RFM's Facebook account released this last night. It's nice to see their going into a different Sherman direction after their first release, the M4A3 76W HVSS.

Very nice. Will have to get this one

At first glance it looks really good. I wonder how it will measure up against the Tasca/ Asuka kit?? Will wait to see a build article before I buy it. Still, there can never be too much Allied stuff to pick from.

I see several advantages compared to the Tasca/ Askua kit:

1. Periscope guards included
2. Turret stowage bin included
3. Single track links (MY personal taste, I don´t like rubber bands)

I planned to get the Tasca kit but now I wait, because this is the cheaper route for my, because no AM guards, Stowagebox and tracks needed.

Thomas

yep it looks great but it's only box art at the moment, I will for the reviews and builds to come out before buying this kit.

thanks for posting the news about it.

There is a picture of the sprues. I know you can't see fine detail but it does show amount of parts etc.

The.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/manufacturer/m4a4/m4a4_variants.html

A little info about the A4.
D

If the RFM Easy Eight is anything to go by, this Firefly should be at least as good as the Tasca kit.

A few observations regarding this kit, If you go and look at the sprues in the Tasca VC's you will see more than a passing similarity in breakup and the actual parts, whilst you can say the parts should look the same as it is supposedly a scale replica, you cannot help but notice when they copy artists licence or how they assemble. This kit to me appears to be "Strongly" based on the Tasca kit and a a look at the sprues reminds me of the parts shuffle of the old Academy Tamiya clones and modifications where they moved stuff around and changed some bits. This kit appears to have added detail to the existing kit in rotational and positional periscopes (in clear) and adding PE guards. I will be curious to see which Turret shell is included (TASCA offered both types in different kits) not that that will be a determining factor in me purchasing it. Other things I note are the flat pack construction as done by RFM (Different to Tasca only in they omit the internal firewall and the upper engine bay walls. If you have RFM's and TASCA's M4A3E8 you can see a lot of similarities with TASCA's as well but unlike the TASCA kit the upper to lower hull fit etc is not the snap like precision of the Tasca kit but the detail is sublime and a stunning kit is the result. I see this kit being similar in that respect but hope the Decal options are a lot better thought out than the E8 they released with very little research and incomplete decals. The Springs as far as can be seen from the Poster appear to be coils which is really bizarre. I cnno see anything other than horizontal return roller bracks with risers on their sprue shots and it does not appear to have any radio box roof options like the tasca kit but could be wrong here as it is hard to make out the parts.

For the record the second release of the Tasca Vc had the Stowage box and some other bits and pieces: https://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/tasca/tasca35011.html Added so you can see for yourseleves. BTW I am not ragging them just pointing out that this kit is starting from a very good place
Al

I would tend to disagree regarding the passing resemblance. maybe from 30 feet away but not at arms length. One example (see review photos at PMMS) is Tascas sprue E (hull bottom,lower hull sides, rear plates, fender bits et.c.) There is one part which I would guess is the front wall of the engine compartment, this is totally missing in RFM's sprues.
The sides of the lower hull are different, RFM's are rectangles with some protrusions while Tascas have extensions which I assume are the upper parts of the engine room side walls.

Asuka/Tasca lower hull:


Injection moulding in metal (steel) moulds impose certain restrictions which apply to all manufacturers of injected plastic products. Opting for a flat pack hull is not revolutionary (done by Heller decades ago, presumable others as well).
Tasca may have set the standard for detailing. Dragon does hull tubs (as did Tamiya and Italeri). Tasca opted for the flat pack system so RFM had the choice of tubs or flat packs. Trying to achieve the same or reasonably similar level of detailing while limited by injection molding technology imposes a more or less similar parts breakdown. I think Tasca engineered their kits for maximum reuse (unlike Dragon where you get a whole sprue simply to provide a few pieces). Another guiding principle is to keep parts grouped in some assembly logic. (Italeri kits have sequential numbering, Dragon kits are labyrinths).
Moving parts around is one thing but when everything has been moved I would call it original work (if a model of a 1:1 scale original can ever be called original).

Using the same production technology while trying to make a model of the same subject to a similar detailing level leads to similarities. The only freedom of choice is the sprue layout and I would say that the sprues have more than a passing dissimilarity.
Plagiarism requires more than using the same alphabet
The differences might have been greater if either of the companies had used an incompetent sprue designer


I like the fact that RFM has gone the extra mile to produce link by link tracks. No need to swap out the Tasca-rubbers.

cheers / Robin