Super Pershing

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I built a Dragon M26 Pershing some years ago (see Military Modelling Vol.30, No.7, June 2000), so I decided to try my hand at the more recent Tamiya kit. But rather than build a standard T26E3, I thought I'd try the Accurate Armour 'Super Pershing' conversion for something a little different.

Historical Notes

The Super Pershing was a unique version of the T26 series built on the original T26E1 pilot tank, but re-armed with a more powerful version of the 90mm gun. It was not US Army practice to send prototypes into combat, but in February 1945, Ordnance decided to ship the pilot tank to the European theatre for a 'trial by combat'. The Super Pershing, also called the 'Super M26', arrived in Europe in March 1945. It was assigned to the 33rd Armoured Regiment, 3rd Armoured Division which, by this time, was operating in Germany.

The Super Pershing had been rearmed with a new, long-barrelled T15E1 90mm gun that was designed to offer performance comparable to the German 88mm KwK 43 on the 'King Tiger'. The T15E1 gun could penetrate 220mm of armour at 1,000 yards at 30° using the new T30E16 tungsten carbide HVAP (High Velocity Armour Piercing) round. On arrival at the 3rd Armoured Division, the ordnance battalion decided to enhance the Super Pershing by adding additional armour plate to bring it closer to the armour on the 'King Tiger', and this was done under the direction of Lieutenant Belton Cooper. There is an interesting account of this project in Cooper's memoirs entitled Death Traps which was published in 1998. The five tons of appliqué armour were fabricated from layers of 40mm boiler plate on the hull, a plate of 80mm armour taken from a German Panther on the gun mantlet, and other scrap armour on the other locations. The Super Pershing was first issued to an unidentified company within the 33rd Armoured Regiment and it first fired its gun in anger on 4th April 1945 when it engaged and destroyed a German armoured vehicle, possibly a Tiger or Panther, at a range of 1,500 yards during the fighting along the Weser river.

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For reasons that remain unclear, the tank was pulled back and reissued on 10th April to another tank crew led by Sergeant Joseph Matira, of Co. I, 33rd Armoured Regiment, which had lost their M4A3 (76mm) earlier that day. The Super Pershing went back into action almost immediately. It was credited with another panzer on 12th April shortly after the liberation of the concentration camp at Nordhausen. While advancing through a small village, the Super Pershing was engaged by a panzer that Matira had thought was knocked out. It transpired that the loader had remained in the panzer and tried to engage the Super Pershing. However, the 90mm gun hit the panzer again, though surprisingly, the German gunner survived and was captured. The Super Pershing's most intense tank fighting occurred during the battle for Dessau when on 21st April it became involved in a short-range duel with a panzer identified by the crew as a Tiger. This could be nearly any type of German tank, as US tank crews regularly called nearly any German tank a Tiger. As the Super Pershing rounded a corner, the panzer fired the first shot, but missed when the round passed over the tank. The Super Pershing fired point blank, but the shot glanced off the panzer's turret side. The German tank hit the Super Pershing on the turret which failed to penetrate. The panzer began moving forward over some debris in the street, and the gunner, John P. Irwin, put a round into the belly which set off the ammunition. The Super, Pershing was involved in street fighting for the rest of the day, and in the pre-dawn hours the next morning, encountered another panzer on a narrow street. The panzer fired first, but the round hit low and went under the Super Pershing. Irwin fired the 90mm, but the round glanced off the turret side. Sergeant Matira ordered the tank back down the street to a less-exposed position and, in so doing, noticed a second panzer. After some cat-and-mouse games in the narrow streets, the crew of the second panzer waved a white flag and surrendered, having run out of ammunition. This was the last tank versus tank fighting by the Super Pershing during the war, and the final tally stood at three panzers knocked out, and one captured. The gunner of the Super Pershing, John Irwin, published a short memoir of his experiences as a teenage tank gunner in 2002 under the title Another River, Another Town which gives an interesting account of the fighting in Germany in the last month of the War.

