US OOB 12 very minor comments

[Pibwl]

Originally Posted by Pibwl

11, 314 M4 3-4-3 Flame - for most of its service it was known as M4 E4-5 Flame - only from 4/45 a derivate of an auxiliary flamethrower E4-5 was standardized as M3-4-4 (Zaloga: "..many unit records refer to the various types of auxiliary flamethrowers under the generic E4-5 designation...")

A better picture is 30243, since it was bow-mounted flamethrower, while current one shows a FT mounted in a turret (POA-CWS-H1)

M4 POA-CWS-H1 with turret-mounted FT could be also added to the Army (copied from USMC unit 203, with changed name to M4) - they were used by the Army on Pacific theatre (54 tanks available from 1/45, used from 4/45 on Okinawa).

#312 M42B3 - personally I couldn't find such designation... apparently it's M4 POA-CWS-H5 with HVSS suspension?

BTW: #720 LVT(A) 4 - maybe it's worth to replace picture 09386 with beautiful 2470, with prominent Army star (avoided by the Marines)

[MarkSheppard]

Originally Posted by Pibwl

#312 M42B3 - personally I couldn't find such designation... apparently it's M4 POA-CWS-H5 with HVSS suspension

I went through my files and found a document I photographed in US National Archives II in College Park, MD titled SPECIAL FULL TRACK ARMORED VEHICLES.

The M42 was an official designation used for standardized main armament flamethrower tanks; and there were two variants produced:

M42B1: Rebuilt tanks using M4A1 tanks as a basis.
M42B3: Rebuilt tanks using M4A3 tanks as a basis.

Both variants used the M5-4 / (E12-7R1) flamethrower with 315 gallons of fuel; replacing the main armament.

Several HUNDRED of these were remanufacturered by August 1945; with HUNDREDS more cancelled by the end of WW2 in August 1945.

[MarkSheppard]

Photographs of interest. It doesn't say which version is shown; but true Sherman aficionados can figure out which is which by looking at the hull.