The Sherman Tank was the main stay of the American army. During the campaign in the Pacific the US forces were known to apply wooden armour to the sides of their Shermans.
There are two schools of thought as to why the US forces would apply wooden planks to their Shermans’ hulls. One is that in the jungle environment they found themselves fighting in it was easier to come across wood than find steel and, soldiers being soldiers, they scrounged or stole whatever was at hand. Given the sometimes very remote and under supplied operations they’d find themselves in this could easily be the case. An addendum to this idea is the thought that Japanese lunge mines would not stick to the wood as well as to metal and that this offered some extra protection from these surprise attacks.
Another idea is that the wooden was just the foundation for the application of concrete to give tanks even more protection, albeit at the expense of speed. As there are many more images of the wooden armour than of concrete in the Pacific it’s most likely the former, although concrete armour was to be seen during the war in Europe.
This pack contains:
- One Sherman M4A3 (75mm) with wooden armour
Note: Models supplied unassembled and unpainted. Please note that the turret mounted HMG is NOT included. Resin and metal parts.
Scale: 28mm.
