Flames of War 1/100 Heavy Tank
By Don Joy
For all the complaints about the Sherman, the guys at Aberdeen did realize a heavier tank was needed and began development of the Heavy Tank T1 in June, 1940. Originally a multi-turret tank similar to the Russian T-28, it emerged as a large, 50 ton vehicle with a single turret with co-axial 3-inch and 37mm guns. Prototypes appeared during 1941 and 1942, but Army Ground Forces Europe resisted the push to standardize the M6A1. Sherman vs Tiger experience in Normandy lead to an uparmored/upgunned version, the M6A2E1 with a high velocity 105mm gun being prepared, but again Army Ground Forces Europe showed no interest in the vehicle. The appearance of the M26 Pershing rendered the M6 obsolete and no production was ever undertaken beyond the 15 T1E1 development vehicles.
Flames of War has produced a kit of this interesting vehicle in their wargame series. This is only the second model of this tank I'm aware of - the other being a white metal kit. The Flames of War kits look much cleaner and "crisper" than the previous model. The scale is 15mm. As was pointed out after a previous article, the vehicles scale out around 1/100th, not 1/120th as I stated. Wargamers! However, that scale is more useable from the modelers perspective, since more kits are available and it would also work well with 1/96th scale.
The first thing I noted is the box is REALLY heavy. I thought perhaps the whole kit was rendered in white metal, but looking inside I see it is standard construction for Flames of War:
1) The box containst hree tanks. Since these are for wargaming, the packaging is for their standard company unit, which is represented by 3threevehicles. The attached picture shows the parts in the plastic tray provided in the kit. I have separated the small bits out by vehicle in my picture. In the kit, they all arrived in one of the small square sections.
2) Hulls and turrets are separate and cast in the usual dark resin used by Flames of War. No flaws are visible in the castings, but the bottom of the hulls may need to be cleaned up.
3) Track units are cast in white metal and 6 of those are what cause the box to weigh so much. The M6 track units are one bogie assembly longer than a Sherman track, PLUS about as tall as a Sherman PLUS have armored sides. As solid casting these will add a bit of weight to the finished models.
4) Separate white metal hatches, gun barrels, fenders and other detail parts.
My box does not contain any instructions. Of course, these are not terrible complicated kits with maybe 10-12 parts each. Still, it might be nice to know where they think the parts ought to go. Don't know if that's standard for the kits or just a problem with mine.
The models look like late development T1E1 vehicles without commander's cupola or rear AA machine gun. These were recommended for standardization as the M6A1 heavy tank, but the request was denied.
As with other Flames of War kits, no markings are included. Since these are "hypothetical" tanks, you can choose to do any theater/markings that strike your fancy.
All in all, these look like they will be nice additions to my small scale tank collection. I do see two problems:
1) The white metal gun barrels are sometimes bent. It takes some work to get those straightened and to be sure there are not bends or kinks in them
2) I'm a modeler, not a wargamer. What am I going to do with the two extra tanks? Don't worry, I have some ideas...