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3R22R

Anyone saw that M4 Sherman at the Armed Forces Museum in Florida with a MG copola in place of the tank commander hatch? the only view was from the side. It has a late production turret with a 76mm gun but a 30 cal. MG turret on top. any ideas anyone?

Costas_TT · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Feb 15, 2012 Posts: 387

Most definitely a reconstruction SNAFU.
I saw it here and it appears to be a kitbash based on a small hatch M4 hull with a T23 turret and an M1 cupola from an M48 series tank.
Also found a pic:
media-cdn.tripadvisor..../d-day.jpg

vagabond

We've got photos of the Sherman in our gallery from the museum:
www.vgbimages.com/AFV-...046_zMbkcz

Costas_TT · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Feb 15, 2012 Posts: 387

Paul, you're da man!

Joe_D

Would be nice if museums would at least acknowledge that items they have on display are accurate or just representations using similar but not historically correct. Nothing is perfect but seeing "Kit Bashes" like this M4 makes me cringe.

The cupola on this tank is quite rare, it is not from an M48A1, but rather one of the experimental AAI model 108 cupolas designed as a possible replacement for the troublesome M1 cupola which never was adopted. They installed these on the T54/T54E2 turrets the Army tested. The hatch pivots to the side instead of up and back. You can also see this cupola installed on the T95 experimental tank, since the T54E2 turrets were turned over to this program. Some pictures also show it on T95 specific turrets. The original prototype M60 had this same type cupola mounted until the M19 was fully developed. To my knowledge only maybe 5 or 6 of these were made at most, this being a generous estimate. Below are pictures courtesy of Jim's "Jed" site.

T54E2

T95

I have an image back home of the Pilot M60 mounting this cupola, but can't find a copy online to post. Really curious where they got this cupola from. I know T54E2/T95 turrets were scrapped, most likely used as hard targets. Wonder if they found it along with the Sherman Turret on the ranges at Eglin AFB. Lot of stuff was disposed there. Really needs to be recognized for what it is, and possibly some museum offer to trade an authentic Sherman cupola for this one, being quite rare.

Doug_Kibbey

Welcome back, Stranger! Wink

vagabond

I am in Clearwater this week and took a return trip to the Armed Forces Military Museum in Largo. I took a number of photos of the cupola on the Sherman - will post when I can get to it - and contacted the museum historian via phone regarding the cupola. I sent him some of the info from JoeD's post to inform them of what they've got and made a point of the historical inaccuracy. Up to them if anything changes, but worth a shot.

Cheers,
VB

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