A Photographic Guide

Converting an HAT/Armourfast middle-late 1943 M4 into an early-middle 1943 M4A2

(as used by the British & Commonwealth, Free Polish, Free French and USSR units)

for Wargames purposes

Click on the pictures to enlarge them

The donor kit for the rear upper deck - in this case an Extratech M10 Hull (but a HAT/Armourfast M10 will also do)		After some chirurgical work both decks were removed...		...and the M10 one was insert on the M4 rear deck		A view of the model after some extra work, and some detailing
Another view, from a different angle. The rear most fuel cap, makes this M4A2 an middle-late production version.		The front hull plate was also corrected, by removing the deep lines representing the weld lines on the very early versions (and wrongly with an M4A3/M4A4 pattern)		On the rear lower plate, a 1,5mm thick plastic card was insert to correct this area. The tracks were modify to represent a typical T49 track - less boring than the original T51		A front hull view - note that at this moment, the front transmission cast cover [tranny] wasn't yet correct. The original represented by HAT/Armourfast looks like an late sharp version, and it should - for this version, unless a middle-late 1943 production, but with drivers plate appliqué armour - be corrected, by filling, to the earlier round cast version
The rear end with the rebuild vertical plate (now with an angle of 12º instead of 9~10º of the M4) and some other extras		Another view				Another item made, was the exhaust deflector common on certain vehicles - it also hides the missing detail on the that area
		The final area of intervention have to do with the turret, and for this I only correct the HAT's offering with the shell ejector and side protections for the M34A1 mantlet. The only item by now missing is the typical rear box (Crusader type if in the Mediterranean or rectangular if on NWE) and the 4" Smoke Dischargers

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last update 4/July/2005