P'Lugah Tan'kim Progress

My Israeli army for Flames of War is slowly taking shape.  I have assembled the first 8 tanks, 4 M50 and 4 M51, shermans.  I have several Jeeps to assemble next and I am still awaiting my Sho't from Battlefront.  I really like the M51 Isherman models.  These are some amazing models.  It would have been nice to see some stowage variation or even some extra bits to break up the uniformity a little.  The M50 model is not quite a cool.  Part of it is it is a really ugly tank.  But the hull of this model is a little odd.  The front is clearly from the M4A1 Sherman but the rear looks like it is from the A3.  It does not have the fully rounded hull they is typical of the A1 and the model is a different hull from the M51 kit.

I have already decided that I will be expanding this force.  I am thinking of using my US Easy 8 Shermans as Israeli M1.  Most of the M1 tanks were based on the M4A1 cast hull but there are lots of pictures of M4A3 based tanks as well.  This will work nicely I think as they would not require any conversion work.  Battlefront recommends using the M4A1 WW2 kit and using the HVSS tracks to model the M1.  To me this poses too many problems.  First the M4A1 lit lacks the fenders for the wider HVSS tracks.  Then there is the problem of the muzzle break - the M4A1 kits does not have it and the E8 does.  These are key features for me and just cannot be left off.