Anyway, this is Academy's 1/35 scale M4A3E8 Sherman tank. (More formally designated M4A3 76mm W HVSS. M4A3 designates the hull and engine type, 76 mm is the main gun, W stands for wet storage ammunition and HVSS stands for Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension. You can see why many folks just use the "E8" designation instead! The "Easy Eight" nickname comes from the fact that the HVSS improved the ride characteristic and lowered the ground pressure compared to earlier Sherman variants. The wet storage ammo bins were filled with a water/ anti-freeze/ rust inhibitor mix call Ammudamp and were designed to reduce fires and explosions when the bin was hit. (The ammo wasn't stored in liquid but the bins had a series of steel tubes the the shells fit in. The void space around the tubes was sealed so that it could be filled with the liquid mixture.)
The M4A3 became the preferred version of the Sherman for US service by the end of WW2 and was retained in service well into the 1950s, serving again in the Korean War. It had an extremely advanced engine for its day: a 1000 (or 1100 depending on references) cubic inch, dual overhead cam, cast aluminum alloy Ford V8 called the GAA. With its dual Stromberg carburetors, it could easily crank out between 450 and 500 horsepower. This engine was in many ways, decades ahead of Ford's commercial V8s. The famous Ford "flat head" wouldn't be entirely replaced by a valve-in-head block until around 1953 and their commercial overhead cam V8s (still single rather than dual cams) didn't really hit until the 1960s. In fact, aside from racing engines like the famous Ford Cosworth, some of the design and construction features from the GAA didn't fully integrate in Ford's line of regular "street" V8s until the 1990s!
OK, enough of the history lesson. Time to go sniff some glue, I guess!
