The AMX M4

in #tanks5 years ago

Contrary to the popular stereotype of them being the biggest military losers of the 20th century, the French have actually produced some remarkably formidable war machines. Among them is the AMX M4, a prototype version of the AMX 50 heavy tank. The model that I have just completed (by request, better late than never) is the mle. 49-100, or model 1949 armed with 100mm gun:
AMX M4 49 1.PNG
AMX M4 49 2.PNG
AMX M4 49 3.PNG
AMX M4 49 4.PNG

Note that unlike the AMX 50, the AMX M4 has a conventional turret, rather than an oscillating turret. The oscillating turret is a French invention, from what I can tell, though it isn't unique to French tanks. As far as things that aren't unique, note the overlapping road wheels and reverse angle at the back of the hull - two things which, prior to the end of the War, were uniquely German. In fact, many of the early post-war French tank designs copied late-war German tanks extensively, most notably the King Tiger. To show you what I mean, here are a few pictures of the AMX M4 next to a King Tiger:
AMX M4 and Tiger 1.PNG
AMX M4 and Tiger 2.PNG
AMX M4 and Tiger 3.PNG

Both have the same overall hull shape, same overall turret shape, rear-mounted engine and nine pairs of overlapping road wheels (five outer, four inner) with no return rollers. One of the drawings for the AMX M4 even shows a hull-mounted machine gun, though that was never included on any version ever built. There are a few other minor differences between the drawings I used to make this model and most of the renderings I've found online, such as the version from World of Tanks, which has a much less pronounced gun mantlet and a compound angle on the step up to the rear half of the hull. So, before anyone tells me that I got this thing wrong, I just want to let you know that I was working from original blueprints, and not trying at all to copy someone else's rendering.

This model is not yet available for sale, but I will post a comment linking to the product page as soon as that changes.

Support my work on SubscribeStar so I can continue cranking these things out: https://www.subscribestar.com/kaja-blackwing

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As of yesterday, I have a 1/285 scale model available for sale. You can see it here: https://www.shapeways.com/product/LUK7PJLJX/1-285-amx-m4-mle-49-100-heavy-tank?optionId=105893105
The 1/100 scale model will not be available until I have another fictional tank to upload, per my self-imposed 15mm wargaming challenge. Since I have a lot of historical requests to work on at the moment, I don't really have time to meet that challenge.

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