M32 article by joshua weingarten

The IDF from it's humble beginnings in 1948, was a major user of the M4 Sherman series tank both as a gun tank and as a platform for artillery. There were also numerous specialty vehicles from observation platforms to ambulance variants. Some were stock types, many were home grown. One of the stock types used was the M32 series of recovery vehicles. These vehicles which came on numerous hull types were used for recovering wrecked tanks and vehicles both from the battlefield and training field. the IDF seems to have used primarily two hull types, these being the M4a1 early with small hatches and the M4. There may have been a modified M4a3 but I haven't been able to find a picture.

These ARVs(armoured recovery vehicles) were equipped with a heavy duty winch that could either be used in tandem with its hull mounted "A" frame or through hatches on the glacis and rear of the turret for pulling vehicles out of trouble. The vehicles would also have carried numerous spare parts like extra sprockets, return rollers and road wheels mounted on its hull and static turret. M32s both in Israeli service as well as with other countries were used with both VVSS and HVSS suspensions.

This article will cover building both a 1950s VVS and 1973 HVSS variants, starting with the 1973 variant. Although similar, the latter variants had the HVSS suspension as well numerous added hull mounted attachment points . The IDf used 2 Sherman hull types when it came to the ARV these were the M4 & M4A1. The M4 being of the welded hull type and the M4A1 being a cast hull. As is often mentioned in regard to the M4A1 only small hatch early type hulls were used. Luckily For us DML has re-released their early hull M4a1 kit.

Building a M4 HVSS M32 circa 1973

By the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the IDF had at least automotively standardised its sherman tank fleet. This included a Cummins deisel engine and HVSS running gear. Like the rest of the sherman family the M32 ARVs received the upgrades as well. As mentioned above, a number of attachement points were added to the hull and static turret. We will take a look at these modifications as we procede in building the model.

There is no kit on the market today which would allow you to build an accurate M32 ARV, let alone an Israeli one out of the box. The Italeiri offering kit Number 203 and aptly named Recovery Vehicle M32 is avery nice kit. And although not up to days casting standards is fairly well detailed and includes most of the parts you need to build an M32. The only problem being it was never made on a M4A1 late hull with large hatches.

In our case this is not so much of a problem as we will be building ours as a M4 based vehicle. In order to accomplish this we will utilise 3 kits, one set of PE and a load of plactic rod and strip. The first kit is the relatively new Tamiya M4 kit number 190 form which we will use the upper hull. Next is the Academy M51 kit number 1373 from which we will use the lower hull. Last is the afore mentioned Itaeiri kit number 203 while not accurate as far as the hull goes, it gives us many of the parts we need for the boom and associated recovery gear.

The "turret"

I chose to start working on the 'turret' first. this is part #100. This is a horseshoe shaped armoured superstructure which does not rotate but is instead bolted to the turret ring. Italeiri's part is fairly simplistic and represents a thin mouthed cable chute version. As we will be building a large mouthed large mouthed version we need to modify part 100 and leave off parts 101-106 in step 9 and part 136 in step 12 of the Italeiri instructions. Now comes our first bit of cutting, Italeiri gives you neither the front nor the rear cable chute openings. There are actually no parts for the rear cable chute at all.

While I have some excellent photo reference of the vehicles, I do not have any measurements. Based on the photos numbers 1&2 to the right, I came up with an opening of 9 mm wide and 6mm high for the front opening. I simply used a drill bit at the corners and connected the holes using an exacto blade, followed by some filing to clean up the hole.The next step was to make the armoured door which protects the opening . For this I used a piece of .30 card stock, which I cut and sanded a milimeter larger to each side. To get the shape of the curve for the door I simply bent the piece over a smaller curved rod and applied some heat from a hair dryer. Once bent I then marked the opening on one side and added the raised portion which is on the inside of the door.

Once I had a good fit I made the hinges using small pieces of strip and rod. After they had dried I glued the door in place guestimating the angle based on the photos. having let the door dry I was able to build up the rest of the armour exterior cable chute by cutting card stock to fit. Note that the sides of the chute are covered at the top. Also note the two pin locks for the chute at the top of door and their corresonding points on the door itself. I made these out of small pieces of .20 X.40 plastic strip. based on the photos I have the bottom of the roller doesn't reach to the bottom of the 'Turret'. Also make sure the roller isn't touching the inside wall, in real life the roller not only swivels but can move side to side on the rod. The last point on the door is the handle to pull it closed when not in use. I find the thickness of the the door surprising concidering the open top of the 'Turret', as well as the fact I don't think these vehicles were used up at the front but rather somewhat behind the lines.

Photo number three gives us a good view of the rear area of the turret including a good portion of the turret sides. Photos 4 - 8 complete our references of the turret interior. In the following photos of the actual model you can see how using .30 card stock and .50 rod I built both rollers for the 'Turret'. The forward cable hatch has a handle to pull it closed from the inside while the smaller rear cable hatch only has a chain. Both forward and rear hatches can be locked in the closed position by the afore mention pin locks, the only difference being the rear lock is drilled through the pully support arms while the front had separate eyelets. To the left of the front cable roller is a hookup for internal crew communications. This com box serves both when one man is operating in the turret and for the two crew who sit on swivel mounted seat that are just below as well as left and right from the cable hatch. we'll get to these in a bit. the com box was built using 0.40 strip cut square and edged with .020 X .080 strip. the turn knob was made by drilling a hole for .050 rod. you can get fancier but I was comfortable with this setup.

