Modelling US Army Tank Destroyers of World War II

This sudden spurt of plastic-kit releases in recent years has helped to fill most of the major gaps in 1/35th-scale tank destroyer kits. The glaring exception is the M3 75mm GMC, although KMC released a 1/35th-scale mixed-media kit to convert the Tamiyan M3 half-track into the tank destroyer version. The other exception is the 3-in. M5 anti-tank gun: once again, KMC came to the rescue with a pair of resin and photo-etch sets to convert the 105mm howitzer into the M5 3-in. gun either in the early configuration on the M1 carriage, or the standard configuration on the M6 carriage. When KMC folded, their master moulds went to Warriors Scale Models, part of VLS.

Small-scale modellers have been well served by an extensive selection of resin and white-metal kits of US tank destroyers in 1/76th. For example, Milicast has all of the tank destroyers available in their 1/76th-scale resin line. A number of conversion sets are also available, such as the Alby M10 and M36 conversions in 1/72nd to covert the ESCI/Italeri M4 Sherman kits. Tank destroyers have not been as well served in plastic until recently. ESCI, now under the Italeri label, released an M6 37mm GMC in their 1/72nd-scale series in the 1980s, but this was one of the few kits available in plastic for many years. In 2003, Extratech in the Czech Republic released a series of plastic kits of the M10 in 1/72nd scale - the subject of one of the projects in this book.