This is a great new set of limited edition decals created by Johan Lexell of Bison Decals. They are silk-screened, wet transfers of extremely high quality, with the carrier film cut very close to the actual markings.

In all you can create seven different examples of Sherman III tanks that were used in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. The options are:

“Bacchus” 41st RTR, 24th Armoured Brigade, October, 1942
“Dover” HQ 24th Armoured Brigade, October, 1942
“Cocky” 41st RTR, 24th Armoured Brigade, October, 1942 (or alternately, Cocky as recovered and re-used by the Scots Greys, December 1942
“Benghazi” 41st RTR, 24th Armoured Brigade, October, 1942
Unnamed The Queens Bays, 2nd Armoured Brigade, early 1943
“Furious II” The Queens Bays, 2nd Armoured Brigade, early 1943
Unnamed 2nd Lothian and Border Horse, 26th Armoured Brigade, May 1943

You will note from the list above that the same regiments are represented a few times – that doesn’t bother me at all because each of these tanks was quite nicely marked and painted in either light stone or light stone and blue black. They will all make up into really attractive examples of British Sherman IIIs around the time of the 2nd Battle of El Alamein.

The only drawback I found was that the guides that are included to show paint patterns, decal placement and other details don’t necessarily tell the whole story. These tanks would have been some of the earliest delivered to the British and can therefore have early “M3” style bogeys and driver/co-driver hoods with direct vision slots. The tank COCKY is a good example - evidence points to it having the very early features while the Bison guide shows later ones.

That minor issue aside, this is a great set of decals.

Editor's note: Color images for this set can be found on Bison's website