Sherman III

I recently purchased a Sherman III tank from Warlord Games. One of the theaters that my friend Jack and I have focused on for Bolt Action is the Mediterranean, from the Western Desert Campaign to Sicily and Italy:  essentially everything covered by the Duel in the Sun supplement.

Jack's Desert Rats so I decided to do up a Sherman to add to his forces. I decided on painting a Sherman III from the 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters).

I liked the idea of painting it in the camouflage Light Mud and Dark Grey instead of the usual Allied Olive Drab colors.

One of the first things I noticed was that as I was trimming the flashing off of the pieces I noticed that the tracks seemed to be a bit too long, at least compared to the M4 Shermans I have. Shermans come in many varieties, but one, the M4A4, had a lengthened hull compared to the others due to its Chrysler A57 multibank engine.

The problem is, the Sherman III is the M4A2 version of the Sherman. The M4A4 is the Sherman V. What are you doing to me, Warlord Games?

Aside from a little grumbling, I got over this and started on the build.

Assembled.

Primed.

For the basecoat I airbrushed it in Vallejo Panzer Aces #315 Light Mud.

Next came the black stripes. In most pictures I've seen, the black isn't quite black, so I painted it in #862 Black Grey.

Next came the tracks in #822 German Camouflage Black Brown.

After some waiting the decals arrived from the UK. Some of the decals (the hull number and the tank name) I used from some old Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard decals, and for the tank name, I had to apply the letters one at a time.

The tank is named "Gracie" which Jack will appreciate.

At this stage I also added some stowage.

Next I started the weathering process, which is same process I did for my Tiger tanks.

Layer of brown wash, as well as 976 Buff and 985 Hull Red on the tracks.

Another layer of washes, paint chips, and Pigment added to represent mud.

And the final result, with a protective layer of Matte Varnish airbrushed on:

Soon this guy will see some battle against my Panzers...and we'll see if Gracie survives.