Israeli Military Vehicle - Walkaround

IDF M32 recovery vehicle
John Myszka (Photos Fabio Turchetto and Ian Hanratty)

With its large stock of M4 Sherman gun tanks it was reasonable for the IDF to acquire some Sherman based Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARV).   The greater proportion of photos of IDF M32 ARVs show that they were based on welded hull Shermans.  The M32 rear engine decks went through the same upgrade programs as did standard Shermans M1, M50 during the period 1956 to post 1973.   inevitably some M32s did not go all the way with these upgrades and could be found with the Batch 1 engine deck until they were pensioned off. (This upgrade is detailed in the book Israeli Military Vehicle 1948-1998).  The Verlinden IDF Sherman book does show an M4A1 cast hulled M32 ARV but it has the early small drivers hatches not the late ones as depicted by the Italeri kit.

IDF M32 additions:

• standard M50 hull side stowage of the period (1967 and 1973.) - both sides
• HVS suspension
• strengthened jib
• four AMX13 smoke dischargers mounted front and rear of the static "turret"
• diesel engine deck (Batch 1 through 4 depending on the period)
• up to three (two small and one large) rear deck mounted storage boxes
• rear plate mountings for oxy-acetylene bottles
• right side cradle for large capacity oxy-acetylene bottle

Italeri M32 ARV based on late M4A1 hull.
During World War 2 the USA Army did not purpose build any M32 ARVs as depicted by the Italeri kit. I believe that Italeri simply married their M4A1 76mm VVSS with some new M32 sprues as an expedient model - better than nothing but not accurate.   At the end of the day they may have actually based it on an existing museum vehicle.  Museums are notorious for cobbling things together and accuracy becomes a casualty.

The easiest solution is to build it on almost any other Sherman M4 hull and as stated above even a small hatch M4A1 is accurate.

Of course once the diesel engine was fitted and the rear engine deck changed from the standard WW2 versions, it becomes very difficult to determine on what welded hull Sherman the original hull was based.  This is the great part of IDF Sherman-ology.

References: Warmachines No.4 - Israeli M4 Sherman and derivatives (Verlinden)
                  IDF Military Vehicles 1948-1998 (Mouse House)

    Note that both cast and welded hull Sherman M32 were used by the IDF