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The Model

The Super Pershing was based on a T26E1 pilot tank, not a standard production T26E3 like the Tamiya and Dragon Pershing kits, so this means a lot of little modifications aside from the new gun. The Accurate Armour conversion kit offers most of the major changes, but there's a few minor changes that were missed in the kit. After the extra appliqué armour was added to the Super Pershing, the front drooped a bit due to the added weight and since the Tamiya Pershing has a workable suspension, this can be done without too much fuss. I didn't add all the various working bits on the Tamiya suspension, but rather I position the first and last trailing arm assembly for the road-wheels at the height I wanted, and then I added the other road-wheels and suspension arms. I glued all the suspension arms in place.

With the suspension well underway, I turned to the upper hull. The fender arrangement on the T26E1 was different from the T26E3 production tanks stemming from the earlier T23 series that had a narrower suspension. As a result, the fenders had a bolt-on extension to make up for the added track width when the new torsion bar suspension and wide tracks were added. This is all fine, except that ordnance teams removed the outer extension before the tank was issued in 1945, so this means chopping down the kit fenders. The Accurate Armour instructions mention how to do this, and it basically involves trimming them back on the sides so that they are flush with the stowage bins. Once I cut off the extra material, I thinned the edge to a knife edge to give it the appearance of thin sheet steel. Most of the rest of the hull assembly is the same as provided in the kit, and so I'll skip the obvious bits and concentrate on the necessary changes.

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One feature not caught by Accurate Armour in their conversion was the use of the older pattern vented engine hatches on the rear. These had a recessed handle in a small square indentation. I duplicated this by cutting a small square panel out of the kit engine doors and then rebuilding the edge with thin .010 thou sheet strip. I then added a new bottom to the indentation with sheet plastic; the handle was made from a small, plastic disc made using a punch-and-die with the handle itself from a suitably shaped bit of photo-etch, and the cap from another disc of plastic. The other feature not included in the Accurate Armour kit was the revised gun travel clamp. This was longer than the standard production type, and had an 'X' brace in the centre. I converted the kit part using some sheet plastic.

Accurate Armour provides the appliqué armour for the hull front, though I did have some problems fitting the inside panel on the glacis plate, so I made my own from sheet plastic. I also found that their outer glacis panel sits a bit high, so I trimmed mine down a little. Accurate Armour provides the added stowage frames that 3rd Armoured Division added to the rear fenders. However, I 'dented' the rear fenders on my kit using the heat of a candle flame, so the photo-etch didn't fit as intended. This isn't a big issue, since the frames were easy enough to make using.010 x.020 thou plastic strip. The conversion kit comes with turnbuckles for the front and rear fenders, but I made my own using some Grandt Line turnbuckles from the railroad detail line, which are a bit more delicate than the resin parts in the kit.

I made a few small detail changes to the hull. For example, I replaced the tool bin handles which are moulded solid on the Tamiya kit. Tiger Model Design has a set of these handles in resin which makes the task a bit easier. I also opened up the periscope hoods on the driver and co-driver hatches using sheet plastic, and topped this off with the usual periscope guard from a photo-etched set. I gouged out the torsion bar for the hatches with a Dremel Minimite and round burr, replacing it with a piece of plastic rod.

I used Fruilmodel white metal tracks for the project and many thanks to the US distributor, Bill Miley of Chesapeake Model Designs, for the set! (They're available in the UK from Historex Agents of Dover.) I had been a bit aggravated by Fruil tracks in recent years since they switched to the wire method to attach the links. After poking my fingers for about the 50th time on my last set and leaving the model covered in dabs of dried blood, I swore I would never use Fruil again. But a discussion on the Missing Links Website suggested using .020 thou brass rod instead of the thin wire provided in the Fruil box, so I decided to give it another try. What a difference! The brass rod, being straight, does not catch as often as the Fruil curved wire when being pushed into the track, making it a far less tedious and annoying process. Once I put together both sets, I mixed some carpenter's glue (a more durable version of ordinary white glue) with water and painted a small blob at the end of each pin to discourage the pins from coming loose. I find that this works as well as CA glue and is less aggravating to use.

