For me, Furys’ turret is one of the key parts of the whole tank and I spent a lot of time researching it. Once you really study it there’s an amazing amount of detail that is very specific to Fury and I was adamant to capture and model the smallest of features as best I could; turret casting texture, casting serial numbers, armament placement, stowage hooks etc, etc.
And then there’s the 76mm barrel and the very distinct muzzle brake. It was clear that in this scale it’s not going to be a quick job. It was at this point the realisation set in that although big is beautiful……it’s also going to be quite expensive :o)
Fury’s turret was a T23 model and the closest 1/6 version I could find was from FOA. However, although it was a T23 that they have, it was the early T23 version, whilst the one on Fury was a late T23. The difference is the loader’s hatch, the early tank has a split ring copula, while the late hatch has the oval loader’s hatch. A few modifications were going to be required.
Here, the raw T23 early version turret from FOA that comes as 3 pieces of heavy and very solid polyester resin: top and bottom turret sections and gun mantlet.
The gun mantlet has some nice features. The casting texture is very realistic with casting numbers (although these numbers are wrong and I’ll need to sand down and replace with the same ones that were on Fury’s mantlet). The .30 cal MG port opening has been re-worked and moved into the correct position.
The turret roof of the T23 early. Marked are some of the areas that I’ve started to re-work to be able to mount the oval hatch rather than the stock split ring secondary copula.
A lot of milliput and subsequent sanding before getting the markings in place ready for cutting
Cutting out the square turret spacing that sits behind the mantlet was quite a job. The solid resin here had a depth of more than 10 cm and required some hardcore work with the dremel.
Indirect sighting device mounted and fixed in the correct position.