
 to my newest project log. For this Group Build I will be building Dragons 1/35 Sexton II kit. I had to order this kit in from Korea as it seems to be out of stock everywhere in the UK, and anywhere I could see it for sale it was daft expensive.
  to my newest project log. For this Group Build I will be building Dragons 1/35 Sexton II kit. I had to order this kit in from Korea as it seems to be out of stock everywhere in the UK, and anywhere I could see it for sale it was daft expensive. So why the Sexton. Basically I love self propelled artillery. There is something pretty cool about putting a howitzer on a tank chassis. With this being the D-Day GB there was a few options for SPGs. But out of the two common Allied ones, the M7 Priest and the Sexton II, I think the Sexton is the cooler of the two tanks.
History Lesson
Introducing the Sexton II. In simple terms its a Canadian-built Sherman M4A1 lower hull with an open topped superstructure for the crew compartment. The vehicle was armed with the British OQF 25-pounder artillery piece and a few .303 Bren guns for close defence.

Early Sextons (Mark I's) were based on the Canadian Ram tank chassis, which in turn was a Canadian version of the M3 Lee chassis. These were inferior to the M4 design and so production shifted to the Sexton II when it was realised that US production of the M4 would be satisfactory to meet demand. The design was considered very successful and the Sexton II proved itself well in combat with both the Canadian and British Armies during WW2, as well as other Commonwealth forces.
The Sexton was powered by a Wright-Continental R975-C1 9 cylinder gasoline engine producing 400hp. This gave the Sexton a top speed of 39km/h. The vehicle required a crew of 6 and could carry 105 rounds for the main gun internally.
By the end of the war the British had ordered over 2000 vehicles.
There is numerous discussions around about the "correct" combination of suspension and track types used on the Sexton. Its commonly accepted that they used VVSS suspension, and there are many pictures online of vehicles with most types of Sherman track, and either open spoke or solid roadwheels. Most models had 17 tooth drive sprockets compared to the 13 tooth ones common to Shermans. The Dragon kit comes with both open and closed spoke roadwheels, and two types of bogies. However the sprockets are all the M4 13 tooth type. However there are pictures online which prove Sextons were sometimes fitted with more common M4 tracks/sprockets than Sexton ones. The picture above shows a vehicle with the 17 tooth sprocket and Canadian Dry Pin tracks. Below is an example more like what I will be building.

This vehicle has the rubber padded T41 M4 style tracks, whereas I will be using the DS tracks in the kit which depict steel chevroned T54E1 tracks. This picture shows a Sexton with these tracks fitted (clearly the steel chevrons, not the rubber ones due to the "clean" surface of the chevrons).
Here are some more reference pics for the Sexton II.





And here is the colourscheme I will be painting mine in.

The Kit
The kit from Dragon was released in 2012, but seems to be OOP now. I think that Dragon is releasing a Canadian Army Sexton soon and so they may be using this new kit as their standard Sexton, replacing this kit. Hence me having to order it from Asia.
Box art and sprue pics.














General plans at this moment include getting some crew for this model, probably the Bronco North West Europe 25 pdr crew. And I plan a simple diorama of the Sexton driving up a beach area, or perhaps along some bocage/Normandy country lane. I believe the Sextons of the unit I will depict didn't land until 60 hours after H hour, so probably not until the 7th or 8th June.
I plan to model a vehicle from the 147th Essex Yeomanry RHA, but more on that unit and their history in another post.
I am off to make a start to the kit, so laters!
Ciao for now












 
  










 
 











































 
 
 
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