MTH Sherman Tank load for flatcar

The bag of parts comes from MTH as a bag of parts. You can install them if you want...

The bag of parts just seems to be the extra detail parts that comes with the model if you bought it as a boxed kit to build, but none of that stuff would likely have been on the tank for rail transport anyways.

Those parts allow you to build the many variants of the Sherman I think...

From what I can see by your picture you have 3 road wheels.  If you're missing wheels on the other side that is where they would go.  Otherwise, they can be mounted on tank body as extras like a spare tire for a car.  Also, the machine gun gets mounted in that 'Y' shaped thing (cradle) and then mounted on top of the turret.  Look for a small hole, on top of turret, to mount it in.  I see a spare hatch cover but I don't see any missing on the tank so use as a spare.  The rest of the stuff would be stowage (backpacks, ammo cans, Jerry cans) and can be glued anywhere on the tank body or keep as extra parts.  However, Boilermaker1 is correct in that none of that stuff would have been mounted on the tank during transportation.

I mount everything on my tanks because I like to see them ready to go into action once they are unloaded from the rail cars.

Rick

You can use none or all of the parts in any arrangement. My guess is that MTH gets the tanks from another supplier and the bag of parts are used to customize the tank for a given action scene. On mine I snapped in the closed hatch and machine gun at the top and glued ammo cases to the back and knapsacks to the front. In hindsight it looks cool but is kinda dumb for a flat car transporting a tank -- like Boilermaker1 and Rick have pointed out. If you mount the machine gun do so very carefully. The pieces will break if you force them.

That explanation isn't complicated enough. 

The MG's were generally removed for transit. I'm not sure if they were crated or just strapped to the flatcar. 

Thanks for the input.

It would be my opinion that the tank when shipped by rail would not have a machine gun mounted on the tank but would be stored away along with other equipment.

I do not plan to use this tank as a flatcar load.  I might just use it as a separate military display.

I have four of the tanks.  I didn't use all the parts.  Aparently there are ifferent hatchs or something, and you can installed or not the machine gun, etc. I'm pretty sure they weren't shipped long distances with the guns and all installed, so i didn't put them on.  The hatch cover, yes.

When they loaded a Sherman on one of these to report for work the guns were mounted.

I mounted the machine gun on the tank.  There does not appear to be any other parts that need to be mounted. The extra parts supplied are not used.

Since my Sherman tank will not be placed in the original MTH package I found another alternate storage unit. It is well protected in an empty Planters Peanut container along with a plastic bag and some foam packing.

If you want it as a flatcar load, remove the Ma Duce (what us former grunts called the .50 caliber heavy machine gun) on the turret. I'd remove the .30 caliber gun off the glacis plate (the frontal armor), too , as they never shipped armor with any weapons you could remove. Most tanks were shipped clean, except sometimes they'd have crates with spare parts mounted on the back of the engine deck.

google up some pics of in service Shermans. They would stick sandbags, extra track sections, wheels on the tanks.

But not on a flatcar. Hardly ever stateside, even off said flatcar.

Oh No! Not another "Sandbag Counter"! 

I must say that I am impressed with that Sherman model. What is the catalog number for that car?

This tank and flatcar is from MTH flatcar set 20- 90547.

Since I do not need the Sherman tank I may offer it for sale on Ebay. I really only wanted the NYC 41 ft flatcar that came in the set.

Not a bad looking Sherman, it's a 105MM gun version with a welded hull. Good representation of a later-war tank right before they went to the improved suspension system. The white surround on the star was a European Theater thing (as is some of the other markings on the side), stateside vehicles and those going to the Pacific wouldn't have had them.

FYI, the plot of the new movie, "Fury" stretches things an awful lot, but they got ALL the details dead on. I know several people who worked on the movie.

The lettering on the side of the flatcar shows a 5-10 built date.  This 41 foot car was probably in use until maybe the early 50s. The car and Sherman tank load would be suitable for steam era layouts. I would like to see photos of prototype flatcars of this era.

This is how the Corgi models come - as used in service.

Jim

I have four of the shorter length flat cars individually numbered in PRR livery. Pat's Trains had them last I checked. Note that the tanks are 1/50 scale and not 1/48 if that makes a difference to you.

