M4A2 (75W) “Эмча”

Final drive housing replaced by an Italeri part, because the Zvezda one is shaped very wrong: it holds the middle between the two single-piece ones used on the real tank, but is actually neither. The Italeri part needs to be shortened at the top and bottom to fit. 

Grouser stowage covers cut off and replaced by thin plastic card, because the kit depicts them as rectangles with rounded corners, when in fact the ends should be fully semicircular. 

Armour plate on the left side, using an Asuka part because it’s more correct in dimensions. Ignore the location Zvezda gives, measure it as shown here. Sand-shield mounting strips also replaced by Asuka parts because they’re better than the Zvezda ones too. 

Same as previous, but on the right 🙂 

Hull front with Asuka brush guards and horn, because they’re thinner than Zvezda’s. The texture on the final drive housing is thinned putty, stippled on with a stiff brush, and sanded down once dry. 

The skids on top of the bogies need thinning down with a file and/or knife. Uncorrected on the left, corrected on the right. 

Same as previous, but more easily visible. 

Zvezda’s road wheels are not great, and best replaced. These are Asuka wheels and the adjustments needed to make them fit the Zvezda bogies. Left to right: 1 unmodified kit part, 2 centre hole drilled out, 3 plastic rod (2 mm diameter) inserted, 4 hole (1.5 mm diameter) drilled into rod for Zvezda axle. 

Completed bogies with wheels. The Asuka idler wheels fit the Zvezda axles with no modifications. 

The slots on the gun shield extend too far upward: this is what you can see of them with the gun in the horizontal position. The easy fix is to just aim the gun up until the slots are out of sight. 

Turret shape corrected by filing off the sharp corners and edges. 

Loader’s hatch filled in because it’s at a very wrong angle. The reason for this appears to be because Zvezda used the drawings in Son of Sherman, which has the hatch at exactly the same, wrong angle. The hinge was first cut out. 

Piece of masking tape cut to the size of the loader’s hatch and fitted at the correct angle: 22 degrees relative to a line drawn left-to-right through the turret. 

Putty applied over the whole turret to replicate the cast texture. 

With the tape removed, showing the slight depression this leaves where the tape was. 

Hatch made from very thin plastic card and glued to the turret roof, then the details from the Zvezda hatch were glued to it. 

Completed model from left front. 

Completed model from right rear. 

And the painted, finished model.