A fair number of years ago, AFV Club released sets of tracks for Shermans and related vehicles like the M3 Lee/Grant. Because I needed T-48 tracks for a couple of models, I bought two sets.
For those unfamiliar with specific Sherman tracks: the T-48 has a rubber V-profile, and was widely used on American and, to a lesser extent, British Shermans during the Second World War.
AFV Club also released sets of other types of Sherman tracks, but I can’t say to what extent the following applies to them. (Though I suspect that one review suffices for all of them.)
Contents
In the box are six sprues, each with 28 links, 56 end connectors, and 28 end connector extensions. Altogether that makes 6 × 28 = 168 links, which should be enough for one tank, because most Shermans rode on 79 links per side (so 158 per tank); the longer M4A4 and M4A6 had 83 links per track (166 per tank), so the set should also accommodate that.
Construction
Each link consists of one piece with two pins on either side, cast as part of the link; unlike for example the similar tracks by Bronco, you don’t have to glue the actual links around the pins here. The end connectors have been moulded at the edges of the sprue, with two holes going through each for the pins on the links. The track is supposed to be “workable”, that is to say, stay together without glue by just sliding the connectors onto the links.
The links themselves are connected to the sprue in two places, halfway along their long edges. They are easily cut loose with cutters or a knife, after which of course those connection points must be cleaned up. Unfortunately, the inner face of each link has a round ejector pin mark, and those will be visible over almost the whole length of the track … The only solution is to scrape or file all of them off, which isn’t a fun job but is doable. I found the best way to be to hold the link between thumb and forefinger, so that the pins prick into those fingers, and then support the link from underneath with the middle finger of the same hand. You can then remove the ejector mark quite easily with a small file.
Once that has been done, it turns out that this set is nowhere near as well-designed as the racks for the M48 and M60 tanks that AFV Club also sells: with those, the end connectors are also along the edges of the sprue, and with such a distance between them that you can just slide the links into them. By cutting the edge with connectors on the other side of the sprue into short lengths, you can slide them onto the free ends of the links and only then cut the connectors from the sprue. Easy and quick.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to the Sherman tracks, because first of all the connectors are just that little bit closer together than necessary to fit the links into them, and second, they’re the wrong way round: the side that needs to be outward on the track, is also outward on the sprue. As a consequence, you need to cut all connectors loose, clean them up one by one, and only then add them to the links.
That’s a pretty fiddly job, because the connectors are fairly small and almost impossible to hold with tweezers, so you’ll have to do it with your fingers. Take good care that none of them go flying, because there are exactly enough for the links — you don’t get any spares! After some trial and error I found the easiest way to take a square wooden stick (the tail of a fireworks rocket I found on New Year’s Day
) then slide an end connector onto one side of a link, then lay the link on the stick with its outer face upward, slide a second link into the connector, and then add a connector to the other side. Then add another connector to a link, attach this to the track, and put a connector on the other side; repeat until the track is finished. Doing this, I had the stick in front of me from left to right, so that I could push the second connector toward myself onto the track — working from the other side was a lot more difficult.
A second problem popped up here: the pins on the links are of different thicknesses. The end connectors sit well on some links, on others they fall off if you hold the track at an angle, and everything in between. This problem lies with the links and not the connectors, because it doesn’t help if you take another one and put it on the same link. As a result, it’s just about impossible to complete the whole track in one piece and then put it onto the tank, let alone that it’s “workable” — try that and it’ll fall apart into random-length sections. You will have to glue it, working fast enough to build the whole track in one go and put it on the tank before the glue sets. Another way would be to check all the links to find the good ones, so that you can use those for the bends. You can then glue the straight lengths for the top and bottom while the rest remains workable — but that, of course, is a lot of work. You can also try to paint the parts first and then build the track, as the thickness of the paint will hopefully keep the connectors on better, but then you’ve got the problem that so much needs to be cleaned up that you’ll have to repaint about half the track after building it.
Anyway, after you’ve done all that, you can put the track around the wheels of your Sherman. And then you discover, if you’re building an M4A4 anyway, that the track is 1.5 cm too short … On another type of Sherman it will probably fit exactly, but for the longer hulls it looks like you need eight more links than there are in the set
Luckily I have a second set intended for another model, but considering these problems I wasn’t planning on using it for that anyway and instead look for another brand, so I can take the links from that. Still, I don’t quite understand this: if AFV Club were to supply seven sprues, you would always have enough and some extra to use as spare track on the tank. But both boxes have only six sprues, so it doesn’t look like I accidentally got a set that was one short.