The Turret

The Accurate Armour conversion kit comes with the modified T26E1 turret, which saves a great deal of time and effort. This turret differed from the T26E3 turret in lacking a pistol port, and using the larger, two-piece loader's hatch instead of the later oval loader's hatch. In addition, a large counter-weight was welded to the turret rear to compensate for the weight of the new gun. While it's quite possible to covert the Tamiya turret to this configuration, it would be a lot of work. The most useful item in the conversion set is a turned aluminium gun barrel which would be very difficult to fabricate. Accurate Armour's turret is very nicely done, with a convincing cast finish, however, I made a few minor changes, like replacing the resin commander's cupola with the kit's plastic cupola. I put together the resin turret parts using 5-minute epoxy as I find this is stronger than cyanoacrylate glues on assemblies that will be subjected to a lot of handling. One point worth noting is that there were some small braces wedged between the 'bat wing' armour plates on the side of the turret and the gun mantlet, and these actually make that assembly more durable. I made these from bits of sheet plastic and they can be seen on the accompanying reference photos.

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Even though Accurate Armour does most of the major work needed for this conversion, there is still a fair amount of little detail work that can be added. I attached a few spare track links to the left side of the turret. I also added some of the small attachment clips for the spare tracks to the turret. I used the .50 cal. heavy machine gun from the recent Academy machine gun set along with a resin ammunition box.

Scenic Base

At first I planned to simply plop the finished model on a cobblestone street base. Quick to do, but boring! So I decided on a more dramatic presentation with the tank advancing up a small rise, gun depressed, using the terrain for a hull-down position and this meant fabricating a base. I started with a sheet of Plexiglas (perspex) about 6 inches x 12 inches. To build up the hill, I used balsa foam epoxied to the base and then sanded smooth with a Makita rotary hand-sander. I built up a bit of texture on the base with acrylic texture gels which serve the added purpose of hardening the surface of the balsa foam which is otherwise gritty and soft. I painted the base in earth brown (Tamiya JGSDF Brown XF72) and once dry, I began adding various foliage.

The slope of the hill is done with Heki grass mat and to create the impression of grass crushed by the tank, I sifted some of the grass debris from the Heki package and attached it to the base using thinned white glue in the area where the tank would have run over. When applying the Heki grass mat to the base, I cut out two strips where the track would rest and filled in the rest with grass. I used Walther's Goo, a type of contact cement, to attach the grass mat. I attached a different type of Silflor mat on top of the hill to represent a different type of ground cover since I intended to show the hill top covered with low foliage.

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I used a variety of materials to create the hedge and other foliage in front of the tank. I made a low hedge by taking a bit of plastic filter material of the type used in home heat/air conditioning filters, cut it roughly to shape, and then painted it with Tamiya Dark Yellow XF60 to represent the hedge branches. I then sprayed it with photo spray adhesive and sprinkled on some Nock leaf flakes. I then glued the hedge to the base. This was too even in appearance, so I built up the foliage detail using various types of dried plant materials from the local craft store.

Our local craft stores (the Michael's chain) carry a wide range of dried plants that are used in making various type of flower arrangements. I looked over the various types, and found a few that have small and delicate blossoms, seed-pods, or other elements that would look convincing in 1:35 scale. These are already preserved or dyed in a green colour, so their use on dioramas mainly involves snipping some suitable bits off the stem and gluing them in place. This is laborious, but the small plant bits were fairly easy to glue to the grass mat using white glue. I spent a couple of hours cutting off various little bits and gluing them in place and the results were suitably dense with a nice natural clutter.

Painting and Finishing

I painted this model in my usual fashion. I began by adding some texture to the undersides of the hull to create the impression of dried dirt, and used Liquitex ceramic stucco texture gel for this. I irbrushed the lower surfaces of the model in three colours, starting with a dark, earth brown (Tamiya JGSDF Brown XF72), then doing an irregular overspray of the outer faces of the wheels and other exposed areas with Tamiya Buff XF57, and finally a light overspray of Tamiya Buff lightened with White XF2 to blend everything together and give the impression of a dusty coating. I painted the road-wheels first in a dark black/grey mixed from Tamiya Black XFI and German Grey XF63, and then painted the hubs the same way as the rest of the undersides, starting with Tamiya JGSDF brown XF72, and then adding over-sprays of sequentially lighter earth colours.

