US Medium Tank M4A3E8 Sherman ''Easy Eight''

This is a very well molded kit with excellent fit. I really enjoyed building this tank. Everything was as it should be and the Commander with his infantry is a nice touch. This E8 tank was a very different tank from its predecessor in that the suspension made it ride Easy. This is well shown in this kit. The wheels and tracks went together well and work as designed. All in all, a very nice model. I would recommend this kit to anyone that enjoys mechanical wartime hardware and history. I am now hooked on tanks. Next tank model please !

Kit was a pleasure to assemble. Instructions were easy to follow and all parts fit as they should. There was very little residual plastic on the parts from the manufacturing process , so there was a minimal amount of cleaning excess plastic off before assembly. The detail is excellent but, I would like to have seen some interior detail. If it is built with the driver and or gunners hatches open there is nothing just a void.

This was my second Tamiya kit, and my first military build. It is hard to find anything to dislike about a Tamiya. Clean parts. Clear instructions. Nice tolerance between parts. Yes, you'll pay a little more for a Tamiya, but their kits are worth the extra money. One issue I encountered, which was in no way Tamiya's fault, was that the instructions called for XF-84 Dark Iron paint. My hobby store didn't keep anything above X-80. I looked XF-84 up on Tamiya's site, but didn't want to pay shipping charges for a couple dollops of paint. Once I realized it was used on the spare links for the tracks, and my tracks would be muddied up so you couldn't see the color, I just used Testors Gun Metal for the spare links. The only other issue was that there were two small pieces that were supposed to go on the inner front fenders. I didn't have enough clearance between the tracks and the body of the tank to position them correctly so I just left them off. It still looks nice without them. The third issue was all on me! I got ahead of myself and put mud on the body where the decals belonged, so I had to use some creative techniques and just use the part of the decal that would show from behind the mud. If you choose to dirty it up, remember: DECALS FIRST! All in all this was a very enjoyable kit.