Wednesday 28 March 2012

Review - Plastic Soldier Company Sherman M4A4/Firefly

Hello All


I finally got a couple of boxes of the new Sherman/Firefly sets from Plastic Soldier Company. I have been waiting a while for my local gaming shop to get in the 3 sets I ordered from them, so as I'm in a rush to get the army started I ordered 2 extra set directly from PSC and they turned up two days later.

This is the third set of PSC models I have bought and the second I have reviewed (see my Panther review here). so by now I sort of know what I'm getting and this set doesn't disappoint. You have 2 options from the box, a normal Sherman and a Firefly, the core model is the same, only the top half of the hull and the turret are different. The detail is really nice and crisp as are all of the PSC kits.

Again the instructions are not that clear in places, I had a little trouble with the turret. As with the Panther a dry run did help me work it out but only after a few tries. I do think this problem could be solved by adding numbers to the sprue and instructions as a lot of other companies do.

Another small down side was I had hoped like the T-34 you would be able to make 2 turrets out of each sprue so I could have some of the Fireflies as Sherman's for none Market Garden Sherman companies. But they use the small bottom and hatches so this was no possible.

Another problem was the .50 cal, the gun is very thin and all 5 from my first set broke when I tried to get them take them off the sprue. I tried a few different methods but nothing worked, so I'm not going to use them as if they break that easily when they come off the sprue then I would imagine they will break in game.


On the up side the Sherman's tracks are a big improvement on the T-34 tracks in regards to ease of building them.

I don't have any Battlefront Sherman's but here's a few pictures of built PSC Sherman's and one comparing them with a PSC Panther.



So overall this is a great kit but a few small problems stop it from being as great a kit as the Panther.

8/10

Now to get them all built so I can start playing with my Irish Guards!

Thanks for reading Ben

7 comments:

  1. Good review as usual. Look forward to smashing them to pieces with my Panthers :-)

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  2. We'll see Peter we'll see!

    Of course I still have to get them painted....

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  3. Great review, it looks like another excellent kit. Now to get a box or four...

    CdlT

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  4. I looked at these on the PSC website, but they were listed under the US forces, not Brit, so I held off ordering them... I am wondering whether it matters? Will they bring out a specific Brit version???

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    1. They are British mainly, I think they are only down as US as they also used Sherman M4A4's. But the only crew man is British and the art work is british. Also the US never used Fireflies that was a British only mark of Sherman.

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    2. Good points all round - I googled it a bit and basically found that the Brits called the M4A4, the Sherman V, which was the validation I was after. I've ordered a couple of boxes myself :-)

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