Released in 1995, Tamiya's M4 is a mixture of the old and new.  Some sprues are marked 1987 and others 1995.  The kit comes in 6 dark green sprues of well-molded and flash free parts.

      The upper hull, transmission cover, turret and gun mantlet are textured to a good effect.  Talking about transmission cover, Tamiya includes both the three pieces and one-piece cover.  The kit also includes two types of road wheels and drive-sprockets.

 A great addition to the kit is the accessories.  These include spare tracks and wheels, helmets, ammo pouches, knapp sacks, jerry cans, oil drums and stowage boxes.  Also include are two half-figures for the driver and machine gun operator and a whole figure for the tank commander.  Instructions are typical Tamiya, well organized and concise.

       Decals are included for three Shermans: One in overall Olive Drab (France, Summer 1944, Unit Unknown); one in light sand and OD (C CO., 756th Bn., 5th Army, Italy, Feb. 1944); and the last one in red brown and OD camo (H CO., 66th Armd. Reg., 2nd Armd. Div., Normandy, Aug. 1944). 

Tamiya labels the kit as an early version M4, but I have read that it actually represents and mid-production machine. Since I am an OTB modeler, I dismissed all warnings and built the kit with no fuss.

    Assembly starts with the lower hull.  This piece had no motorization holes and that saved me one step that must be taken in many old Tamiya kits (at least their armor kits).  The fit of the 3-piece transmission cover to the lower hull is positive, but leaves small gaps at the side. Superglue to the attack!  The two runs of bolts that fit in front of the transmission cover also needed some coercing to glue down.  Turning to the rear panel, everything fits well. As a matter of fact, except for the transmission cover, assembling the rest of the kit was a breeze.

      Next step was to assemble the running gear.  Here I had to make a decision.  Would I have my model be nice and clean, or would I have the lower hull sides covered in mud.  I chose the later because it facilitates and speeds up assembly.  That also meant that I would have to put together a simple base for the model to show it traveling on muddy ground.  The bogie assembly looks very nice and glue very solidly to the lower hull.

      Once the bogies are glued to the lower hull attention is turned to the upper hull.  Here Tamiya have you glue a 4-piece engine cover, and the fit is very good.  The hatch openings for the tank driver and machine gun operator are not big enough to allow you to put the figures in after the kit is assembled.  Instead Tamiya have you glue them from inside the hull.  Since I wanted to skip unnecessary masking I decided to leave all figures off (and besides, my figure painting techniques need some work).

      The kit includes appliqué armor plates and side skirts.  While Shermans were more often seen without skirts I think they add character to the tank.  The vinyl tracks fit well but float on top of the bogies.  No real problem here since the vinyl Tamiya used can be glued to plastic with CA.  Just hold the track down on the bogies with a knife for a few seconds and shoot some accelerator.

 The turret assembles well also.  Here I left out all the interior bits (radio equipment and commanders foot plate) because I was going to display my model buttoned and ready for battle.  I also left out all the accessories and pioneer tools, so that I could paint them separately and add them when weathering the tank.  The turret was primed, snapped into the hull and the Sherman was ready for painting and weathering.