Photos of lots of my PD Shermans here
http://kerynne.com/games/pendraken.html

The box on the rear of the hull was  field fitted storage box on British tanks. They could turn up on the front and sides as well. There was also a turret bin that was usually fitted to the back of the bulge on the turret.

Different Sherman models are identified by slope of glacis plate, engine deck style, driver hatches etc. There were a lot, and different guns could appear on different hulls.

Fred -

Pics of yours dont answer this.

Guns fitted - 75mmL40(M3), 76mm(M1), 17pdr OQF, and 105mm How(M1 - again) Flamethrower replaces 75 in Pacific, Co-ax with 105 in Korea. None - on some specialist command and FOO tanks.

Turrets - standard, with 1 or 2 hatches (later models), or T25 with76mm.

Firefly turret with Bustle, sometimes on normal Shermans as well.

IanS

" Fred - Pics of yours dont answer this. "

No, I'd thought the question was initially about id'ing tanks that John had received.

fred12df;
O.K. If the rear vehicle box is a field fit to British vehicles, it seems somehow that a pack of 75mm M4A2 British tanks have made their way into the packet for American 75mm M4A4 no skirts tanks.
I have all my tanks now sitting side by side and there is also a slight size difference in the castings, and the shape of the vehicles are also slightly different, I assume that this is because the tail box vehicle is actually an M4A2 type.
Oh bugger!.
I've just blacked up 21 Shermans for painting and 3 are the wrong type !   
I suppose I should pay more attention to what I am buying and not behave like a kid in a sweetie shop ! 
I'm new to American stuff and just their numbering system drives me crazy !

John

Quote from: johnny boy on 17 May 2011, 11:07:16 AM
I'm new to American stuff and just their numbering system drives me crazy !

Just call whatever you have an M3 and there's a fine chance that you'll be right...

The WWII system is gnomic..

almost everything is an M1, although they did change the number of the M20 from M10 !! to avoid confusion (in that case both vehicles were in the same units.

With Shermans -

M4 and M4A1 - used by the US and British.
M4A2 - USMC and Soviets
M4A3 - US Army Prefered vehicle, very little use elsewhere
M4A4 - British most common in NWE, hull is a bit longer due to multi-engines.

The M4A1 is the only one with the cast hull.

IanS

M4A2 was also used by the British in the Med and NWE (mainly DD units for the latter)
Another thing to take into account is the later wet stowage versions of the M4A1, M4A2 and M4A3 which had larger hatches for the driver and co-driver plus a flat glacis for the last two at a different angle to the previous raised hood versions. These latter versions were used mainly for 76mm armed tanks too. There is also little descernible difference between the various raised hood versions M4, Early M4A2 & M4A3 other than the engine deck and this along with the fact that the M4A4 was only 5 - 15cm longer (depending on which references you read) are probably not worth worrying about in 10mm IMHO.

This site although aimed at 1/72 has some excellent info on the various differences in the Sherman marks.

http://www.172shermans.com/