The M4A4 kit is fairly old and has less detail than the newer M4A2 kit, therefore I used as many parts from the newer kit as possible. The parts were for the most part perfectly compatible and went together without any problems. I had to scratch build the exhaust deflector on the rear of the tank. I used Evergreen styrene for that. I fashioned the fuel can rack with steel wire. I drilled out the hatch hinges and set stretched sprue in them so they will open and close. I also approximated the “donkey sight” mount and brush guard in front of the commanders cupola.I was lucky enough to have one color photo of captured Egyptain tanks from the 1956 campaign for reference. I painted the tank with Tamiya Buff lightened with flat white. I post shaded with straight white diluted with Tamiya lacquer thinner. I weathered with a wash of black Gumbacher oil and pastels.
I used casting marks from Archer Fine Transfers for the first time and was very pleased. The markings are taken from photographs of Egyptain tanks on parade in 1955. I hand painted the Arabic slogan on the turret which reads Damah (defense). The charioteer on the hull was a fun project. I printed a photograph of the insignia on white copier paper. Then I turned the paper over and traced the pattern on the clean white side with a black marker. Then it was a simple matter of scanning the drawing, sizing it and printing it on Testors decal paper.
The interior was sparse to say the least. As I examined photographs of surviving H39 interiors it became clear I would have to do some work to set it right. The viewports in the turret were nonexistent on the inside. I fixed those by scraping the locator pins clear and pirating some resin Verlinden viewports from a Stuart kit. The result isn’t 100% accurate but still better than nothing. The bulkhead between the engine compartment and the fighting compartment did not extend all the way to the top of the hull inside. This was fixed with Evergreen stock. The Eduard photo etch set added a lot to the kit. I can't say enough good things about Eduard products. 
The driver’s seat was pretty poor so I scratch built a seat using wire and Evergreen styrene. The drive shafts on the original H39s I looked at had a large shield going halfway around it. This wasn’t represented in the kit so I build that from Evergreen stock as well. Bronco made no attempt to represent the large hinge mechanism for the drivers lower hatch. I scratch built this using parts from the spares box. The kit comes with a full engine compartment as well. Unfortunately it's completely invisible once the engine deck is in place. I threw those parts in the spares box.
The suspension is actually pretty good as are the tracks. The problem I ran into was that the way the fenders extend from the hull there is not enough clearance for the tracks. This proved to be a major headache and required some finesse to get everything to seat properly. I wasn’t thinking kind thoughts towards the Bronco engineers at this point. 
I did the vehicle in Israeli colors representing a tank used in their 1948 war for independence. A handful of these obsolete tanks were either captured from Syria or obtained through Eastern Europe from stocks of captured French tanks used by Germany during WW2. Ten of these vehicles were used during the capture of Lod airport in July of 1948.
I mixed a French looking brownish olive drab using Tamiya acrylics. I post shaded with olive drab lightened with Tamiya Desert Yellow and thinned with Tamiya Laquer thinner. I used the kit decals for the turret numbers and masked the 8th Armored Brigade markings. I used a #32 pencil to scuff and chip the hull and turret lightly. The tracks and drive sprocket were highlighted with a silver artist pencil. The final weathering was accomplished with pastels.
Once I was done I wasn’t satisfied that it was readily apparent enough that the tank was Israeli. It just looked too generic. So, I added a tarp roll on the back of the hull and fashioned an Israeli flag from rolled out epoxy putty. Once it was draped over the canvas roll I let it dry. I then masked the star of David and bars using Tamiya masking tape. The whole thing is purely artistic license but accomplishes what I wanted.
The kit is engineered very well and goes together without any fit issues at all. The interior is a little sparse though and benefitted from a few rivets and wires in spots highly visible from the two large hatches. I actually did a fair bit of work on the dual machine gun mount but not much of it is visible on the finished model. I also scratch built a few ammo boxes for the racks. The seats weren't very detailed so I removed them and added some textured ones that I made from Tamiya epoxy putty. 
The engine is nicely detailed and the large circular radiator is a gem, though completely invisible when the engine deck goes on. I added some belts and plug wires. 
The vehicle I examined was in pretty bad shape. I was able to scrape down to the metal to ascertain how it was painted over the years. I encountered a red primer coat then a layer of green which seemed to be the original factory color scheme. I couldn’t tell if there was a camouflage pattern but that really didn’t matter for my purposes here. On top of the green layer was a yellowish beige layer. My guess is that the Iraqis took delivery of the vehicles in green and repainted them in desert camouflage at some point. No way to tell if it was before or after the battles in 1941. I put a base coat of dark green that I planned to let show through in a few places. 
Next was the Iraqi national insignia. I masked this in layers with Tamiya tape and hand painted the center. 
The next coat was Tamiya Buff mixed with Tamiy Desert Yellow. I post shaded with the same mix heavily diluted and lightened with Tamiya Flat White.
I added paint chips and scuff marks with a #32 artist’s pencil and weathered with a wash consisting of Gumbacher Black and Burnt Umber. This subdued the chips and scuffs and blended them into the paint. 
The scenic base represents a dry well somewhere in Basra Province which is in the south of Iraq on the Iranian border. There are many small wells dotting the desert countryside there. The wells are seasonal and are dry for much of the year (as represented in this scene). We checked them a lot when I was over there because they are used by the insurgents as dead drops and weapons caches. They are hard to spot and you almost have to be right on top of them to find them. They consist mostly of a pile of rocks lining the well shaft and are covered with a piece of plywood or sheet metal and a tarp. Nowadays they use those blue plastic tarps but I imagine back in the day they used canvas tarps. The empty British “flimsies” water cans are from Tiger Model Designs. The water bucket is from the spares box. The only real modification to the kit I did was to cut off and hollow out the radiator cap to represent the vehicle being out of water. 
The groundwork is a thin layer of Celluclay spread over a 97 cent Wal Mart picture frame. Rocks and sand from my tomato garden were added with white glue. I painted and shaded the groundwork with Tamiya Desert Yellow and Buff. The vegetation is Seafoam and theatrical facial hair. Once the vechile was in place I blended it and the groundwork together with pastels.
