Some of you might have seen the Tiger tank turret peice that I made a while back, well here's the allied forces version of that.
I started with a 1/16th Sherman turret originaly made for r/c tank buyers, it's a little on the toy like side to start with and needed plenty of work, like the casting texture and all the furniture that you find littering a Sherman.
Some of those details were bought, others were gifted to me (thanks Steve for the excellent back packs and entrenching tool) and some were scratch built (the rolled up tarp and .50cal storage mount on the rear)
The .50cal itself was improved with some lovely parts from Aber.
Everything you see from the turret down is pure invention, made from perspex tube, plumbing fittings and, of course, the end caps from plastic guttering.
Well, as this site is called Planet Figure, I better talk about the two chaps sat on top, they come from Sol Resin Factory.
There's not much choice out there for 1/16th US tank crew but these guys do the job well enough, although they do seem a little on the big side.
I bought a set of four, so who knows, maybe I should use the other two someday.
Everything is painted with acrylics, Vallejo and Ammo but I've just received a set of flesh coloured oil paints by Abteilung 502, so the next figures I paint I'm going to try my hand with those (wish me luck!)
So here are some photos, hope you like what you see, apologies for all of my historical inaccuracies and the liberties I took with some of the paint shades.
David

I nearly forgot, the Thompson submachine gun and the water bottle are another two items from Steve (that's Reedees miniatures)

Fantastic work and well painted

Mobo

That's a fine piece of work Dave. The turret is superb and I love the way you've mounted it.

The figures also look great and I wanted to ask what you thought of the Sol figures? I've seen them on eBay, but haven't taken the plunge as they are a bit of a unknown quantity to me.

Great job all round David, love what you have done with the turret and figures, glad the parts were of use and helped with your project.
All the best
Steve

The Sol Resin figures are pretty good, nice clean castings that don't need much clean up and they fit together well, I got mine through Forgebear Tanks.com, my go to company for all AFV stuff.
I would certainly buy more.
They do some pretty good stowage too along with other useful items, for me they're good as they're in 1/16th scale, as my eyesight diminishes over the years it's the scale I like best.

Thanks again Steve for the parts you supplied, it makes the world of difference to have small nicely detailed extras, it just helps sell the story.

Impressive work David! Great presentation!

Cheers,
Ken

Thanks Ken

Thanks to you all for your kind words of encouragement

Now for a British army version, maybe a Firefly? That 17 pounder would look a real beast.

The first challenge in making this kind of thing is finding the donor turret. I can't afford to buy a complete tank kit, then only use the turret, I look out for vendors that are selling the cheap plastic turrets for R/C tanks in 1/16th.
They do come along from time to time but I've never seed a Sherman Firefly, but you're right, it would make a lovely addition to the group that I have already.
I'm on the look out for a T34, Panzer III, Panzer IV or maybe a Panther but I'm open to most possibilities.

Excellent work!

The Firefly was a standard Sherman, up-gunned with a British 17 pounder anti-tank gun, which was powerful enough to defeat the armour on any Axis tank or SP gun. It required some mods to the turret in order to counterbalance the weight of the longer and heavier gun, but it was a real success in Normandy and after. Plenty of pics on the web.