Sherman turret conversions (3) Sherman Kangeroos

 I've wanted some Kangeroos for ages as they were used quite extensively in the latter part of the Italian and European campaigns, but I can't justify the storage space for some dedicated models of defrocked Priests or whatever, even though a few manufacturers make them now. Instead I thought I'd do some Sherman Kangeroos, and just make up a replacement 'turret' of infantry being transported. 

I had a couple of options for the hull. On the right is a PSC plastic Sherman with a traditional turret location hole. I'd need to make a replacement turret as a false aperture with the infantry on/in it for this one. On the left is one of my metal Peter Pig Shermans which has this interesting arrangement below...

An enormous hole and a completely hollow hull! I guess this is to keep the weight down although like all Peter Pig offerings, these are hefty models. This seemed like a no-brainier for a Kangeroo as it is already hollow, but then I thought long and hard about the practicalities of trying to build a removeable insert plug, recessed into the hull and just the right depth to hold the infantry sensibly, but also located so it didn't just slide away inside. It all just seemed like a lot of bother for something which is only likely to get used two or three times.  

So I went with the bodge turret option. I guess I can always revisit the Peter Pig insert option later as I enjoy doing these conversions. First job was to make up some disks out of thin plasticard which would accommodate some figures and fit inside the splash guard around the turret. The locator pins were made out of sprue to fit the holes in the hull.

 

That fits nicely. The card was marked up with a pair of compasses and then I cut the disk out (carefully) with scissors.

Next up was to add some passengers. These are Skytrex/Old Glory Bren Carrier crews, I've had a bag of 50 of these for years, picked up cheaply on a Bring and Buy. They have proved to be exceedingly useful as they are in a range of poses and fairly easy to carve up, many of them have ended up in carriers, but others have become vehicle crews and even 2pdr seated AT gunners with various bits chopped off. 

Each 'team' had a Bren gunner and two riflemen. I filed their bases as flat as possible and stuck them in a blob on the plastic disks. I vaguely thought about making sandbag edging out of Milliput, but in the end I just couldn't be bothered. Something else I can do later. 

I mounted them temporarily between two bits of dowel to undercoat and paint them, as the turret locator pins are quite long.

And here they are all mounted up and ready to biff the Hun. The infantry are done in standard wool Khaki uniforms, green helmets etc. I painted the base black to represent the aperture, and they don't look bad at all as the splash guard is raised around it so gives an impression of depth. 

They look slightly more obviously painted on from the rear. If it bothers me I can do the fancy painters trick of edging them in a lighter colour than the hulls which produces a 3D illusion of depth - I did that on the Crusader turret hatches I did last year, but I'm not convinced it is necessary, or that it would work in this case.

I'm sure the Germans will find them fairly terrifying anyway. Great, glad those are done, I've been meaning to do them for years. I've already got a couple of scenarios which use them, so we will play those at some point.