I am looking for a no nonsense Sherman. About 300- parts would be ideal and fairly accurate. Tamiya, Academy and Italeri come to mind. I'm trying to steer clear of the early Dragon plastic. What would you recommend?

Lots of good things being said about the new tooled Tamiya Easy 8

Matt, The new Tamiya Sherman is pretty nice, Scale Hobbyist has it for under 40 bucks. Worth every penny IMHO.

I have a soft spot for the Italeri M4A1, even if most modellers piss it. But if you are not a paranoid Sherman geek, it looks like a Sherman and can be found dirt cheap. What I dislike most of that kit are the tracks. I have nothing against rubberbands, but those particular ones are REALLY upsetting - detail is OK (for me) but they are so stiff that it is almost impossible to conform them properly to the wheels.

I'd have a look around for the Tamiya M4A3 frontline breakthrough kit, its good out of the box but can use a little elbow grease to make it really shine. Comes with a good selection of stowage and the tracks are actually pretty good, the worst part is the barrel, tamiyas little end cap always takes work to get smooth.
Eric.

I picked up the Tamiya M4A3E8 from Lucky Model, with the new crew figures, both shipped for about $38. The kit is beatuiful, and it is set up to be idiot proof (I know because I tried, and it is going together just fine). The Tasca M4 late was right around $40, and offers excellent detail as well, also picked up from Lucky Model. The new Academy M4A3 Calliope has very good detail, though the new parts don't fit as well and need some attention. It can also be found for under $40.00. I did a partial build up in the review here.

IS the new Tamiya Sherman based on the Asuka molds?

All the parts are either new or taken from the M51 kit.

Tamiya #25175 is the Asuka,but there is also a completely new tooled as Tim mentioned.