Ratings
Appearance: 8/10
Ease of construction: 5/10
Quality: 2/10
Conclusion
Buy another brand.
For those unfamiliar with specific Sherman tracks: the T-48 has a rubber V-profile, and was widely used on American and, to a lesser extent, British Shermans during the Second World War.
AFV Club also released sets of other types of Sherman tracks, but I can’t say to what extent the following applies to them. (Though I suspect that one review suffices for all of them.)
Contents
In the box are six sprues, each with 28 links, 56 end connectors, and 28 end connector extensions. Altogether that makes 6 × 28 = 168 links, which should be enough for one tank, because most Shermans rode on 79 links per side (so 158 per tank); the longer M4A4 and M4A6 had 83 links per track (166 per tank), so the set should also accommodate that.
Construction
Each link consists of one piece with two pins on either side, cast as part of the link; unlike for example the similar tracks by Bronco, you don’t have to glue the actual links around the pins here. The end connectors have been moulded at the edges of the sprue, with two holes going through each for the pins on the links. The track is supposed to be “workable”, that is to say, stay together without glue by just sliding the connectors onto the links.
The links themselves are connected to the sprue in two places, halfway along their long edges. They are easily cut loose with cutters or a knife, after which of course those connection points must be cleaned up. Unfortunately, the inner face of each link has a round ejector pin mark, and those will be visible over almost the whole length of the track … The only solution is to scrape or file all of them off, which isn’t a fun job but is doable. I found the best way to be to hold the link between thumb and forefinger, so that the pins prick into those fingers, and then support the link from underneath with the middle finger of the same hand. You can then remove the ejector mark quite easily with a small file.
Once that has been done, it turns out that this set is nowhere near as well-designed as the racks for the M48 and M60 tanks that AFV Club also sells: with those, the end connectors are also along the edges of the sprue, and with such a distance between them that you can just slide the links into them. By cutting the edge with connectors on the other side of the sprue into short lengths, you can slide them onto the free ends of the links and only then cut the connectors from the sprue. Easy and quick.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to the Sherman tracks, because first of all the connectors are just that little bit closer together than necessary to fit the links into them, and second, they’re the wrong way round: the side that needs to be outward on the track, is also outward on the sprue. As a consequence, you need to cut all connectors loose, clean them up one by one, and only then add them to the links.
That’s a pretty fiddly job, because the connectors are fairly small and almost impossible to hold with tweezers, so you’ll have to do it with your fingers. Take good care that none of them go flying, because there are exactly enough for the links — you don’t get any spares! After some trial and error I found the easiest way to take a square wooden stick (the tail of a fireworks rocket I found on New Year’s Day
) then slide an end connector onto one side of a link, then lay the link on the stick with its outer face upward, slide a second link into the connector, and then add a connector to the other side. Then add another connector to a link, attach this to the track, and put a connector on the other side; repeat until the track is finished. Doing this, I had the stick in front of me from left to right, so that I could push the second connector toward myself onto the track — working from the other side was a lot more difficult.A second problem popped up here: the pins on the links are of different thicknesses. The end connectors sit well on some links, on others they fall off if you hold the track at an angle, and everything in between. This problem lies with the links and not the connectors, because it doesn’t help if you take another one and put it on the same link. As a result, it’s just about impossible to complete the whole track in one piece and then put it onto the tank, let alone that it’s “workable” — try that and it’ll fall apart into random-length sections. You will have to glue it, working fast enough to build the whole track in one go and put it on the tank before the glue sets. Another way would be to check all the links to find the good ones, so that you can use those for the bends. You can then glue the straight lengths for the top and bottom while the rest remains workable — but that, of course, is a lot of work. You can also try to paint the parts first and then build the track, as the thickness of the paint will hopefully keep the connectors on better, but then you’ve got the problem that so much needs to be cleaned up that you’ll have to repaint about half the track after building it.
Anyway, after you’ve done all that, you can put the track around the wheels of your Sherman. And then you discover, if you’re building an M4A4 anyway, that the track is 1.5 cm too short … On another type of Sherman it will probably fit exactly, but for the longer hulls it looks like you need eight more links than there are in the set
Luckily I have a second set intended for another model, but considering these problems I wasn’t planning on using it for that anyway and instead look for another brand, so I can take the links from that. Still, I don’t quite understand this: if AFV Club were to supply seven sprues, you would always have enough and some extra to use as spare track on the tank. But both boxes have only six sprues, so it doesn’t look like I accidentally got a set that was one short.
Ratings
Appearance: 8/10
Ease of construction: 5/10
Quality: 2/10
Conclusion
Buy another brand.