Scott T,

    As far as I know the tanks on the MTH flatcars are made by Hobby Master and are 1/48 scale. Corgi tanks are 1/50. I have both on my military train and you can hardly tell the difference.

    Did MTH put a single Sherman tank on a 50' flatcar as well as a 41' flatcar? I have 50' flats with 2 Sherman tanks but the last two cars I bought only had 1 Sherman but the car was longer than a 41' car.

Thanks

JohnB 

Will have to check out your website Lee. Am a big reader/fan of military history and the Sherman and the guys that had to drive them against the Tigers in Europe. Am looking forward to seeing Fury even if it does stretch things a little.

John,
I just got a 50' MTH Premier flat with a Sherman on the FSOT forum. But I found the PRR 41' flats first at Pat's. I snapped these up because I have 036 curves and prefer the shorter cars. Have seen the 41's in other liveries as well.

S

The movie goes with Bleton Cooper's premise in his book, "Death Traps" that the US military knew the Sherman was outclassed yet fielded them any against far suprior German tanks. I disagree in the context that the Sherman was a good tank when it first came out, but the Germans kept developing new tanks. Also, their tanks weren't mechanically reliable at all and often broke down. The running joke among German tanker vets after the war was, "Our Panthers and Tigers were as good as 4 of your tanks, but the problem was, you always had 5 of them!"

Fury shows tank fights taking place at ridiculously short ranges (well within rifle range) and bunching up pretty tight. Some argue they never went into fights without dismounted infantry, which really isn't true (doctrinally it wasn't supposed to be done but it happened all the time in real life) but very few tank battles took place in the ranges shown in the movie. Still, it's worth the ticket price just to see the only use in any film of a real, running, German MK VI (also known as a Tiger I)...

Have not read that book but having grown up in a military family I don't care much for the premise either. It's a battle tank, not a Ford Pinto. Yes, the Sherman armor was not a good match for the 88 mm on the Tiger but we adjusted our tactics accordingly and won with a faster, more fuel efficient and more reliable tank produced in larger quantities. I like the idea of seeing the Tiger in the movie. It was something of a rock star in early WWII films like Battle of the Bulge and Kelly's Heros.

Well, Cooper's book is based on his experience as the Ordnance rep for a combat command with the 3rd Armored Division, so he probably saw more damaged shermans than any one person. He had a valid point that not fielding the Pershing earlier than the US Army did clearly did cost additional lives among US tank crewmen.

Being a tanker in WW2 wasn't the death sentence that being in, say, a U boat or a B-17 early on was, but it carried a very high casualty rate. And once the tank was hit, you didn't have a great chance of getting out alive, assuming you survived the hit at all.

As for Tigers, most were based on T-34 hulls, like the "Kelly's Heroes" ones were (and were already in Yugoslavia already, having been unsed in another movie a couple of years before). A real non-running Tiger I was used in the late 40s docu-drama, "Theirs is the Glory" but never before on film has a real Tiger 1 been used under its own power before now. Ironically, there's been a running King Tiger at the French Cavalry museum at Saumr for many years, but you hardly ever see anything on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUoziqAhmMU

The Shermans on the MTH flatcars are kind of fragile. It is absolutely imperative that they be packed properly in the original boxes and the styrofoam blocks inserted correctly to keep them from rattling around. I just received one of the 50-footers with two tanks and both tanks were damaged - one bogie was broken off of each one and both antennas were broken off and missing. The car and tanks were otherwise in like new condition, but they were not properly repacked for shipment. It's repairable, and I know the seller, a major dealer, will compensate me for the problem, but I thought it would be a good idea to mention this on this thread. Here's the photo I'm sending to the seller. 

Thanks. I have actually written some magazine articles on WW2 subjects for avarious publications, done consulting work for several book and movie projects and done 'talking head' work for a few TV networks over the years. I was a real-life Army Ordnance officer (doing a similar job that Bleton Cooper did, but obviously many years after him).

Here I am on the History Channel a few years ago, talking about war correspondents, a subject I'm getting pretty well known in historian circles for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-n8YMPhwL4

That one book I was thumbing through was my copy of Mualdin's first book, printed in 1941 and worth as much as some high-end Lionel stuff in that condition. Very few exist today. I have a massive collection of all his first-edition books, numerous editions of 'Up Front' (I think well past 40 of them, my favorite is Mauldin's personal copy of the book in Czech) and several boxes of stuff he'd had printed out and even some personal items from his estate. I also have a few of his sketches.

