Four Hours of War: The Shermans are coming!

So I finally got around to applying decals to my Shermans, and after waiting for more decals to come into the post, I've finally finished adding the finishing touches to these great tanks.

2 Platoons and 1 HQ upfront. Each platoon is sporting a Firefly

These tanks are marked part of the 30 Corps Guard Armoured Division. More specifically they are the junior division, as indicated by the red square marking with the white fifty-three.

Red Square with White 53 on right indicates the tank is
part of the junior division. The blue shield on the left
indicates it is part of the Guards Regiment.

The star on top of the turret is there to indicate to friendly warplanes that these tanks are friendlies, and not to drop bomb or shoot rockets at them. These stars was something new to the period of 1944, following a decision to standardize marking across all the allied forces. Before this British tanks didn't have a star, and the American tanks had yellow stars, but it was agreed in 1944 to apply the star to all allied tanks and for it to be white.

Moving on, I've gone ahead and made this set of tanks be part of A Squadron, as indicated by the blue triangle on the side of the turret. The blue also indicated it was part of the junior division.

Blue Triangle on side of turret, denoting A Squadron.

A quirk of the Guard Armoured Division was it's tendency to colour in the triangle black and add a number to denote what number tank it is. I've decided not to include this practice on these tanks because it will make it more difficult to chop and change platoons and not have them look out of sorts on the table. While not entirely accurate, the compromise is worth it, and doesn't bother me as much than if I did decide to replace a Sherman with a Firefly in a platoon and for the numbering not to match.

On the front of the tank, there is more of the Divisional markings, but there is also a yellow circle with the number 30 in it. This indicates the bridge weight rating, meaning the tank has passed a test, and the resulting number roughly says the weight of the tank and what bridge category it is safe to cross.

Divisional markings and the bridge rating, barely visible under all that mud.

I've dry brushed some brown to the front, and to the tracks, to show that it's been cross country and been dirtied up. Don't worry, the boys will wash it off when they get to Arnhem in less than a week...

All in all, I'm quite pleased with how the tanks look now, the decals weren't difficult to apply, and they really bring out the character of these workhorse vehicles. To round off the tanks, I decided to blacken the cannon tips, to show that they've been doing bloody business on their way up Hell's Highway.