Tasca is a Japanese manufacturer who specialise in Sherman variants as well as a few minor German armour offerings. They aren’t a prolific manufacturer but what they make are generally condidered to be the best Sherman kits available, and deservedly so. This is their latest offering and it is no exception. The M4A3E8 U.S. Medium Tank ( better known now by all as the Sherman ) was the last variant to arrive in World War Two, seeing its first combat in Decemeber of 1944 during the relief of Bastonge. It bought with it the new HVSS ( horizontal volute spring suspension ) which allowed the use of the wider T66 tracks that bought the Sherman’s ground pressure down from 14psi to 11psi and this is what got it the E8 ( experimental 8 ) addition to it’s designation and the subsequent nickname “Easy Eight”. Oddly Tasca choose not to depict this prominent feature in the boxart.
This kit comes in a large tray and lid type box that contains twenty sprues moulded in dark green plastic, two sprues of clear parts, six dark grey sprues containing the individual link tracks, one clear vinyl sprue with polycaps, one photo-etch fret, a sheet of decals, instruction book and painting/marking guide. A few of the dark green sprues are quite small, containing parts such as the .50 cal gun and jerry cans, but even so this kit contains a lot of parts.
The mouldings are all clean and crisp, the detail is sharp and there is a lot of it, with a lot of the smaller parts being very delicate, so this is a kit where one needs to be wary of the carpet monster and fat fingers when building it. Clean-up is minimal with absolutely zero flash and very faint mould seams - though faint as they are they’re there as they are on all injection moulded kits, but at least in this case removing them is very easy. Knock out marks as far as I can tell are all be on areas that won’t be seen, and many parts have been cleverly moulded in such a way as to minimize any form of manufacturing excess. An example being the jerry-cans which are moulded upright in one piece for the bottom and another for the top so as to have no seam around them.
The instructions come as a fold-out booklet that uses clear line drawing style diagrams and in this kit, unlike in many other Tasca kits, the instructions are writen in both Japanese and English which does make life just that little bit easier ( though there is the occassional Japlish it isn’t anything absurd ). As this kit was only recently released there is a small correction sheet provided which simply advises not to push one part of the working suspention too hard into another.
The hull tub is made up of seperate pieces rather than the usual single moulded piece with the top part of the hull having beautiful weld seams, subtle texturing and casting numbers etc. The rear deflector can be positioned open or closed and is made up of some beautifully produced parts that give a very thin edge profile. A complete M3 machine gun is provided for the bow gun which has some excellent detail including a hollowed out muzzle. There are separate engine access panels though no engine if you wanted to position them open ( and also large injector pin marks on their undersides anyway ). The driver’s and co-driver’s hatches are also separate parts with clear parts used for the periscopes. The rest of the hull detail as far as I can tell is correct, and though the truely fussy shermaholic may want to replace things like the light guards with PE the ones provided in this kit are already very finely moulded.
The suspension is what sets this tank apart from the original M4A3(76)W and what you get is a very finely detailed working suspension that is made up from a lot of small parts to give the maximum ammount of detail. Unlike some of the other Tasca Shermans these suspension parts don’t come with casting numbers moulded in place, but as Tasca usually adds these when they should be there I can only assume that in this case they don’t need them ( I’m not expert enough on Shermans in general and the M4A3E8 in particular to say for certain though so I welcome correction from any true shermaholics ).
The tracks are provided as individual links with two pieces per track and they are designed to be workable once assembled so extreme care with the glue will be needed when assembling these. Each side uses a total of 77 links so that’s a lot of parts to clean up. Each piece does have two injector pin marks on them but the way they assemble means you don’t need to deal with these as they are covered as the tracks go together. There is however still a faint mould seam to remove from all 308 parts.
The Turret has a very nice cast texture as well as casting numbers and symbols. The gun tube can be built either as an early version without a muzzle brake or as a late type with the muzzle brake. You also get an unusual option with the commander’s cupola as it is provided as both an OD plastic part or a clear part with both sprues the same otherwise. This allows you to use the clear part and paint all but the vision blocks allowing them to remain clear. The .50cl MG is the one that Tasca also sell separately ( see its own review HERE ) and is a small kit all in itself, including hollowed out muzzle and hollow cooling jacket. It includes the correct .50 cal WWII type ammo tin and can be mounted on its pintel mount or stowed on the rear of the turret in a purpose built rack. The rest of the turret, like the hull, is a host of small, finely detailed parts from the internal supports for the side vison flaps to the internal hatch springs. One small omission is that although you’re shown how to make a hatch handle from 0.3mm wire no wire for this is included.
Also included are four U.S. jerrycans and instructions for adding boards to the front used for stowage. It would have been nice to have these boards included, likewise the wire for the cupola hatch handle but these are small omissions easily dealt with.
Decals are provided for four vehicles – 5th Armoured Division, Germany, April 1945 : 66th Tank Battalion, 2nd Armoured Division, Teuven, Belgium, February 1945 : 35th Tank Battalion, 4th Armoured Division, Bastogne, February 1945 : 8th Armoured Division, Kirchhellen, Germany, March 1945. Personally I would have liked one for the 14th Armoured Division but that’s just being picky as I like the way they built sandbag frames for the front and sides.
All up this is a superb kit and can be built straight from the box into a very nice model. The level of detail surpasses any rivals to date. So if you’re looking to build a good model of the Sherman M4A3E8 then I firmly believe this is currently the best kit available, certainly superior to the Academy example as well as the older DML kit which has just been rereleased with a makeover. It’s not the cheapest kit around, Tasca kits never are, but the end result is well worth the money spent.
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