COBI Sherman M4A1 Set 3044

COBI's Sherman M4A1 is a 1:35 model built from 615 blocks, 17 cm long, produced under licence from Relic Entertainment for Company of Heroes 3. The tracks work, the turret rotates, the barrel moves, the hatch opens and a service hatch reveals a brick-built engine. A figure of an American tanker with headphones and an M3 grease gun is included, plus accessories. All markings are printed.

The hull is one piece of cast steel

Look at the shape. The M4A1's hull is rounded, not angular, and the reason is that it is a single enormous casting rather than flat plates welded together.

Pouring a tank hull in one piece is genuinely difficult. It requires a foundry that can handle several tonnes of molten steel at once, a mould that will not crack, and controlled cooling over days so the casting does not develop internal stresses. Only a handful of foundries in the world could do it, and in 1941 almost all of them were American.

The payoff is that a casting has no weld seams, and a weld is the weakest line in any armoured structure. It also needs no skilled welders, which mattered when the workforce was being assembled from scratch.

The cost is flexibility. Changing a cast hull means a new mould; changing a welded one means cutting plates differently. That is why later Shermans went back to welded hulls — the design kept changing, and the foundries could not keep up.

If you ever need to identify a Sherman variant quickly: rounded hull means cast, and cast means A1.

In the COBI range

Part of the Company of Heroes 3 series with the US Air Support Center (3042), the German Fighting Position (3043) and the Churchill Mk. III (3046). In the game it faces the Panzer IV. Set 2570 is the welded M4A3 at 1:28 and 3118 the Easy Eight at 1:35.

Specifications

Pieces: 615 · Figures: 1 with accessories · Scale: 1:35 · Licensed by Company of Heroes 3
Model dimensions: 17 × 8 × 11.5 cm (6.7 × 3.1 × 4.5 in)