Lend Lease: Using 'Hit the Beach' Shermans as British Shermans

Hi folks,

I saw an interesting discussion about the new Battlefront starter set, and about the use of the Sherman's within as British tanks*. I thought it was worthy of a little post.

Image used without permission - from the Battlefront website

From a historical perspective, you could use the starter set Shermans to represent a British unit in Normandy, if you so wanted.

In British service, the M4A1 Sherman was known as the Sherman II. While this type of Sherman in British service was relatively uncommon, there was at least one British brigade in Normandy equipped with Sherman II's - the 4th (Independent) Armoured Brigade 'The Black Rats' - some of the original armoured units that fought in the desert as part of the Eight Army.

You can also find some information on this unit on the Battlefront website.

Just to list it here however, for D-Day the brigade consisted of:

Royal Scots Greys (Sherman II & Firefly VC, Stuart M3A1's)
3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sherman II & Firefly VC, Stuart M3A1's)
44th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment (Sherman II & Firefly VC, Stuart M3A1's)
2nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps (Motor Battalion)

The brigade was particularly interesting as it included it's own 'armoured infantry' in the form of the Motor Battalion, who would have had infantry in halftracks. The Brigade also had it's 'own' artillery unit in the form of 4th Royal Horse Artillery (equipped with towed 25 Pounders).

They would doubtless have also been supported by attached units with M10's and possibly in the post D-Day battles - M7 Priests (some of the British and Canadian artillery units in the assault divisions had these instead of towed 25 Pounders or Sextons).

Image used without permission - from the Battlefront website

Unfortunately with Doms Decals being down currently, the markings for these units would be pretty hard to track down decal wise.

However, if you did decide to do this, it is important to note that these units would not have used the 76mm armed variant - the British used Fireflys instead (which has a much longer gun, and is generally just more impressive). you could 'counts as' the 76mm Shermans - but you would be a bad person** - just get the Fireflys.

If you then purchased the British starter set, you could build some of the Sherman V's from that as Fireflys (I believe the Firefly option is built onto each plastic sprue). This would give you a British armoured unit of:

HQ - 2 x Sherman II

Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)
Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)

Leaving you 3 Sherman V's spare (One could be an OP tank, so 2 spare - build them both as Fireflys and you could have two troops with 2 x Sherman II's and 2 x Sherman Vc's).

Of course, if you swap your German's for someone else's Shermans from the starter set (which seems to be pretty common), and got the British Starter set, you would be able to field a full British Armoured Squadron as at D-Day:

HQ - 2 x Sherman II

Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)
Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)
Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)
Troop - 3 x Sherman II, 1 x Sherman Vc (Firefly)
Sherman V Observer tank

Leaving you 2 x spare Sherman II (I've not seen the Fortress Europe book - some Sherman lists would allow your HQ to be 4 tanks strong, so that might use up these two spares).

In either case you would also have the British Infantry, Universal Carriers, Stuarts, M10's, 25 Pounders and Churchills as add on support options from the British box - which is a pretty damned impressive British army.

Later in the war, some British units did use Sherman II's - possibly the Poles and 5th Canadian Armoured, but I've not done any immediate research on that.

*More easily done for units in Italy, I believe
**you would be a bad person, but it's your hobby...