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Book Review
M4 Sherman Walk Around
M4 Sherman Walk Around Number 1
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by: Scott Espin [ SPIFF ]

Introduction
Squadron/Signal Publications has chosen the M4 Sherman to kick off their new series of Armor Walk Around Books. The Walk Around Series provides a lot of bang for the buck as they are loaded with a wealth of photographs, profiles and diagrams. They are attractively bound and reasonably priced. This series will likely prove to be as invaluable to the modeler as Squadron’s successful Aircraft Walk Around books, especially for those on a budget.

The Book
Over 50,000 Shermans were produced by the United States during World War II. It was the primary tank in the US arsenal and was used by many US Allies, including the Soviet Union under the lend lease program. The fact that so many Shermans were still in service decades after WWII is a testament to both its durability and its ease of maintenance.

Squadron’s M4 Walk Around is the first of their Armor Walk Around series of books. The format will be familiar to those of you who have seen the Aircraft Walk Around Books. It contains 80 pages, softbound in a landscape format and focuses the majority of its attention to the M4, M4A1 and M4A3. There are 142 color photographs, 12 color profiles, 144 black and white photos, and several well-done diagrams. The pages are laid out alternating between two black and white pages, then two color pages, two black and white, two color and so on.

The author, Jim Mesko, begins with a very brief introduction of the Sherman, then quickly moves on to illustrate and explain the various different designs and body styles of the Sherman. The in-depth focus begins with the differential/final drive housings. There is much attention focused on the various guards for the headlights and the ball mounted machine guns.

There are 12 pages devoted to coverage of the various bogey assemblies, drive sprockets, idlers, road wheels and tracks. The author includes some great drawings that showcase the Sherman’s various features and design aspects. He then focuses on many exterior features such as the hatches, vents, visors, grills, caps, tools, gun cleaning rods, tail light guards, gun mantle and co-axial machine gun. Much attention is paid to the turret and mantle variations between the different models of the Sherman, including the M4A3E2.

Next the author documents the different turret hatches and the external machine gun and its mounting hardware. He then moves on to address the additional armor plates welded to the exterior of the tank to increase its armor protection where the ammunition storage bins are located. There are many photos of the interior, transmission, driver's position, internal machine guns, and several of the different engines used in the Sherman. Also included are photos of the turret interior and ammunition storage. Finally, there are a series of 12 color profiles.

Conclusion
This is a nice, supplemental photo reference of the Sherman. Unfortunately, there are so many different models and variations of the Sherman that it’s a bit ambitious to even attempt to cover such a broad topic in-depth in only 80 pages. Far from being a comprehensive walk around of the Sherman, it does cover the M4, M4A1 and M4A3 reasonably well however there is almost no coverage of Sherman variants used by the British and other allies. I was a bit disappointed with the quality of many of the color photographs, mostly because of the poor lighting and flash photography. The photos could have been enhanced and corrected using even just basic photo editing software. At times, the photo captions are a bit redundant and seem to have been written for each photo individually, as opposed to using the pictures and captions as a whole to document the variations of the different models of the Sherman.
SUMMARY
Highs: The book is loaded with many Color and B&W photos, color profiles and diagrams. This is a good supplemental photo reference of the M4 Sherman.
Lows: The quality of the pictures could have been better and the limited coverage of anything other than the M4, M4A1 and M4A3 will disappoint some.
Verdict: Good supplemental photo reference on the Sherman, but you’ll want to have other resources to fill in the gaps.
Percentage Rating
80%
  Scale: Other
  Mfg. ID: ISBN 0-89747-410-4
  Suggested Retail: $16.95
  PUBLISHED: Jan 27, 2008
  NATIONALITY: United States
NETWORK-WIDE AVERAGE RATINGS
  THIS REVIEWER: 90.31%
  MAKER/PUBLISHER: 85.83%

About Scott Espin (Spiff)
FROM: NEVADA, UNITED STATES

I have been an avid student of military history for over 35 years, especially World War II with my focus mostly on German military equipment (tanks and aircraft). I'm especially interested in anything relating to the Eastern Front and North Africa. My Dad ignited my passion for modeling when I...

Copyright ©2021 text by Scott Espin [ SPIFF ]. All rights reserved.



Comments

It's a must have book that I've enjoyed for years now.
JAN 27, 2008 - 03:26 AM
Agree a must have if you want to do any conversion work on Shermans, not much use for Brit Versions though.
JAN 27, 2008 - 04:29 AM
There's always the Armor Photo Gallery books on the M4A2, Firefly and M10 17pdr for that The Walkaround books are good for checking details of things not entirely visible in archive shots, but they have the perennial problem of books covering preserved vehicles in that they are sometimes rag-bags of available components. Beware the Tank Destroyers one too as the M10 'Hitler's Nightmare' definitely has British stowage modifications even though it's in US Army marknigs. David
JAN 29, 2008 - 01:18 AM
The upper-left color picture of the R975 engine taken through the open rear doors is upside down.
JAN 03, 2009 - 12:37 AM
Is this a revised version of the M4 walk around that has been out for at least two years or more? Darryl
JAN 03, 2009 - 01:06 AM
Good refference book for people who already know the M4, M4A1 or M4A3 but don't know about certain details. I have this book for about 5-6 years now and its great. One little comment about this book though !? If you don't know a thing about a M4 / Sherman tank, than this book can be bit confusing. This because some detail pictures from M4, M4 DV, M4A1, M4A3 dry stowage ( post war ) M4A3 Jumbo, Etc, Etc, are placed random. You have to know wich detail fits wich M4 / Sherman variant. After all these years I still read it. Very good refference ! Must have for Sherman fans. Hi, I am Frank, and I am a Shermanoholic.
JAN 03, 2009 - 03:01 AM
AFAIK it's not revised but exactly the same, it gets rereleased every so often.
JAN 03, 2009 - 03:32 AM
   
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