The rear cable chute was built in similar fasion to the front one, only here both the size of the opening and the roller mechanism are a bit smaller. You will also need to trim the turret race ring to accomadate the roller mechanism. The chute itself is cut into the vertical section of part 109 from the Italeiri kit. Just above and centered on the angled portion of part 109 is the TC's fold down seat. Next to the seat to the left is a junction box possibly controlling the eight smoke dischargers located in quads fore and aft on the turret. Above and to the right of the TC's seat is his personal uzi in a mount. A further look at photo #3 reveals some more details on the rear wall, not all of which will be added on this model.

To the right of the TC's chair are two holders for what might be fire extinguishers or NBC kits, another box is mounted on the right wall with a split lid. In front of this is a twin com box for the turret crew. just below the boxes is the second of three Uzi mounts in the turret. To the left of the seat next to the cable chute is a frame to small to be a gas can holder, although it might be a convenient place for a spare .50 cal. can. on the left wall we can see UZI clip # 3, above and behind which is a clip for another pistol shaped tool. The two pads visible here are the rear crew seat backs. Of interest is the tie down cleat located just to the right of the cable chute. My only guess would be as a place to tie down the cable when not in use. Just in view on the left wall is a large fire extinguisher mount. the last point of the rear is the individual crewman's hook up for a nbc hood or suit. IT would be interesting to find out whether this was a post 1973 addition or if the fear of chemical attack was already relevant before the Yom Kippur War.The following few pictures give a little better views of the turret and crew compartment.

When building any model choices need to be made on how much detail vs. time one wants to spend. I like engineering vehicles so I decided to add a bit of the interior even though most of it wouldn't be seen. With the two cable chutes complete I move on to the rest of the turret interior. The Italeri kit gives you four shelves to be located on both sides of the turret. These shelves were used to store 81mm mortar rounds on the left front and both right shelves for a total of 11 rounds, as well as .50 cal ammunition cans on the subdivided left rear shelf.

The Italeri parts 107 and 108 are unusable, both for their being over size and with parts 107 being of the wrong shape. to relace the shelves I used .20 plastic strip for the horizontal parts and .10 for the verticle lip. only the left rear shelf gets angled dividers. The front shelves need to follow the curve of the turret. Not having an actual vehicle to measure I acme up with shelves 5mm deep, with the long shelves being 18mm long . The curved shelves were just eyeballed and are 12mm at the front. Aber tie downs were used above each shelf.

The other few scratch built items were all made from plastic strip & rod, with the UZi holders having bent PE metal. The PE Metal is from saved frets I keep in the spare parts boxes and were bent uniformally using the Mission Models new folding tool for grab handles. The com boxes are a piece of .60 strip cut and wraped in .20 X .100 strip , with the knob being .40 rod drilled thru and glued in place. The reel on the left side of the turret is an old sherman fan cover mounted on a plastic strip and topped with a piece of paper, the line is wire.

Finishing off the interior are the seats and seat pads. All seat pads and seat backs were made using milliput. Milliput is a two part epoxy resin that when combined in equal parts, makes a putty that can be shaped into just about any form and sculpted. Once it cures Milliput can be drilled,filed or sanded into final shape. There are five seats in our turret all of which can be folded or turned out of the way during operations. the first is the TCs drop down seat on the rear wall, then there are two seats to either side of the rear cable chute. these are attached to the turret ring and have seats which drop down. the front two seats are on rods mounted under the turret ring and rotate into the drivers area. their back pads ore mounted on the turet wall to sides of the front cable chute. The last items are a box and the handle for the roof spotlight which while nice to put in are totaly invisible once the turret is put in place. the following two pics show all the componants in place and ready for paint.

With the turret interior done its time to move to the outside of the turret. I actually started my project with this next step. I began my project by sanding off the existing gun ring and replacing it with a scratch built one. This entailed a number of steps. Step one was to make the flange which would sit on in the deck itself. To do this I cut a solid 3cm disc from .20" card stock and centerd it on the exiting 2.4cm hole. After the glue had dried I drilled a hole large enought to take my rotory tool's sanding head and sanded the disk flush with the existing opening. The next step was to take plastic strip and make the verticle part of the ring. This was accomplished by placing an oversized piece in the opening and carefull cutting and sanding until you have a nice butt joint. the rail protrudes 2.6mm from the deck of the turret. Lastly added the lip to the gun ring using square strip in the same manner as I did the verticle part of the rail, only this time the lip is on the outside and top. To replicate the bolts in the flange I drilled and glued in place hexogonal rod.

The second hatch in the roof is a standard sherman split hatch without mount for the .50 cal machine gun. This hatch too needs a bit of work and I started by using .20 strip to make the lower 'skirt' part of the hatch. I added pads made out of Milliput and moved on to the hatches themselves. As can be seen from photo #** there are two rings one on each interior side of the hatches. these are releases for the lock which keeps the hatches from inadvertently closing . On the right hatch half I added an appropriately shaped pad, while on the left a custom dioramic vision block sleeve is present. the hatch on the M32 did not rotate and is welded in place. to simulate the weld I used .20 rod. (just a note here you're going to be making loads of welds, a good supply of .10,.20 and .30 rod is a must). Now that we're working on the exterior of the M32 lets take a look at some pics of the real thing as well as the completed hatches. and exterior detail of the IDF turret