Plastic Solider Company 15mm M4A4 review Part 1

Today, only 3 weeks after I ordered them, my M4A4 Sherman/Firefly boxed set finally turned up.

I’ve assembled 2 of PSC previous kits, the Stug III and the SdKfz 251 Ausf D, but this is the first time that I’ve assembled any of their Shermans, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

 My first impression of them is very positive indeed. I’ve always like the PSC kits and this certainly don’t give me any reason to change my mind. The detail seems crisp and sharp. There is also noticeably less flash present than on some of their earlier kits. The MG42 in the SdKfz 251 Ausf D kit for example had quite a bit of fiddly flash to remove, the 30cal on this however is flash free.

The instructions are the normal ‘exploded’ style diagrams that PSC normally put in their kits. The one in this however seems to only focus on the Firefly, but it doesn’t look to difficult to work out how to assemble it as a 75mm Sherman instead.

One thing I did notice was that the sprue must have been rejigged since the color coded guide to parts was produced as some of the parts on the diagram don’t correspond to their place on the actual sprue. Thankfully it’s only a few pieces and it’s easy enough to find their new home.

The upper and lower hull come in two parts and there is a different upper hull for the M4A4 and the Firefly, the difference between the 2 seems negligible to me but I’m sure one of the rivet counters out there will be able to enlighten me.

One trick I picked up from another blog is, before putting these 2 together, to fill up the hollow empty space in the lower hull using filler to give the models some extra weight. I’m going to try this out here for the first time. The filler I use is available from poundland and whilst I wouldn’t use it on my walls, it’s perfect for wargaming purposes.

  

The upper and lower half of the hull put together.



 The turret fully assembled.

 

 The Tracks. Those of you who have put together PSC kits before may well know that these can be rather fiddly, but they are the only part of the kit that doesn't go together like a dream.

 The finished product. Overall I'm very impressed, the detail is excellent and the kit took me only about 25 minutes to put together. I was watching Game of Thrones at the same time as assembling it so had I been fully concentrating on it it may well have been even quicker.

The M4A4 next to a Battlefront M1A1 76MM for comparison purposes. I'm afraid I don't have any Battlefront M4A4's to compare it to.

The M4A4 seems a little smaller as I'm sure you can see, though I'm not sure if thats correct or not.

 A 2nd model, this time assembled as a Firefly. Just as easy to put together and again looks very nice indeed.

 The M4A4 and the Firefly together.

Finally the 2 PSC models next to the Battlefront M1A1.

Next stage is to paint them which hopefully I will be detailing in part 2 of this review over over this weekend.