Roco Upper Hull and Turret

When Paul Heiser first started to research his plans for an HO scale Sherman tank model to replace the old Roco Z-101 and Z-202 he started by checking out the Z-202 Sherman to see if it is an accurate model.

It's not too bad, but the engine deck seems to combine to different Sherman tank engines, the Ford GAA on the M4A3 and the Continental 975 on the M4A1, based on the grills in the engine deck.

The other parts were acceptable so the first Sherman model he made was a new upper hull, for the M4A3 and a curved one for the cast hull M4A1 tank.  So all you did was remove the old Roco upper hull, and replace it with a new resin upper hull to get one of two more accurate versions.

I was able to get enough of these upper hulls to convert nearly all of my Roco Sherman tanks.  Since Paul was going to make a plastic model of these vehicles, he did not enter these upper hulls into full production and stopped making them when the mold wore out.

The Roco Sherman turret is a very early production turret without the side armor for the main gun and no pistol port and no loaders hatch.

It also has the early production commanders cupola, and it is a cupola not a hatch.  On a real Sherman it can spin around and it turns the hatch so it can open at any angle.  So the little Roco 1/2 hatches can be put onto the model in any order as long as there is one of each type.