Flail in Primer Paint

Once giving a primer coat these flail tanks look much better, I think.

Certainly they don't look so patchwork and more military.

I am out of olive drab paint right now, so these will have to wait for final painting.

Still, I think these look pretty good.

In detail these are not particularly accurate, but do give the general look of the flail.

And they are durable for wargame use.

I am happy with them.

They look good as a group.

The final line up!
 

Using the Flail

Sherman tank mine flail.

Top view.

Bottom view.

Clearing mines on the beach.

Moving along parallel to the water to make a wider beach landing area.

Having several mine clearing vehicles together can make a wider and safer.

Two side by side and one in the middle to clear the gap.

Here they are getting primer painted.

 I usually paint the bottom of models first and then when they are dry I can flip them over and paint the other side.  Since these are made out of several different materials and different colors primer painting of these is essential.  It will help the actual paint to stick and it will create a uniform base color for the top coat paint.

Flail Tank Information

This is one of the flail tanks that I got in a used collection.

The real tanks had chains with little extra chain parts on them to add weight to beat the ground.

This particular version of the flail is just a bit of wire with a small blob of glue at intervals along the wire.

That makes the wire look like the "chain" has the extra weights on it.

This one is depicting the flail in action.

I did not bend the wire so that it touched the ground.

I figured it would be likely to get caught on the playing surface and either damage the model or the surface.

I have three flail tanks in my collection so a tank battalion could provide one flail to each company in an attack.

These don't move very quickly in real life so it would be important to have artillery to fire smoke and high explosive to protect the flail tank.

My plan is to make three Aunt Jemima mine rollers also, to give me a total of six mine clearing vehicles.

I scratch built two Aunt Jemima anti-mine rollers and purchased one from Paul Heiser Models.  So when I am done I will have a total of six Sherman mine clearing vehicles.
 

Sherman Flail Chain

My first flail drum made of chain.

I used up many of my old Roco and Heiser Sherman tank bits.

This one did not get the rear end changed out, just plated over.

You can see some of the tank was previously painted.

I used Evergreen Plastic and Plastruct plastic to make the flail arms.

The lower hull was resin cast by me.  The tracks were primer painted forever ago in white primer but it never got painted OD green.  The chain I got from a model ship parts maker that makes fantastic wooden model ships.
 

Sherman Flail

After fixing the Roco Sherman rear deck to make it into an M4A3 Sherman it was time to add more details.

This is my patchwork Sherman.  It's made of plastic and resin, and Roco and Heiser and resin cast parts and other bits.

Decades ago I purchased a used collection and it included two flail Sherman tanks.  The flail was a device that had a mechanical drum that would turn and chains attached to the drum would fly around the drum and beat the ground.  The idea is that the chains would explode landmines and not damage the tank.  Thus cleared there would be an obvious path through the landmine.

The boom portion of the Sherman flail models were not very good and so I saved the very clever drums and rebuilt the booms so they would be sturdier and more accurate.

I also made a flail tank on my own before buying this two.  I used actual chain on my flail drum.  The booms on my flail tank were sturdier than the one's I purchased but were even less accurate than the purchased ones.

So I made three new booms and installed both my boom and the two purchased flails to three different Sherman tanks.

While this version of the flail is not accurate in detail, it looks a lot more like the real flail than the ones I started with.  It is also a very durable model.
 

Fixing the Sherman Hull

Rear side view of the Z-202 Roco Sherman tank in HO scale.

A very well done model, except for the rear engine deck.  It has the rectangular part just behind the turret that is indicative of the M4 with Continental engine and the two grilles just behind that of the Ford engine used on the M4A3 Sherman tank.  Needless to say, it can't have both engines so the problem needs to be fixed.

I have an old Heiser Models Sherman upper hull, with just the rear half of the hull. 

So I cleaned up the edge of the Heiser hull, cut the Roco hull in half and replaced the Roco rear hull with the Heiser rear hull.  I then put a small disk of plastic on the spot were the turret goes to raise the turret up about 1/2 of a millimeter.  The turret won't turn freely unless it is raised up a little since it sits differently on the Heiser hull part.

Here it is installed on a Sherman flail tank.
 

Motorcycles Drive Into Town

A biker hang out.

Motorcycles drive past.

Others watch from Dante's Inferno.

Other pedestrians watch.

Neighborhood parking.

Vroom.