Dragon 1:35 British -Sherman Vc Firefly.
dragon 1:35 scale British Sherman Vc"Firefly"
the firefly was a british development to give the (American)sherman tank
a more powerful anti-tank gun.
the standard 75mm gun on the M4 sherman just wasn,t capable of penetrating
the german Panzers at great distances. in order to do this, the tank had to try to get close to the german tank,
and take it out from the rear or the side where the armour was not as thick as on the front.
The German tanks mostly had the advantage to take out the allied tanks well before they themselves came in reach of the enemy.
The Panther with it's 75 mm High velocity gun and the tigers with their 88's.
fact is that the British 17 pounder gun was the most powerful allied gun of the war,and...it was better than the German 88mm gun.
so now the British could fight back, against the German tanks with an equal / better anti-tank gun.
fitting of the 17 pounder gun was rather difficult because the turret of the sherman tank was rather small.
and only by mounting the gun on it's side and adapting it for left hand loading this was achieved.
in order to stow as much ammunition as possible the "lap"gunner 's position and machinegun were removed ,and the apperture was plated over.
with new ammunition like the armor piercing discarding sabot,(apds) the gun was even more deadly as this projectyl left the barrel at nearly 4000 feet/sec.
and could penetrate 213mm of armor at 1000 meters.
German tanks and anti-tank guns were instructed to always take out the firefly first whenever they were spotted.
the firefly was fairly easy to recognize with it's long barrel.
after the d-day landings some effort was taken by allied tank crews to disguise this obvious long barrel.
by covering the barrel with camouflage nets or white counter shade on the underside of the gun making it look like a short barrel.
this tank belonged to the 13/18th Royal Hussars, 27th Armoured Brigade ,Normandy 1944.
on the tank the loading numbers are written in chalk prior to the d-day landings.
The model:
nice to build with a little p.e for some small details.
the tracks need some time to clean,but once this is done it is quit easy to use them and glue them in place.
this kit was not complete when i bought it(second hand)with the entire running gear missing..bogies and drive wheels and the rear idlers as well...
fortunately i have a large spares box ,and so this kit was somewhat of a kit crash..bash..with some tamiya parts and older dragon parts.
the only after market item used was a metal /alu gun which has the correct length,as the one provided in the kit is a little bit too long.