My website link has a section on war correspondents which shows a little of this.

As a former Army Ordnance officer I was involved in shipping a lot of military vehicles by rail.

Machine guns and other separate weapons, whether on external mounts or hull mounts, were never shipped with the vehicles, but were provided at the final destination.

All hatches and doors were closed and secured.  

All glass, like windshields, was covered with banded plywood and where possible folded down flat.

Spare parts and any necessary equipment was crated and banded, shipped on the same train car, but never attached to the vehicle.

Main guns were placed in travel locks wherever provided, or otherwise turned to where they made the lowest and shortest overall length profile, with the muzzles capped and secured.  

Tools, cables, chain, fuel cans, radios, etc were all shipped separately and / or provided at final receiving site.

A lot of canvas tarps were used to cover and protect anything we shipped, as well as rope, chain, and banding of many kinds.

And it wasn't uncommon to see a boxcar train of brand new tires headed for the west coast... or batteries, or bare wheels, or window glass, or new seats for M-151 jeeps, etc.

I never got to deal with providing munitions of any size but it must have been awesome to see. 

I have found this thread fascinating. You guys really know your stuff. I want to share something about the early Sherman tanks that you may or may not know. I wrote this for a military web site I own, and the subject was the 75 mm pack howitzer. It’s the last sentence that might be of interest.

“Heavily defended by the Japanese, the 1943 battle for the Tarawa Atoll was a major amphibious assault using the tactics that had been developed during the 1930's. One strategy that had to be re-evaluated, though, was the amount of naval gunfire necessary to soften-up the objective. On the first day of the invasion, Japanese machinegun nests were able to stop the Eighth Regiment's advance. On D-day plus one, the First Battalion, Tenth Marines used rubber boats and life rafts to get their pack howitzers on shore. These small mobile 75mm guns were then used to destroy the Japanese concrete blockhouses that naval gunfire hadn't been able to knock out. By the way, there were fourteen additional 75mm American guns on Tarawa. Sporting colorful nicknames like Cobra, China Gal, and Cuddles, these Sherman tanks of "C" Company, First Corps Medium Tank Battalion helped destroy enemy pillboxes. The fighting on Tarawa was so intense that at least half of the M4A2 tanks were disabled on the first day of the assault. The Navajo Marines who served as radiomen during the Second World War were known as Code Talkers. Their unique secret code within a code (Navajo language) referred to tanks as turtles. One last parting shot. George W. Nations, USMC, wrote in his <u>One Man Remembers</u> that he was a Sherman tank crewmember who fought on Iwo Jima. When the ammo for the main gun was exhausted and no more to be had, low velocity 75mm pack howitzer shells were substituted.”

I snapped the photo of my MTH flatcar this morning. I didn’t have the heart to cut of the .30 machine gun.

 By the way, there were fourteen additional 75mm American guns on Tarawa. Sporting colorful nicknames like Cobra, China Gal, and Cuddles, these Sherman tanks of "C" Company, First Corps Medium Tank Battalion helped destroy enemy pillboxes.

Corgi made a 1/50 Sherman painted for the Tarawa assault force. I have one somewhere. The name China Gal rings a bell, it may have been painted for that tank. If I can find it I will post a photo. I've thought of getting a few more like that so I could make up a train that was taking the armor for the Tarawa landing to the West Coast for embarkation.

I used to visit Tarawa once or twice a year. It's a fascinating place, and looking at the beach you can understand why the Marines lost so many men, and why getting the tide wrong was such an important mistake. One time the U.S. Navy was visiting and they took me scuba diving with them. Tarawa is full of leftover WWII items. My favorite is a Japanese coast defense gun with a U.S. commemorative plaque on it. The plaque reads in part: "Property of the United States by Right of Conquest." 

This is the forum at it's best IMO. To me, trains = history and in the case of WWII, trains were a driving force behind our industrial might. I like to model and run the 40's and 50's era and it's a real treat to have experts like Lee and Forty Rod weigh in on how trains and tanks went together. Better still, how the Shermans were used in not just in Europe but in the Pacific theater as well. Great stuff!