Fighting48th British Pattern Sherman Track
By Konrad F. Schreier III
The latest release from Fighting48th is a full set of British pattern chevron tracks for 1/48th scale Sherman tanks, and they are just marvelous! Right off the bat the level of detail is at least as good as the Tamiya injection moulded rubber chevron tracks. What do you get? The set consists of 11 segments of 12 links each, and 2 each of 7-link, 4-link and 2-link length segments, plus 6 plain and 22 curved single links for a total of 45 parts. Everything is cast in tan resin, and the casting quality is about the best I have seen. But wait, there’s more - you also get set of full instructions a (far better than the kit tracks) to boot - a double sided 8 1/2 x 11 sheet no less.
Although the instructions indicate they can be fitted to the M4, M4A1, M4A3 and even Fignting48th’s own M4A4 (not to mention just about any other 1/48 scale Sherman variant with the VVS suspension), no matter what tank you chose to install them on you should have some left over for spares, improvised armor or whatever. Although the instructions call for a specific assembly sequence for the M4A4 I ended up varying the recommended layout, using 5 of the angled links on each end and using heat to curve the long upward run at the rear of the bottom run to fit nicely. I also discovered that using a spare sprocket wheel as a jig to assemble the individual curved links in sets of 3’s or 2’s worked a lot better than trying to get them to sit nicely on the bare idlers – the sprocket nicely aligns the end connectors and produces a perfect curve every time. Tim’s suggestion about cutting the idler axle off is an interesting one – I ended up doing it on one side, but the other came out just perfect.
  
Without a doubt, this trackset is sure to be just the thing for your next commonwealth tank project. Hats off to Tim for another wonderful Fighting 48th product. The review trackset was purchased directly from Fighting48th.com, which also supplied the sample M4A4 conversion shown to Track48, which will be the subject of a future article. For more information and ordering, go to Fighting48th.com.
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