proceeding any further.

[JCON]

That looks great so far!!! And Jed that must definitely be a British thing... never heard that one before!!!