The upper surfaces started with a coat of Tamiya 'scale' Olive Drab, meaning Tamiya Olive Drab XF62 lightened with about a third Dark Yellow XF60. I then gave this a distressed finish by cranking down the air pressure on my compressor and spraying a pattern of very fine lines with a lightened Olive Drab (Tamiya Olive Drab and Dark Yellow in a 1:1 ratio) and then Tamiya Olive Drab XF62 straight from the jar (except of course for thinner!) I make the lines somewhat vertical on vertical surfaces like the turret sides and hull sides to replicate the effect of rain washing dirt down the sides.

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On the horizontal surfaces, I try to avoid any precise pattern, and simply try to break up the monotony of a monotone finish with irregular blotches, streaks, and swirls. The aim here is to try to replicate the natural irregularity of a painted surface. If your results look too extreme or artificial, a way to redeem the paint finish is to make it more muted by spraying it with a semi-transparent glaze of the base Olive Drab colour mixed with clear flat or semi-gloss and thinner. This approach takes some practice, but it makes a monotone paint finish look a good deal more realistic.

I used the same approach with the black camouflage areas and began by painting on the black areas using Tamiya Black XF1 lightened with German Grey XF63. I then went back over the area with some straight black to make the finish look less uniform. This doesn't have to be too subtle, as the wash can be used to blend it together. Once I had the upper surfaces painted, I went back over the areas where the Olive Drab bumped into the dirt coloured areas, and blended them a bit using some Tamiya Buff XF57 and buff lightened with White XF2. After the airbrushing was finished, I did a little hand-painting on some details such as the exhaust and the tow cable. When all the acrylic paint was dry, I applied a wash. On the Olive Drab areas, I used Winsor & Newton Raw Umber and black in a mineral spirit wash; while on the dirt areas, I used a mixture with less black and more of the Raw Umber. I let this dry for a few days and then did some dry-brushing to pop out details.

This tank has very few markings other than the unit codes on the front. Accurate Armour provides a small decal sheet for these in their conversion kit. I added a cerise air identification panel on the engine deck made from some thin sheet lead and painted with model car fluorescent paint. The colour does not reproduce very well in photos, but is actually a 'hot pink' rather than the orange shade that appears in photos.

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Tank Crew

To man my tank, I used the new Alpine Miniatures US Tank Crew No.2 (set 35010) for the standing figure, though I swapped the head from their other figure (No.1) for a bit of variety. The new Alpine line is superb in all respects- excellent casting, good subjects and very fine sculpting, and they are a pleasure to paint due to their crisp detail. The creator of this new figure line, Taesung Harmms, is clearly aiming his figures at tank modellers, and he has come up with a number of innovative features. The packaging is the best I've seen with resin figures, a small, elegant clear plastic box that protects the figure, but doesn't waste a lot of storage space. Also, each figure comes with two heads giving options in headgear. For example, the US sets come with tanker's helmets, steel infantry helmets, wool beanie caps, etc.

The seated tank commander is a conversion, using the lower torso from the old Tamiya.30 cal Browning water-cooled machine gunner, the upper torso from a DML Pusan Perimeter GI, a Hornet head, a Nemrod US tanker's helmet, Hornet hands, Tamiya binoculars, and arms made from aluminium wire armatures and Apoxie epoxy putty. It was actually a lot less complicated than it sounds!

Overall, this was a very straightforward conversion due to the excellent Accurate Armour conversion set. The Super Pershing makes a nice late-war subject with plenty of character, and I had a lot of fun experimenting with ways to replicate foliage in 1:35 scale.

Availability

Accurate Armour Ltd., Units 13-16 Kingston Industrial Estate, Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, Scotland PA14 5DG. Tel: 01475 743955. Fax: 01475 743746. www.accurate-armour.com

US tank crew figures from Alpine Miniatures, 2055 Center Avenue, 15C Fort Lee, NJ07024 USA. www.alpineminiatures.com info@alpineminiatures.com available in the UK from Smart Modelling, 7 Gordons Way, Oxted, Surrey, RH8 OLN. Tel: 01883 734746. smartmodelling@smart7.fsworld.co.uk

Friulmodel white metal tracks for the Pershing (ATL-77) are available in the UK from Historex Agents, Wellington House, 157 Snargate Street, Dover, Kent CT17 9BZ. Tel: 01304 206720. Fax: 01304 204528. sales@historex-agents.co.uk www.historexagents.com

First published in Military Modelling Vol.35, No.4 2005